Essential Question: After analyzing Thomas Jefferson's letter and the textbook account, what's your understanding of how Americans reacted to Shays' Rebellion?

(Re)sources: Thomas Jefferson Letter to James Madison, January 1787. Textbook account of Shays' Rebellion.

Assessments: Analyzing primary sources to respond to a short-answer question. Jefferson's letter along with the textbook account helps historians try to understand how Americans reacted to Shays' Rebellion. What's your understanding of how Americans reacted to Shays' Rebellion? Explain your answer.

Essential Question: How can a candidate win the popular vote, but not become president?

Resources: Civics Made Easy video (PBS Link)

Assessments: Short Answer question

Example:

1. How did the history of slavery influence the design of the Electoral College? What does this tell us about the historical context of voting rights in the United States?

Essential Question: Did Cleopatra VII die by snakebite?

(Re)Sources: Several articles written by scholars of the past and present.

Assessment: A document graphic organizer to determine whether or not Cleopatra died of a snakebite. And then a short persuasive essay taking a stand.

Essential Question: Why were colonists upset about the Stamp Act?

(Re)sources: B.W.'s Public Letter, From a London Newspaper, A Stamp Act Collector’s Letter.

Assessments: Students will respond to a set of reading response guided questions that go with the sources listed above.

Essential Question: Why were the federalists opposed to the Louisiana Purchase?

Resources: Letters from Alexander Hamilton, and Federalists.

Assessment: Students will share their reasoning for why federalists oppose the Louisiana Purchase, giving evidence to support their claims.

Essential question: What causes the formation of organized labour?

Resources: Original images and document from the time.

Assessment: Students share their understandings of how California farmworkers achieved better pay and working conditions by reading and analyzing three documents, them participate in a class discussion.

The sources used: Document A: ‘City upon a Hill’ (Source: John Winthrop (1588–1649), lawyer and leader of the 1630 migration of English Puritans to Massachusetts Bay Colony, delivered this famous sermon aboard the Arbella to settlers traveling to New England.), Document B: ‘The Divine Right to Occupy the Land’ (Source: Puritan leader John Cotton gave the following sermon to members of his congregation who were immigrating to America in 1630. Cotton became a respected and influential clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.)

Assessments of students learing: students source, corroborate, and contextualize

Sources used:

• Melancton Smith, Speech, June 21, 1788. http://teachers.sduhsd.k12.ca.us/tpsocialsciences/american_govt/antipapers/msmith.htm 

• Alexander Hamilton, Speech, June 21, 1788. http://presspubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s38.html

Assessment of student learning:  Via Discussion, primarily asking questions like: based on these arguments, what type of people would you guess tended to be Federalists? Anti-Federalists?  Or If you could have chosen, what side would you have supported? And Do you see versions of these issues being debated today?

(Re)sources: Decree Against Profiteers. Accounts about the Committee of Public Safety.

Assessment: Completing guided questions on primary sources.