Joel Swagman
Miller
History 359
December 15, 2000
Unit Plan: A note or two of Introduction
This unit is based on a unit I did at Tri-Unity Christian High School for the eleventh grade American History class. There were two sections of this class. Because of the way the school scheduling worked, on class was larger and tended to be the more academically inclined students, the other class was the opposite (although there were exceptions). I taught the same material to both classes. The classes meet four days a week because of block scheduling. They meet for roughly fifty minutes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and for eighty minutes on Thursday.
The textbook I was using was United States History for Christian Schools: Second Edition. It was published by Bob Jones University Press in Greenville South Carolina in the year 1991[1]. I hate this textbook. It takes a very conservative view of history, and I do not think it even tries to be objective. Nevertheless, this is what I was stuck with, so I tried to make the best of it. I understand when I am an actual teacher I may well be stuck with a textbook I dislike.
The textbook is divided into units, and then subdivided into chapters. I took a couple of chapters from Unit III, and taught them as one unit. They were Chapter 9: The Jeffersonian Era (1801-1825) and Chapter 10: (1820-1840). There were a couple of reasons why I lumped these two chapters together. The primary reason was my cooperating teacher had just gotten done giving the students a big test, and I was worried I would have open revolt on my hands if I tried to give them another test before they had time to forget about the last one. There were other reasons as well though. Both chapters deal with the expansion of democratic ideals in the United States, and both deal with a new republic struggling to find its way. Also these chapters are part of a transition period between the constitutional convention and the civil war.
In teaching this unit, there were several objectives I wanted to get across.
1). The expansion of the democratic process, which includes Universal White Male suffrage, the death of King Caucus, and the rebirth of the two party system.
2). The continuing Westward expansion and the Indian problem.
3). The growing dispute between North and South evidenced in the Missouri Compromise, the Nullification crisis, and various tariff disputes.
Also, due to a lack of foresight on my part, I neglected to save any of the work my students did. I just graded them and handed them back. My apologies about this matter, but I did save the original assignments themselves on disk, and they are reprinted within.
Day 1: Students take test on previous chapter given by cooperating teacher. I simply observe this part, but as the students hand in their test, they receive a work sheet from me, which they can work on for the rest of the hour, and then take home.
My cooperating teacher is the only Social Studies teacher in the whole school. Consequently, by the time the students reach eleventh grade, they know him well, and they know what he expects. The students long ago figured out that they never have to read the textbook. The cooperating teacher assigns textbook questions at the end of the section for the students to do, but (as Jim Vos pointed out for us when he spoke to our class), one can easily do these questions without reading the material. All important material for a test is covered in a the following day’s lecture.
On one hand, since I despise the textbook so much, I might be happy that the students are not reading it, and move to supplementary material instead. However, I am here again constrained, because I am obliged to follow the school’s curriculum. When teaching the ninth grade class, I asked about going more in depth into the material, and my cooperating teacher gently suggested that I stay with the text book. He advised me that the students would probably have enough to keep track of with just the information in the textbook, without adding all sorts of other material.
I did notice very early on though that the lectures went a lot easier when the students had background in the material. They were able to answer my questions, and I was able to get more in depth into the material. Therefore, since I was stuck with the textbook curriculum, even though it is not ideal, I wanted to find a way to get the students to read the textbook. Therefore, I devised these worksheets.
The students hated doing them, and they were a pain to grade, but the worksheets did work out pretty well. By the end of the unit, both the students and I were sick of these worksheets, and if I was teaching a semester long class I would have been looking for an alternative way to get the students to read the text. (Maybe threatening a pop quiz would work). However, for one unit they worked pretty well.
Because these worksheets were significantly more work then the students were used to doing, I gave the students a couple of olive branches. I always gave them at least ten minutes to work on these sheets in class (sometimes more). I also made the worksheets questions go in order, and I even wrote down which heading each question would be under. The students still did not sit down and read the book, but at least they were getting more in depth into the textbook. I also designed questions for them that correlated with the events I wanted the students to know about.
