Perspectives of the West: Reasons for Migration

Michelle Wyatt

Introduction

“I too sing America. I am the darker brother…Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table when company comes…They’ll see how beautiful I am and be ashamed.” 1 This poem by Langston Hughes speaks volumes about the contributions countless cultural groups made to the history and the expansion of the American West. The history of the American West is a story of the people. Groups of people migrated from one area to another for particular reasons, and the reasons vary from one people group to another. Some migrated for exploration and adventure, some for wealth, others migrated by forceful means, while yet another group migrated for the promise of freedom. For whatever the reason, these stories create what we now know and understand as Western American history.

As people pushed west, they also had great influence in American culture. This culture is imbedded into our speech, thoughts, and ideas. Many tales are told about the west, such as the stories about Paul Bunyan and Jonny Appleseed. These tall tales speak of the belief that people had about acquiring land and about manifest destiny, a sincere belief that the world could and would be redeemed via this contagious mission to “go west.”

Of these groups, are included the European settlers which I grew up understanding to be the most important group of people, simply because their contributions were legitimately recognized by historians and scholars alike. Their stories were therefore accepted and printed into the history books. I came to know this history as one filled with facts and dates. The geography was confusing because like many of the students in my classroom, I never visited any of the places that I read about. Most importantly, I was forced to learn about the history of people who at the time had very little connection to me. It is for this reason, that in this unit, I will focus on the reasons for migration of various people.

Students need to be connected the content. The question for many teachers has been who is responsible for making the connections for learning, is it the job of the teacher, or is it the job of the student? For many years, some educators have felt that it is solely the responsibility of the student to simply learn the content that is taught. By the way, the method of teaching was usually a lecture with notes. Students did not have the opportunity to interact with their peers, or even ask questions about what they were learning. Today, in the age of high stakes testing, core content standards, teachers are learning that it is the responsibility of the educator to create an environment where students can create their own connections to the material that is being presented in various modalities.

The intention of this unit is to help students to gain an understanding of who the people in the west were, why they migrated, and why was what many saw as an opportunity, not necessarily the enjoyable adventure that they had hoped to experience. Incorporated in this unit are ways to differentiate, opportunity for students to ask questions, tools for engagement, and strategies that have been tested by other educators.

There are three groups on which the students will focus on in this unit. The first group is the Navajo nation. In The History of Cowboys and Indians, the article explains that the first white man to visit Arizona was in 1820, and the Gold Rush in 1849 brought many white settlers to the Navajo land, pushing the Navajo from their original land. In 1850, Kit Carson established a supply camp in Fort Defiance, Arizona with the intention of removing the Navajos from their home land. He rounded them up at Canyon de Chelly and sent them to Fort Sumner in eastern New Mexico. It was at this time, that the federal government began what we know today as Indian reservations, land set aside by the federal government for Native Americans. 2 During and after the move, Navajos face many tragedies, such as disease and changes in their economic condition, but they emerge today as a thriving nation.

The next of the migrant groups we will research are the people who flocked to California for the Gold Rush. One group in particular is Chinese immigrants. The first Chinese immigrant arrived in the United States in 1820. Almost thirty years after the first immigrant arrived, the California Gold Rush around 1849 drew a significant amount of Chinese to the United States. The Chinese were drawn together by common language. The 1852 census reflected 3,396 Chinese natives residing in Nevada County. By 1880, the Chinese made up twenty two percent of California’s mining population. 3 Chinese men were used mainly for menial labor. 4 The Chinese contribution to the frontier west economy is undeniable. The Chinese provided inexpensive labor, a wide range of services, in addition, they contributed to the overall economy via the purchase of goods such as tools used for mining.

