Week of April 23rd

8th Grade US History: The American Experiment Mr. Wells, rm. 101 Agenda: Week of April 23rd This agenda has been posted on our class blog: http://exploringhistoryjhms.blogspot.com Welcome Back! We are moving into our study of the Civil War this week and should be starting our Civil War literature circles next week. Monday: 1. Causes of the Civil War: Students will view information in a power point, receive provided notes and related images regarding the events and compromises leading to the Civil War. 2. Students will have small group discussions surrounding the concepts of compromise and the mobilization of people in protest. We will be linking these to tomorrow’s reading, which will reinforce the information from the first part of today’s class. Tuesday: 1. Students will be in reading groups today. They will be reading excerpts from A Nation Torn, by Delia Ray about issues leading up to the Civil War. Using guiding questions from yesterday’s discussions, students will be looking for related textual evidence, while making commentary about that specific evidence. Wednesday: Civil War Artifacts! Using a National Archives analysis guide, students will be closely examining and interpreting actual Civil War artifacts (belonging to a distant Uncle of Mr. Wells). Students will move through artifact stations with the goal of making inferences and raising our general level of ability in working with primary historical resources. HW Due tomorrow: Write a 2-3-sentence response/reflection of today’s activity. Mr. Wells will give each student a prompt at the end of class. Thursday: 1. We may need some time to finish up the share-out phase of our artifact activity. 2. We will be reading the second half of A Nation Torn, by Delia Ray, sharing out textual passages and commentaries. We’ll relate what we learned from this text to the information presented in class on Monday. Friday: 1. Review for Quiz on Monday: Events leading to the Civil War. 2. Book Talk – Students will get a preview of novels to choose from in our upcoming Civil War literature circles. Most of these are historical fiction in genre. There is one biography to choose from.