The Jeffersonian Era (1801-1825)
1. Who were the Jeffersonian Republicans?
The Revolution of 1800
2. Jefferson’s election was a shift from what era?
Nature of Jeffersonian Republicanism
3. The Federalists defended the:
The Republicans were concerned with the interests of:
4. How did the Federalists and the Republicans disagree concerning the power of the central government?
Making changes
5. What was the Twelfth Amendment?
6. What is one other change that the Republicans made?
Thomas Jefferson’s Religious Views
7. Why was Jefferson regarded as an atheist and enemy of religion?
John Marshal and the Supreme Court
8. Who was John Marshall?
9. Was he a Federalist or a Republican?
10. What did he envision?
12. What is judicial review? What Supreme Court decision established judicial review?
13. List three important court cases that the Marshall Court ruled on and the important long-range principle established by each one.
Subject: U.S. History
Grade Level: 11
Teacher: Swagman
Teacher Activity Student Activity
Go over assignment provide answers, correct assignment
Ask students what they remember Provide answers to the teacher
About Thomas Jefferson from previous
Units
Lecture take notes
Lecture:
Assignment: Worksheet (give students remainder of class period to work on).
Materials: Video: Jefferson in Paris, Television and VCR
1. What were Jefferson’s two greatest triumphs in foreign affairs?
To the Shores of Tripoli
2. Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon became the first soldier to do what?
3. What did this event later inspire?
The Louisiana Purchase
“A Noble Bargain”
4. What bothered Jefferson about the offer?
5. Why did Napoleon sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States?
Sacajawea
6. What two famous explorers did Sacajawea accompany?
Exploring the New Lands
7. Who were the three great explorers of the American West during Jefferson’s Administration?
Subject: U.S. History
Grade Level: 11
Teacher: Swagman
Teacher Activity Student Activity
Go Over assignment Provide answers, correct assignment
Lecture Listen, take notes
Lecture
Assignment: Work sheets (lots of material to cover. Students complain. Promise them time in class tomorrow to work).
1. Who did Aaron Burr kill in a duel?
Indians and Northwest Territory
2. What was the problem with the Treaty of Paris?
Fallen Timbers and the Opening of Ohio
3. How did Whites and Indians view the land differently?
4. What battle opened the Ohio Territory to white settlement?
Harrison vs. Tecumseh
5. Who were the most important veterans, as far as the Northwest Territory was concerned, of Fallen Timbers?
William Henry Harrison
6. What was Jefferson’s plan, that Harrison approved of?
7. What was wrong with this plan?
Tecumseh
8. Tecumseh realized that, individually the Indian tribes could never stand against the United States. So, what did he propose?
9. How did Harrison’s plea to the Indians to test the Prophet backfire?
Tippecanoe
10. What did Tecumseh announce?
11. What happened in the battle of Tippecanoe
1. Who was Thomas Jefferson’s successor?
Background to the War
Worsening Relations
2. What was impressement?
3. What was the Chesapeake affair?
4. By what three pieces of legislation did the United States hope to use economic power to avoid war with Great Britain?
War Hawks
5. Who led the War Hawks?
6. Give at least two reasons the War Hawks offered for going to war against Britian?
Declaration, Division and Disarray
7. What five reasons did President Madison give for going to war against Britain?
8. Why wasn’t the army ready?
9. Why wasn’t the navy ready?
Course of the War
Disasters in Canada
10. Why was it difficult to conquer Canada?
The War at Sea
11. Who achieved early victories?
12. Who outnumbered who and by how much?
Recovery of the Northwest
13. What triumphant message did Perry send to Harrison?
14. Who was killed in the Battle of Thames? What died with him?
The British Drive for Victory
15. What was Britain’s threefold plan for winning the War of 1812? How did each stage fare in the actual fighting?
16. What did the British set fire to?
“Don’t give up the Ship”
17. Who won a great battle on Lake Erie?
The War in the South
18. Who was known as “Old Hickory?”
19. What treaty ended the war?
Results of the War
20. What was open to settlement?
21. What unintentionally spurred the growth of American Industry and Manufacturing?
23. What was the United States secure enough to do?
“By the Dawn’s Early Light”
