TITLE: Slavery and Events Leading to the Civil War

GRADE LEVEL/SUBJECT: Unit appropriate for 8th grade American history classes.
Evaluation: Scroll down to see rubric.

OVERVIEW: The Social Studies content standard says that students need to know major events and people of history. I chose the unit on Slavery and Events Leading to the Civil War because of the way I will be able to address the stated learning gap. It will also help my students to “fine tune” their technology skills; see relationships between events to understand cause and effect.

At the end of the unit the students will compile the information gathered through the reading of the textbook and the various Internet sites for the creation of a historical brochure dealing with the issue of slavery and the events leading to the civil war. In addition, a notebook will be developed with all daily assignments and activities labeled and in proper order.

PREREQUISITE LEARNING: Use of the Internet and previous learning about the issues confronting the United States in the 1850’s.

PURPOSE: To aid students to see and understand relationships between events and people in history, and realize the cause and effect of such events as they led to civil war.

Day 1 - I will introduce the unit by having students look at the unit timeline; illustrations within the text; skim the text; suggest factors that they think may have caused the war; make hypotheses or educated guesses about the content of the chapter; point out the evidence that led to these conclusions; read to verify or
disprove each hypothesis. Students will then begin in their task of finding out What It Was Like To Be A Slave? by reading at least five of the slave narratives that are a part of this web site and create a web or chart/diagram in which students analyze what it was like to be a slave using at least five specific examples.
Be sure to read the detailed narratives, not just the short summaries.

Day 2 - Students will continue in their task of finding out about the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act. and answer the following questions:
1. How did the Compromise of 1850 affect the lives of slaves?
2. Why did many northerners support runaway slaves?
3. How did the people of the north feel about the fugitive Slave Law?
4. Why did many northerners object to the Fugitive Slave Law?
5. Why did they feel so strongly about it?
6. How did the people in the south feel about the Fugitive Slave Law?
7. Why did the southerners feel the way they did about this law? Now do the following: As a northerner living in Massachusetts in 1852, who is opposed to the Fugitive Slave Law, compose a handbill you would pass out at a town meeting to persuade members of your community to protest the law. To understand the attempts to settle the slavery issue compare the maps on page 517 in your text. You may also use your textbook to assist with answering the questions.

Day 3 - Students will use this site to select two reviews of the 1852 novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin Site- one from the northern source and one from the southern source and then write a paragraph explaining each. Answer the following questions after reading in your text of the plot/story line of the novel.
1. What point did Stowe try to make in her book?
2. In what way was this novel something new in American Literature?
3. What was the reaction in the North to the novel?
4 How did it change northerners attitude toward slavery?
5. What was the reaction in the South to the novel?
6. Why did each react the way they did? Students will write a creative short story about a slave who has escaped to the North. The story should include descriptions of the slave’s plan of escape, the route by which he or she escaped, and what happened when he or she finally reached freedom. Stories will be read to the class. You may also use your textbook.

Day 4 - List the provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act after reading the article at this site and in the corresponding text in Chapter 15 you will write a letter as a free laborer moving to Kansas in 1854, to the editor of a local newspaper in Kansas to explain why you oppose the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.

Day 5 - Students will read the article found in the Internet site on Bleeding Kansas. After reading the article, create a newspaper cartoon to illustrate the effects of the events in Kansas over the question of slavery. You may also use your textbook.

Day 6 - Dred Scott-A Citizen
During the 1800’s many slaves escaped from the South to freedom in the North. Even once the slaves reached the North they were not safe because of the Fugitive Slave Laws which gave the southern slave owners the right to track down their escaped slaves in the north. Further, anyone caught assisting an escaped slave faced harsh penalties and long prison sentences. Dred Scott’s case was an unusual one. The determination of his citizenship and ultimate freedom rested with the United States Supreme Court. Read the case that is contained in this site and summarize the Supreme Court ruling and analyze the ruling’s impact. You may also use your textbook.

Day 8 - Election of 1860.
From your text and this article, answer the following questions:
1. How difficult was it for Lincoln to gain the nomination?
2. Who were the national candidates and what political parties did they represent?
3. How did the Republican party try to broaden its appeal in the election of 1860?
4. How did the four-way race for President help Abraham Lincoln get elected?
5. For which candidate would you have voted in 1860 and why?

Day 9 - Secession Begins .
Read the article and answer the following questions:
1. What event prompted the Deep South to secede from the Union?
2. What was the southerner’s legal argument for their secession?
3. What was another reason for the South’s secession?
4. Explain what is meant by states’ rights and southern nationalism and how they were reasons for the secession of southern states. You may also use your textbook.

Day 10 - This day will be used for student presentations and final preparations for brochures/notebooks.

A listing of other sites for further study will be given to students who require remediation or enrichment.

TYING IT ALL TOGETHER: The individual activities built in to this unit will allow student success in various forms. Students will be able to use their creativeness in written and artistic venues. They will be able to practice their oral skills, thinking skills, and organizational skills. The end result of this unit of study will be evaluated by use of a rubric that identifies the levels of success and aligns with a corresponding score.

TASK	POOR	IMPROVED	SUCCESSFUL	EXCELLENT
Title Page, design, illustrations	None done or little effort	Has title and some illustations	Has correct title, illustrations and shows creativity	Has correctly written title and is neatly done to perfection.
Panel design, Information captions	None or only list of descriptions, inaccurate data or no data, no drawings	List events and some illustrations	Shows events with a caption of each cause. All data accurate. Drawings in color.	Depicts events in unit and uses causes, no missing data, describes effects, describes each one with factual explanation or comments as to cause/effect relationships. Illustrations in color; neatly done
Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation, Choice of Words	Poor use of grammar, spelling not correct	Fair use of grammar, mislabeled information or missing data, mistakes in punctuation	Good use of grammar, some misspellings and few punctuation mistakes	No mistakes, good choice of words; well worded
Notebook of Activities and Questions	None	Some completed	Most completed	Has all required elements
Following Guidelines and Procedures	Student not on task and disruptive	Student is occasionally not on task with some disruption	Student is usually doing assigned work with little disruption.	Student is always on task, works quietly, and follows all guidelines and procedures