SAC Lesson Plan

Teacher: Lizette Mora

Title: Civil War and Reconstruction

Subject: U.S History

Grade Level: 8th grade

§113.20(1)(A)(9) (C) explain the economic, political, and social problems during
TEKS: Reconstruction and evaluate their impact on different groups.

Students will...
• defend an interpretation using evidence
Learning Objectives:
• respect multiple viewpoints
• learn how to build consensus

Essential Question(s): During Reconstruction were African Americans free?

Freedmen; black codes; poll tax; sharecropping; loyalty oath; martial law; juneteenth
Essential Vocabulary:

CBS Video: The Story of Reconstruction

Resources/Materials:

Mini lecture and CBS video: The Story of Reconstruction

Time: 10 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjetWrsQb-E

Debate preparation
During Reconstruction were African Americans free?
• Class divides into group A and B
• Group A (Columbus Day) reads documents 1 & 2
Time: 20 min
• Group B (Indigenous Peoples’ Day) reads documents 3 & 4
• Each group chooses 2 arguments in defense of their position.
• Each group chooses 2 presenters.
Procedures:
Class debate
• Group A presents their positions and group B summarizes.
• Group B presents their positions and group A summarizes.
• Abandon roles and try to build consensus as a class Time: 15 min
SAC Lesson Plan

Exit Slip (in class):

Assessment:  What is one thing that you learned today that left you puzzled? Time: 5 min
 What is one question you still have about todays topic?

1. Citations
Document A
U.S. Constitution, Amendments 13-15. Retrieved from
http://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm#amendments.

Document B
Opelousas, Louisiana, black code, July 3, 1865. In Senate executive documents for the first session of the
thirty-ninth Congress of the United States of America, 1865-1866 (pp. 92-93). Washington, DC:
Government Printing Office. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/senateexecutived00unit

Document C
th nd
Senate Report 693, 46 Congress, 2 Session (1880). Reprinted in Dorothy Sterling, editor, The Trouble
They Seen: The Story of Reconstruction in the Words of African Americans, New York: Da Capo
Press, 1994. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/sharecrop/ps_adams.html

Document D
Portraits retrieved from the Library of Congress website, http://www.loc.gov/index.html.

Document E
Sidney Andrews quoted in the Joint Report on Reconstruction, (1866) pp. 174. Retrieved from
https://archive.org/details/jointreconstruct00congrich

Used: Stanford History Education Group