The final groups we will discuss are the Exodusters and the Homesteaders. After the Reconstruction era in 1877, a former slave named Benjamin Singleton urged blacks to form their own communities in the west. This was known as the “Great Exodus” 5 Exoduster was the name given to blacks who fled for Kansas after the end of the Reconstruction. Many blacks left the South to escape the likes of the Klu Klux Klan, as well as other forms of oppression such as Jim Crow laws. African Americans were facing economical obstacles which kept them from moving ahead. The sharecropping system, which was instituted after the abolishment of slavery, forced blacks to continue to work for whites for a share of the crops that they produced and to keep very few wages. As much as whites in the South hated dealing with Freed Blacks, they wanted to keep them in the South for cheap labor. 6

The Homestead Act of 1862 granted 160 acres of land to individuals who would be willing to live on and improve the land. 7 Many contribute this act as one of the milestones of western expansion. The act required that a person be either the head of household or a single person over the age of twenty one. Single women were eligible to claim homesteads, thus this was for many women opportunity to claim land of their own. After one filed the claim, he or she had six months to live on the property, build a home and raise crops. Homesteaders included former slaves, Americans from the South, and European immigrants. Homesteaders faced many hardships including: droughts, prairie fires, summer hail storms, and blizzards, just to name a few. The homesteading era drew to a close when Franklin Roosevelt instituted a nationwide conservation program in 1935. 8

Demographics

As a seventh grade English Language Arts teacher at Kirk Middle School, my classes are representative of the school population. Kirk Middle School houses students in the sixth through the eighth grades. The school has a total of about nine hundred students. George V. Kirk, formally known as Ogletown Middle, was built in 1957. The school has a diverse population. Thirty six percent of the population is African American, thirty four percent are white, eighteen percent are Hispanic, four percent are Multi-racial, and five percent are Asian. Our school is a focus school, meaning that for the past three years, we have not met AYP in the areas of ELL and Special Education, specifically in the area of reading. Therefore, our school has been deemed as an AVID school. The teachers have been trained to incorporate differentiated strategies to reach the needs of all students.

Rationale

One of the first articles that we read for the American West Seminar was: How do Students Understand the History of the American West?: an Argument for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, written by David Reichard. The article states, “While historians have focused on how the writing of western history has changed in recent years, there has been comparatively little attention to how the teaching of western history has changed as a result.” He gives as an example Enrique C. Ochoa who teaches a university class about the U.S.-Mexican borderlands. The article continues, “…Ochoa reflects on how the changing context in which he teaches-especially renewed debates over immigration policy and the increasing number of Latinos/as students attending university-has shaped the course he develops.” In the article, Reichard quotes Riley in suggesting an “interpretations-and-view point’s approach.” Ochoa concludes that “students enjoyed men and women explaining their own history…” Thus the lesson planned for the students will include primary sources (videos)

where students can listen to and view people telling their own accounts of what happened, in addition to the historical articles and facts that the students are likely to read about. After hearing, reading, viewing, and listening to the accounts of various western experience myself, I am convinced that the students should, and will have the opportunity to do the same. Therefore, videos and photographs will be incorporated throughout the lesson as much as possible. Students will have the opportunity to read primary sources of people giving their accounts of their own history from primary resources. 9

Objectives

When I first began, I had many misconceptions and lacked a general understanding of the American West, much like my students. I am also gaining a better understanding of the common core curriculum standards for both Reading and Social Studies. My personal goal was to align my lessons to the common core Reading standards. I mistakenly paid very little attention to the Social Studies standards. I now understand how the common core Reading as well as the history and Geography standards are connected. In addition, I began with the intention of including multiple genres, including non-print material.

According to the common core document, by the time that students reach the eighth grade, they should encounter literary texts forty five percent of the time and informational texts fifty five percent of the time. Therefore, the unit will reflect the new framework. The Reading standards are divided into four parts: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Needless to say, the objective of this unit is to incorporate all four of these critical skills. It is important for all teachers to understand that there is a shared responsibility to incorporate literacy into all subjects. That being said, it is also the responsibility of the English Language Arts teacher to provide informational texts that will address other content areas, including Social Studies and Science.

The students will demonstrate via writing and speaking, their understanding of the history of the west from 1820, until about 1880. In this unit, the students will identify some of the cultures who were represented on the western plains. Due to the interest of time, the people groups who we will closely examine are the Native Americans, the Homesteaders, the Exodusters, and Chinese immigrants. Students will compare and contrast the reasons why these groups traveled west, in hopes that they will identify common themes. Students will also identify why the west was not the promise land that many people hoped that it would be. These enduring understandings have been integrated throughout the unit.