24. The War of 1812 inspired what popular song?
Subject: U.S. History
Grade Level: 11
Teacher: Swagman
Teacher Activity Student Activity
Remind students they were promised eagerly assert their promised time
Class time for assignment
Give new assignment Students form groups and work on
New assignment or on worksheet
VIII. Materials: None
Subject: U.S. History
Grade Level: 11
Teacher: Swagman
Teacher Activity Student Activity
Go over worksheets Correct and provide answers
Invite students to share response paper students voluntarily share
Initiate class discussion/debate on War students share comments
Lecture Take notes
Lecture:
-Discuss with students the statement, “No one won the War of 1812, but the Indians Lost”.
VIII. Materials needed: none
1. Why was Monroe’s time in office called “the Era of Good Feelings”?
Demise of the Federalists
2. What did the Federalist lead a loud chorus of protest against?
3. The Hartford Convention opposed what and hinted what?
Mending Fences with Britain
4. What did the Rush-Bagot Treaty call for?
5. What does this treaty have the distinction of?
Conflict in Florida
6. Whose campaign in Florida motivated Spain to sell that territory to the United States?
7. What treaty settled a border dispute between the United States and Great Britain? What treaty enabled the U.S. to purchase Florida from Spain?
The Monroe Doctrine
8. What two leaders led Revolutions in Latin America?
9. What are the two basic principles of the Monroe Doctrine?
Subject: U.S. History
Grade Level: 11
Teacher: Swagman
II. Main Focus: Era of Good Feelings
III. Objectives: Help students understand how this era resulted from War of 1812. Students gain understanding of Monroe doctrine, and how it still affects United States policy
Teacher Activity Student activity
Go over worksheet Provide answers
Lecture Take notes
Lecture:
The Age of Jackson (1820-1840)
1. The age of Jacksonian democracy was the age of what kind of man?
Crosscurrents
2. The age was shaped by forces much larger then any one man. There was widespread currents of ___________________, ____________________ and _____________________.
Nationalism
3. Who were the new breed of leaders?
4. What were the three components of Henry Clay’s American system?
Protective Tariff
5. What was America’s first protectionist legislation?
6. Why didn’t the South like the protective Tariff?
Second National Bank
7. Why is it interesting that in 1816 the Republicans approved a 20 year charter on a second bank of the United States?
8. Such a bank would assist economic growth by providing _______________________
and a depository for ______________________________.
Internal Improvements
9. Why was Madison reluctant to approve internal improvements?
10. What important step was approved?
Sectionalism
11. What would have a large impact on the politics of the upcoming Jacksonian era?
Panic of 1819
12. What two factors contributed to the Panic of 1819?
13. What had been rife with fraud and scandal?
Missouri Compromise
14. When Missouri applied for statehood, why did this cause such a contraversy?
15. What were three provisions of the Missouri Compromise?
Democratization
16. Political expansionism was evident in what 3 major changes?
Death of “King Caucus”
17. “King Caucus” came under fire as ______________________
18. For what two reasons was the election of 1824 a political turning point?
A “Corrupt Bargain”
19. What two men did supporters of Andrew Jackson accuse of making a “corrupt bargain” in the presidential election of 1824?
20. Adam’s party became known as:
Jackson’s party became known as:
Rematch and Revenge
21. Who helped organize the democratic effort?
22. Who was Jackson’s running mate?
Subject: U.S. History
Grade Level: 11
Teacher: Swagman
Teacher activity Student Activity
Go over worksheet correct and provide answers
Call on students to read text Read assigned text
Around this time we had parent-teacher conferences. Parents repeatedly expressed the concern that their child was not doing as well as he or she could because he or she was not reading the textbook. A couple parents even suggested reading the textbook allowed in class to get the students more into it. I was willing to give this a try for the sake of making the parents happy if nothing else, even though it certainly does seem like a dry lesson. The students reacted favorably enough to it, although I think they would soon get sick of it if this was done frequently. I also assigned them a worksheet to do, and my hope was that they would realize the worksheet was easier to do after having read the text, and would read the text more often in the future. Alas, there was no change, and they continued just skimming the text book for answers.
