School Days: Early 19th Century in Alabama

Exploration: The teacher will engage the students by showing the photograph of the nineteenth century school and asking the students what they think is in the picture of and when the picture was taken. The teacher will clarify it is a picture of a school taken between 1830-1859.  The teacher will then state the day's social studies objective.

The teacher will refer to the Venn diagram graphic organizer and ask the students to think about what school is like now and what school may have been like in the early nineteenth century (1800s). The teacher will explain this assessment will tell what they think they already know about the day's objective, describing education of the early nineteenth century. 

While the students are thinking, the teacher will pair the students and pass out two sticky notes to the student partners. After the students have had time to think independently, they will share their ideas with their partners.  The teacher will have one partner from each partner group write one idea what school was like in the early nineteenth century and the other partner to write one idea what school is like today.  Students will post their completed sticky notes on either the Early Nineteenth Century side of the Venn diagram or the Today side of the Venn diagram. (The middle section of the Venn diagram will be completed together during the Lesson Development's closure). 

Lesson Development: The teacher will state the day's reading objectives and then tell the students they will be looking for text evidence of what schools were like in the early nineteenth century using two sources.  The teacher should pull up the 1818 newspaper article (previously downloaded onto the computer) to project on the screen/white board. The teacher will use this to model how to locate and highlight text evidence. Since the newspaper article has some unusual vocabulary, the teacher will read and discuss the 1818 newspaper article with the students and explain any unusual terms. The teacher will remind the students there is text evidence in the newspaper article and will model how to find and highlight text evidence and use it to answer what schools were like in the early nineteenth century.

After the teacher has modeled finding text evidence using the 1818 newspaper article, the teacher will pass out the Alabama Schools in the Nineteenth Century article, highlighters, and the Text Evidence Data Sheet to the peer partners. The teacher will demonstrate using the highlighter to highlight text evidence that supports an answer to what schools were like in the early nineteenth century and transferring a response to the Text Evidence Data Sheet based on what was highlighted.

Once the students understand what to do, the students will work with their partners to highlight on the article and list their answers on the Text Evidence handout. The teacher will explain this will serve as an assessment and tell what they already know about the day's objective, describing education of the early nineteenth century. The students will work with their partners while the teacher walks around and assists.  The teacher will discuss the students' findings after they have completed the Text Evidence Data Sheet.

Closure: The teacher and students will revisit the Exploration's Venn diagram to see what needs to be added or changed.  The teacher and students will complete the middle section of the Venn diagram as they discuss what similarities exist between education in the early nineteenth century and education today.  The teacher will briefly review education of the early nineteenth century townspeople and how finding text evidence is important when learning new information. 

Expansion: The teacher will explain to the students they are going to write a story pretending to be a fourth grade student in the early nineteenth century.  They need to include three facts about what education was like in that time period in their stories, which will meet the day's objective: describing education of the early nineteenth century. They should use their Text Evidence Data Sheets to help them write their stories and help them include details they learned.  

They can use the Storybird site, https://storybird.com/educators/, or pencil and paper to write their stories. Students can share their stories as time permits.  Early finishers can illustrate their stories. (Although a checklist is provided, the requirements for the story should be determined by the teacher taking into account the abilities of the individual students. A paragraph instead of a story can be substituted as an assessment.)