The standards that will be addressed in this unit are as follows: students will cite several pieces of textual evidence to support their arguments. It is impossible to read some of the articles that the students are reading without forming an opinion. However, students must learn to support their particular opinions with evidence from the text, explaining how their arguments and the textual evidence are connected. Students will also determine the central ides of two or more texts in order to provide a summary of what they have read. Students will conduct a mini-research model. They will research inventions created during the industrial revolution and explain how these inventions aided cultural migration to the west. Students will engage in collaborative discussions with diverse partners. Students will participate in a debate. To prepare for this, students will fill out a graphic organizer with the points that they wish to address. Students will also participate in a Socratic Seminar, an AVID methodology that begins with original questions from the students. Before this process, students will prepare higher level questions, via question stems.

Strategies

The strategies to be utilized in this unit come from Learning Focused, AVID, and CRISS. Districts hire these companies to promote the use of differentiated strategies. However, one will find that the strategies used by each company are often similar in nature. I have attended training for each, and find the strategies to be useful across content areas.

We were required to use Learning Focused Learning Maps when planning out this unit. I find the use of leaning maps particularly useful. This concept gravitated from UBD, where teachers plan from the beginning with the end in mind. This is also known as backward mapping. We began with guiding questions and

enduring understandings that we wanted the students to know, understand and do. This is also known as the KUD. By the end of this unit, students will be able to understand why diverse groups traveled west, understand how cultural groups interacted with one another, as well as understand the common or unique them of the people who traveled westward. The students will understand that: in the eyes of many, the west has been seen as a place of opportunity; the west became home to various races, cultures, and beliefs, and that opposed to what many believed, the west was not the promise land that many thought it would be. The students will be able to do the following: determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text to provide a summary, cite evidence from the text to support an answer and explain why that quote is appropriate, draw inferences, compare and contrast, engage effectively in collaborative discussions, and read increasingly complex texts.

In learning focused, the beginning of a lesson, which could last for up to three days should begin with an acquisition lesson, which can include anticipation guides, word splashes, or key vocabulary for the students to preview. Each lesson also begins with an essential question, a warm up, learning activities which are appropriate for the age of the children as well as the level of the students for which one teaches. When the students are reading a text, the use of graphic organizers are highly recommended, especially for students who have a difficulty reading and processing the text. ("Understanding the Learning-Focused Strategy Model" 2012) At the end of every lesson, there should be some type of summary or exit ticket. Some of these same strategies can be found in the AVID framework, AVID stands for Advancement via Individual Determination. According to the website, “AVID is a college readiness system for elementary through higher education that is designed to increase school wide learning and performance. The AVID College Readiness System (ACRS) accelerates student learning, uses research based methods of effective instruction, provides meaningful and motivational professional learning, and acts as a catalyst for systemic reform and change.” The AVID program provides services for those students who have traditionally been underserved by colleges and universities. ("AVID: Decades of College Dreams”)

The main strategies that I plan to use from the AVID framework are the directed reading and thinking activities and the Socratic Seminar. AVID believes that students should spend as much time with pre-reading activities as they do with the actual reading of texts. The Directed Reading- Thinking Activity, also known as DR-TA probes student knowledge about the subject matter by asking the students focus questions that they will answer before, during and after the reading. This is much like a K/W/L graphic organizer, only the teacher front loads ideas and vocabulary prior to reading the text to illicit the student’s response.

While reading the text, students will take Cornell Notes. Cornell notes are a technique for acquiring information from a text. In 1886, Hermann Ebbinhaus determined that students forget ninety seven percent of what they learn after thirty day of exposure. He came up with a ten-twenty-four-seven method of study. In his method, students were directed to study for ten minutes a day for seven days. Then in 1949, Walter Pauk from Cornell University discovered that students who took copious notes and who reviewed them, revised them, asked questions about their notes and summarized their notes retained 90-100% of what they read. Students create Cornell Notes by formulating questions on the left hand side of the paper, and on the right hand side, students take notes about what they read. At the bottom of the paper, students summarize what they read. There are six steps to Cornell Note taking: 1. Recording 2. Reviewing 3. Questioning 4. Summarizing 5. Revising 6. Reciting. The processes of summarizing and questioning are extremely important to assist students in synthesizing information.