Assignment: Worksheet
The Jackson Years
Old Hickory
Why did they call him a hangman?
The People’s President
Spoils of Victory
Kitchen Cabinet
The Preacher and the President
Nullification Crisis
Busting the Bank
Genuine as a $3 Bill
The Indian “Problem”
Indian Removal
Indian Resistance
“The Trail where They Cried”
Subject: U.S. History
Grade Level: 11
Teacher: Swagman
II. Main Focus: Native American portrayal in movies
III. Objectives: Get students to realize that how Native Americans are portrayed in popular culture has undergone dramatic changes in the last 50 years. Expand this concept to get students to realize that our perceptions of history is always changing.
IV. Prerequisite skills: None
V. Lesson mode: videos
Teacher Activity Student Activity
Show videos write down similarities
Facilitate discussion Discuss
I found six Westerns at the local video store, and showed a five-minute clip of each that dealt with White/Native American Conflict. All six Westerns were made before 1965, and I showed them in order of the year they were released. The students wrote down what similarities they could find in them, and then we had a class discussion. I pointed out the difference between these movies and more recent movies about Native Americans that they had hopefully seen, and tried to get them to realize the changing nature of history. This was also designed to set the foundation for the next day.
VIII. Materials: Television, videos and VCR.
Subject: US History
Grade Level: 11
Teacher: Swagman
Teacher Activity Student Activity
Go over worksheet Provide answers and correct
Lecture Listen, take notes
Lecture:
-this section of the lecture was more or less plagiarized from the class discussion we had on this same topic
VIII. Materials needed: none
Party Politics
Jackson and Anti-Jackson
Van’s Victory
Hard Times
Log Cabin Campaign
“OK”
10. What Campaign is this little box thingy talking about? (The year will be fine).
Subject: U.S. History
Grade Level: 11
Teacher: Swagman
The first section of this class I listed everything they should review for the test. By the end of the period, their faces were so bored I felt the need to apologize to them. To liven things up a bit, I tried a game with the second class. (My cooperating teacher always plays a Jeopardy style game with them, so they are well familiar with this format). Unfortunately, I was not able to get through all of the material in the second class because of the distractions involved with the game, and having to frequently stop to quiet the students. I stopped the game near the end, and gave the rest of the information in a lecture form, but by this point many of them had stopped listening and were eagerly waiting for the bell to ring. In retrospect this was something that obviously could have been better. Perhaps handing out a review sheet instead of giving the information orally, or taking two days to review instead of one.
VIII. Materials needed: none
Subject: U.S. History
Grade Level: 11
Teacher: Swagman
The test, interestingly enough, went very different from one class to the next. In the first class, most of them did very well, with several A+s. In the second class, over half of them failed it. I blamed the differing methods I used for review. The first method, although boring, seemed to have produced the desired result. My cooperating teacher, however, was more inclined to think that it was just the difference in academic ability between the two classes, and indicated that this kind of thing happens frequently.
We decided to do a retest, because of the high number of students in the second class who failed. The retest was offered on a Tuesday, where the students have an hour lunch. Unfortunately, a snow day ruined my plans. Since this was Thanksgiving week, that meant the retest had to be postponed a week. This was a long time to expect the students to retain the information (almost two weeks since the original test), so to help them out I allowed them to see the retest before they studied for it, so they would know exactly what to study. All the students who took the retest were able to significantly improve their grade.
Multiple Choice
1. What was the Revolution of 1800?
2. What was the Chesapeake Affair
3. Who did Aaron Burr kill in a duel?
4. Who’s Vice President was Aaron Burr?
5. Who was John Marshall?
6. Who was the first President of the United States to die in office?
Short Answer
7. The Star Spangled Banner was inspired by what war?
8. What was at least one difference between the Federalists and Republicans?
9. What is a Protective Tariff?
10. Why didn’t the South like Protective Tariffs?
11. What was at least one reason the War Hawks had for wanting to go to war with the British?
13. What was at least one result of the war of 1812?
14. What were the two parts of the Monroe Doctrine?
15. Name at least one explorer who explored the Louisiana Territory?
16. What is at least one cause of the Era of Good Feelings?
17. What was King Caucus?
18. What was at least one reason that the United States launched a campaign into Spanish Florida?
19. What was the spoils system?
20. When Kentucky and Virginia denounced a Tariff as unconstitutional, and tried to nullify an act of congress, what was this known as?