The Socratic Seminar incorporates the strategies of questioning and summarizing within the context of a collaborative environment. The purpose of a Socratic Seminar is to achieve a deeper understanding about the ideas and values in a text. There are three basic elements of a Socratic Seminar: text, classroom environment, and questions. The students will prepare several questions in advance using questions stems. The questions that the students develop should lead participants to the core ideas and values to the use of the text in their answers. Questions must also be open ended, reflection genuine curiosity, and should require no one right

answer. The questions move or guide the seminar. Finally, the teacher debriefs by asking questions that reflect on the process of the Seminar. There are various methods for the Socratic Seminar. We will be using the fishbowl approach, where there will be students on the inside of the circle who will actually conduct the seminar, and the students on the outside of the circle will watch with the option of exchanging one place in the circle at a time.

The CRISS framework, which stands for creating independence through student owned strategies, offers a process for planning lessons as outlined by Wiggin’s and McTighe’s Understanding by Design. The three techniques from the CRISS framework that will be implemented into the unit are: Picture Notes, Mind Streaming, and the Read and Say Something strategies. CRISS suggests that using images for the purpose of summarization can be highly effective. It involves deep processing of content and will help students uncover meaning as well as retain information. 10 Once students have been taught some content information, students will work together in groups to create a poster of picture notes with very few words, but the challenge of the group is to draw pictures to represent what they have learned collectively.

When introducing a new unit, CRISS suggests pairing students before beginning a process called Mind Streaming. Students will bring out their background knowledge about a topic. The same process can be used to review information that was previously taught. During the Mind Streaming process, a student talks for one minute about the topic. The other student listens and encourages the student who is talking, but he or she does not talk. The roles are then reversed during the next one minute time frame.

Lastly, the Read and Say Something method works effectively with difficult reading material. The CRISS manual suggests that the teacher allow the students to discuss ideas with a partner or in a small group while they are reading. During this process, students take turns reading out loud. After the first student reads, the student to the right of that student says something related to the information just read. Other people in the group may comment after the person to the right makes comments. Students continue to go around the circle until the article is completed. The students conclude the session by writing down questions that they want the whole class to answer. 11

Lesson one: Origin Stories of the Cherokee

The essential question for day one is: How do origin stories reveal the perspective of Cherokee? The students will begin by viewing a video titled the Cherokee Trail of Tears produced by Discover Education.

Next, the students will listen to the Cherokee creation story. The Cherokee creation story begins with all of the animals living in the sky. On the earth, there was only water. All of the animals wanted to explore the earth, to see what was beneath the water. They sent the water beetle. The beetle found one patch of mud, and the mud began to spread, becoming what we know now as earth. Next, the animals sent the buzzard; everywhere that the buzzard’s wings dropped became mountains. That is how the Cherokee explained the shape of their land. ("First People Legends") The students will watch a video about the Cherokee trail of tears. This video explains how the Cherokee originally lived in Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama and North Carolina for decades. The federal government forced them to move to a segment of land known as Indian Territory across the Mississippi River. Many Cherokee died while making the trip. Afterward, students will use a graphic organizer to plan their own origin story explaining phenomena in nature. The students will write their origin stories for homework. As an exit ticket, students will preview the vocabulary for the entire unit, and place the words into three categories, words that they know, words they have seen, and words that they are unfamiliar with. The students will need to explain why they placed the words that they selected into the categories that they selected.

Lesson two: Western migration and Native Americans

The essential question for lesson two of the unit plan is: How did United States expansion affect relations with Native Americans? The students will begin the class with a warm-up. The students will mind stream what they know about Native Americans with their partner. Next the student will read “The History of Cowboys and Indians,” while creating a timeline of events. The article, written and published by the Navajo nation (discovernavajo.com) explains how the California gold rush, and manifest destiny, the need for America to expand her boarders affected the Navajo and the Hopi tribes. This article is interesting because it is written from the perspective of the Native American Indian.

Using a graphic organizer, students will then write about western expansion from the perspectives of the Native American, Homesteader, African American, and the Chinese immigrants. Students will then answer the essential question for the day: How did United States expansion affect relations with Native Americans? The students will answer the question in CSQT format. CSQT stands for claim, set-up, quote, and tie-in. Students will answer the question, set up the quote, by explaining the title of the article and what paragraph one can find the quote that they will use. Then they will write the quote, using quotation marks, and explain how the quote ties into their claim. In conclusion, the students will complete their exit ticket. Students will write a higher level thinking question using the question stems that will be given on color coded popsicle sticks. When writing the questions, the students will be encouraged to use at least two of the vocabulary words for the day: manifest destiny, livestock, reservation, and royalty payments.

Lesson three: The California Gold Rush

The essential question for lesson three is: How did the California gold rush affect western migration? On day two, students will examine the time frame between 1848 and 1855. During this period of time, people began to flock to California to find gold. Over 300,000 people arrived by land and by sea. Many of them faced hardships such as disease, extreme weather conditions, Indians, and racism.

When the students enter the room, their warm-up will be: How does the migration of people change the culture? This warm-up will allow students to review the information that will be taught on day one. Afterward, students will use the CRISS strategy discussed earlier called mind streaming. The student will work in pairs. Each student will have one minute to talk about the California gold rush. Next, students will be divided into groups of five. The students will practice Reciprocal Teaching. Each group will read one of three articles. The first article is titled: “Graphic Histories: The California Gold Rush.” This article is for the student who read at a lower level. It is a graphic novel about the California gold rush, written by Elizabeth Hudson-Golf. The second article, “Racism Amidst Opportunity,” written by Rudolph Lapp, is about the Fugitive Slave Act of 1852. California passed this law to keep slaves from running away from their masters while working in the gold mines. The third article is about history of Chinese people in America from the Compton Encyclopedia by Britannica. These entries explain the contributions of Chinese people to the progression of the California Gold rush.

During the Reciprocal Teaching process, there is a leader, who is responsible for keeping the group on task. There is a summarizer, clarifier, predictor, and a questioner. The teacher divides the article into three sections. The students begin the process with a prediction about the title of the article, or any pictures associated with the article. The group then reads the first section of the article, and the questioner asks a question about the article that does not necessarily need to be answered later. The students then read the next section. At that point, the clarifier clarifies for a word or an idea. Finally, the students read the last section of the article, and the summarizer summarizes what has been read so far. As an exit ticket, the students will write what they consider to be the most important thing that they learned for that day.

Lesson 4: Homesteaders and Exodusters

The essential question for lesson four is “What reasons did diverse people travel westward?” Students will begin the class with a warm-up: “If you had the opportunity for you and your family to start your life over again somewhere else, would you? Why or why not? The purpose of the warm-up is to prepare the students to think about reasons why people would leave their home.

After the students have activated their thinking, they will view a power point presentation. It has been said that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” The pictures in the power point include a photograph of some exodusters, a name given to African Americans who fled to Kansas after the end of the Reconstruction. The power point includes photographs of the Chiricahua Apache children as they arrived at Carlisle (a reservation school). In contrast, there is also a picture of the same students after they enrolled in the reservation school looking like American children. Students will be asked to draw conclusions based on what they know about Native Americans, and the details of the picture.

Next, the students will read one of two articles based on their reading ability. The first article is a text written by Linda Wommack, “Wagon Roads to the Little House on the Prairie.” The students will read in pairs. The article is about the Homestead Act of 1862, which provided free land for thousands of Americans. The lower leveled text, “Exodusters,” written by Marcia Lusted is about the mass migration of about 6,000 black people after the civil war. The pairs will then join another pair to form a group of four to create picture notes on a large poster. The only words that the students can use on their posters are: homesteaders, sod house, irrigation, civil war, immigrants, and exodusters. Finally, students will share the poster with the whole class.