21. Name two men who were either at the Battle of Tippecanoe or were associated with the events leading up to the battle?
22. Who won the Battle of Tippecanoe?
23. Which Country sold us the Louisiana Purchase?
24. What is at least one reason why we got such a good deal on the Louisiana Purchase?
25. Which President sent warships to Tripoli?
26. Who is reported to have said, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it”?
Essays: (Pick 2)
Extra Credit (One Point Each)
5. About every 20 years a President has died in office. (Reagan was the exception). Some people call this “the curse of Tecumseh”. Where does this name come from?
RETEST
1.What was the Revolution of 1800?
2.When a British ship fired on the U.S.S. Chesapeake, what was this known as?
3.Who did Aaron Burr kill in a duel?
4. Who’s Vice President was Aaron Burr?
5. Who was John Marshall?
6. Who was the first President of the United States to die in office?
7. The War of 1812 inspired what popular song?
8. What political party protected the interests of the farmers?
9. When an unusually high tariff is used just to keep foreign goods from being imported, what is this known as?
10. Name the following: United States will not interfere with Europe, and Europe will not interfere with the United States
11. Who were Lewis and Clark?
12. The Federalist Party died out. This was one of the causes of what?
13. What was the old system of nominating a presidential candidate known as?
14. What was at least one reason that the United States launched a campaign into Spanish Florida?
15. When a President appointed his supporters to important government positions, what was this known as?
16. What was the nullification crisis? (This doesn’t have to be too detailed).
17. William Henry Harrison faced Tecumseh’s Indian federation at what battle?
17.5 Who won this battle?
18. Which Country was Napolean from?
19. What is at least one reason why we got such a good deal on the Louisiana Purchase?
20. What were Thomas Jefferson’s two greatest triumphs in the area of foreign affairs?
21. What did Andrew Jackson say about John Marshall?
21.5 What court case was Jackson referring to?
22. What was at least one provision of the Missouri Compromise?
23. In the election of 1824, John Quincy Adams ran against Andrew Jackson. The election ended up being decided by the House of Representatives. Why was this?
Essays:
1. What were at least three causes of the war of 1812?
2. What were at least three results of the war of 1812?
Evaluation
On the whole I thought things went fairly well, but needless to say I learned a lot, and there are several things I would have done differently.
I frequently lost sight of my overall objectives when teaching this unit, finding myself bogged down in the details instead. Certainly there is a balance that every history teacher must find, and I was too far over on the detail side this time. Often my unit objectives were not represented in the lesson.
Also, the worksheets could have helped to bring out these themes more. They could have focused on these overall questions, and that would have even been a way to get the students to read the text, instead of answer hunting.
Also, in rewriting this unit plan I can not help but notice how heavily lecture based it is. In fact between lectures and videos, there was really only one day when the students were actively learning the whole time. Certainly lecture is the easiest way to transmit the material, and it is hard to come up with a creative way to get the material across day after day. However, I could have made more of an effort.
In my defense, though, I never realized how heavily lecture oriented I was being until I did this assignment. I think that this is in part because the other two classes I taught were not lecture oriented at all, and so that made me feel like I was using a diverse teaching style on the whole. The ninth grade class often would not sit still for a lecture, so I was forced to be more creative, and the government class offered so much opportunity for activity that I seldom lectured their either. (I did the American History class for this assignment because often in the other two classes I would teach individual lessons rather then units).
I believe this unit adequately corresponds with the Social Studies Content Strand of the Michigan Department of Education. It is heavily fact based, and deals with important historical events. It also deals with Native American history, and the functioning of government. (For example, the 1824 election, which proved very timely given another hotly contested election).
[1] Keesee, Timothy and Mark Sidwell. United States History for Christian Schools. Greenville: Bob Jones University Press: 1991.