Lesson 5: Cathay William or William Cathay

The essential question for lesson five is: How were the hopes of those who wished to travel west for opportunity often dashed? Today, students will read about Cathay Williams. Her life story is captured in a poem written by Linda Kirkpatrick. Linda writes about cowboys, and she has submitted much of her work on a website: www.cowboypoetry.com . The particular poem that the students will read was written in honor of the Buffalo Soldiers. Linda was invited to perform at a program on the steps of the Texas state capitol in Austin. At the beginning of the civil war, the federal government began to fight Native Americans in the west. One Hundred Eighty Six thousand black American soldiers participated in this war. The Native Americans called these soldiers “buffalo soldiers.” Cathay Williams a young woman born into slavery disguised herself as a man to fight in the war. She was later known as William Cathay. The unfortunate part of Cathy Williams’ life was that she was unable to collect a pension due to her illegal enlistment. Linda Kirkpatrick explains this story in a wonderful poem which the students will partner read. While the students read this poem, they will be asked to draw a picture for two stanzas with a partner. As an exit ticket, students will create an acrostic poem using the words Cathay Williams, explaining the difficulties of traveling west. 12

Lesson six: Research

Finally, to culminate the unit, students will begin lesson six with the following essential question: How did children from various cultures react to traveling west? The students will examine how the children endured the joys and hardships of the trip westward. I have purchased several copies of the book, “Frontier Children,” written by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith. This book has wonderful photographs of children who travelled west. This book will be used as a spring board for research. The students will in pairs to choose a picture that they identify with. The students will be asked to conduct a mini research module. 13

The research will begin in the classroom; the pairs will be given a graphic organizer where they will record their information. The graphic organizer requires the students to find four important ideas from the book, then summarize the portion of the book that they are responsible for. Then the students will need to provide citations from the book. The students will then be asked to go to the library to research their topic using the same mini research module. The significance of the mini research module is to provide the students the opportunity to

conduct informal research before conducting their formal research project. The students are gradually introduced to the idea of research with the CSQT and the graphic organizer.

After the students have conducted their research, they will be encouraged to share this information with their classmates via a walk around. The students will display the pictures that they identified with, explain why they chose this picture, and to further explain any other information that they found during the research process. Students will be graded using a rubric. They will also grade how well they work with each other in pairs. Students will be required to display their citation information.

Assessment Prompt:

The students will be asked to do one of the following: 1. Identify two groups represented in the west, and give reasons for their migration, 2.Create a timeline or a map showing western expansion from the 1830s until the 1880, and explain the significance of at least two groups represented.

Summary Statement

To summarize, this lesson is written for middle school students in grades seven to eighth grades. The unit is multi-disciplinary addressing the core content standards in both English Language Arts and Social Studies. The information in this unit is dealing primarily with the reasons why individuals or groups of people migrated westward. This unit examines particular people groups such as Exodusters, Chinese immigrants, Cherokee, Navajo, and Homesteaders. The unit incorporates CRISS, AVID, and Learning Focused strategies, as well as strategies for differentiation, and can easily be incorporated into an inclusion classroom. In this unit, students will learn about the hopes and dreams of people who traveled west in hopes of a better life, as well as some who were forced to go west. It also addresses the realities of the difficulties of migration, such as disease, harsh weather conditions, and struggles with Native Americans. Students will learn about the Trail of Tears, The California Gold Rush, The Homestead Act, and the Exodusters. It culminates with a mini-research module, during which time the students will research the life of pioneer children, and present their findings via a walk around. The following information is about the specific core content standards that are addressed in both Reading and Social Studies.

Bibliography

"American History: California Gold Rush." American History: California Gold Rush 2009. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. This resource for students provides information about the history of the California Gold Rush.

Andrews, Terri J. "Share in the Light: Native American Stories of Creation." World & I. July 1998: 196-203. SIRS Renaissance. Web. 11 Oct 2012. Here one can find more information about the origin stories of the Native American.

Discover Navajo, "The History of Cowboys and Indians." Accessed August 4, 2012. discovernavajo.com/Cowboys & Indians-1.pdf. This website was created by the Navajo nation, and has interesting information about the history of the Navajo and Hopi Indians.

First People, "First People Legends." Accessed October 30, 2012. http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/CherokeeCreationStory-Cherokee.html . Here teachers can find more origin stories to share with their students.

Foner, Eric, and John A. Garraty. "Black Migration." The Reader's Companion to American History. Dec. 1 1991: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 11 Oct 2012. In this article, students will read more about the Exodusters, and their migration West.

Hudson-Goff, Elizabeth, and Michael V. Uschan. "Graphic Histories: The California Gold Rush." Weekly Reader Graphic Histories: The California Gold Rush. 2006: n.p. SIRS Discoverer. Web. 11 Oct 2012. This article is a cartoon with pictures. This can be used with students who have a lower reading level.

Kirkpatrick, Linda. Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry, "Featured at the D-Bar Ranch." Last modified 2011. Accessed July 30, 2012. http://www.cowboypoetry.com/lk.ht . Linda Kirkpatrick is a poet who specializes in Western poetry. She wrote and performed a poem about Cathy William.

Lapp, Rudolph M. "Racism Amidst Opportunity." Footsteps. Jan./Feb. 2000: 30-33. SIRS Discoverer. Web. 11 Oct 2012. This article is written for middle school students. It deals with the issues that people of color dealt with during the California Gold Rush.

Lusted, Marcia Amidon. "Exodusters." Cobblestone (Vol. 29, No. 1). Jan. 2008: 28-31. SIRS Discoverer. Web. 11 Oct 2012. This article, written for middle school students explains more about the history of the exodusters.

Peavy, Linda, and Ursula Smith. Frontier Children. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. This book has photographs of pioneer children. This book can also be used as a spring board for the student mini research module.

Summer Productions. The Cherokee Trail of Tears. From Discovery Education. Video Segment. 2001. http://www.discoveryeducation.com/ (accessed 30 October 2012). This is a short video clip which introduces the idea of Native American migration, and introduces the concept of the Indian reservations.

Wommack, Linda R., and Stephanie Wommack White. "Wagon Roads to the Little House on the Prairie." Old West. Spring 1999: 24-31. SIRS Discoverer. Web. 11 Oct 2012. This article is written for middle school students, and deals with life on the plains. Students can read about life as a pioneer.

Teacher Materials

AVID, "AVID: Decades of College Dreams." Accessed October 23, 2012. http://www.avid.org/abo_whatisavid.html . This website provides teachers with information about some AVID methodologies, as well as how AVID can assist students who struggle.

Choate, J.N. Denver Public Library, "Denver Public Libary Digital Collection." http://digital.denverlibrary.org/ (accessed July 30, 2012). This website provides multiple photographic resources. These photographs depict the reservation schools and are excellent for students to see what life was like for children their age.

Learning Focused, "Understanding the Learning-Focused Strategy Model." Last modified 2012. Accessed October 31, 2012. This site will assist teachers with the learning focused format for creation of lesson plans and learning maps.

Santa, Carol, Lynn Havens, Debra Franciosi, and Bonnie Valdes. Project CRISS, 4th edition. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt, 2012. This book will give teachers strategies for teaching reading to students in any subject area.

Appendices

Appendix A: English Language Arts Core Content Standards

RI.7.1. Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

RI.7.2. Determine two or more central ideas in a text and analyze their development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.

RI.7.3. Analyze the interactions between individuals, events, and ideas in a text (e.g., how ideas influence individuals or events, or how individuals influence ideas or events).

SL.7.1. Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 7 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Appendix B: Delaware History Content Standards

History Standard Two: Students will gather, examine, and analyze historical data [Analysis].

6-8a: Students will master the basic research skills necessary to conduct an independent investigation of historical phenomena.

History Standard One: Students will employ chronological concepts in analyzing historical phenomena [Chronology].

6-8a: Students will examine historical materials relating to a particular region, society, or theme; analyze change over time, and make logical inferences concerning cause and effect.

Civics Standard Two: Students will understand the principles and ideals underlying the American political system [Politics].

6-8a: Students will understand that the concept of majority rule does not mean that the rights of minorities may be disregarded and will examine and apply the protections accorded those minorities in the American political system.

Geography Standard Three: Students will develop an understanding of the diversity of human culture and the unique nature of places [PLACES].

6-8a: Students will identify and explain the major cultural patterns of human activity in the world's sub-regions.

Geography Standard Four: Students will develop an understanding of the character and use of regions and the connections between and among them [REGIONS].

6-8b: Students will explain how conflict and cooperation among people contributes to the division of the Earth's surface into distinctive cultural regions and political territories.