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Regional Characteristics of North and South

 8th Grade Social Studies Standards:


o 1.2: The historical eras, individuals, groups, ideas and themes from the origins of
the American Revolution through Reconstruction and their relationships with
one another
o 2.2: Conflict and cooperation occur over space and resources
 Learning Targets:
o I can identify regional characteristics that contributed to the outcome of the Civil
War.
 Objectives:
o Students will be able to compare the cultures and economies of the Northern
and Southern states.
o Students will be able to identify strengths and weaknesses the North and the
South had leading up to the Civil War.
 Inquiry Questions:
o What was the economy of the North based on?
o What was the economy of the South based on?
o What were the greatest strengths and weaknesses of each side?
o How would economic differences lead to contrasting values in the North and
South?
o What do you think was the ultimate reason the South lost to the North?
 Connecting to prior knowledge:
o Story of Us: how cotton changed the south
 Cotton became a major commodity around the world, and the South
supplied ¾ of it by 1850
 Made the south very rich and reinforced their reliance on slavery
 Northern factories turned the cotton into cloth, so they profited too (but
different form of labor)
 What students should get from the text:
o North had a larger population (21 million in North to just 9 million in South)
o North had industrial advantage: made 97% of firearms, 96% of railroad
locomotives, 94% of cloth, over 90% of boots and shoes (how would this impact
the south if they were to go to war?)
o North controlled Navy and therefore a large potion of trade (what would a
blockade do? Why?)
o South was self-sufficient in terms of food (why is this important if the North were
to cut off trade with the South?)
o South had a lot of trained officers and 7/8 military colleges (What is the benefit
of trained officers?)
o South was fighting on its own territory (why is this an advantage? Who else have
we seen this be an advantage for?)

 Military and political objectives to discuss with students:


o What did each side have to do to win the war?
o Union had to do a lot more; they had to invade, conquer, and occupy; destroy
the South’s will and ability to resist
o South initially had higher morale- they were fighting to maintain their way of life
At the beginning of class I will remind students to “have a seat, get out a book, and start
reading.” If students continue talking as I begin passing out tickets I will say, “voices should be
off now” to remind them of that expectation. As they are reading I will monitor their behavior
and remind individual students what they should be doing. Once silent reading is over I will
have students take out their planner’s and then we will move on to journal.
After silent reading and journal we will finish watching the first portion of a video we started
the previous class. Each class should have 5 to 10 minutes left of the video. Before we begin I
will ask students to have the notes we started last time in front of them. I will ask, “Can anyone
remind me what we were looking for in the video and filling out on our chart?” Someone
should say ‘regional characteristics,’ which will allow me to remind them of our learning target.
Then I will ask, “and what were we focusing on more specifically?” (someone should say
‘economics’; if no one remembers I will prompt them by saying, “were we looking at social,
political, or economic aspects?”)
Differentiation: For students that need help with notes, I will give them notes that have some
things filled out, with blanks for the student to fill in.
To go over these notes after the video, I will show students a slide with a few of the major
points from the video. I will give them 1 or 2 minutes to discuss with their table and then we
will go over them as a class. I will tell students to think about several questions as they discuss
the major points (Who did it give an advantage to? How did it effect the country? How big of an
advantage did it give to the North or South? Why was it located where it was?) After students
have discussed with their tables, we will go over it as a class. I will ask students to tell me about
one of the major points at a time and I will create a web on the SMART board as they tell me
things. I will prompt them to say which side was benefitted, why it benefitted them, how
would it affect the other side if taken away, etc. Students can be adding to their notes as
needed. Once we have finished this, I will tell students to fold down the corner of this page
because we will continue to add notes to it as we continue throughout the unit.
Next, we will be reading a non-fiction text about strengths and weaknesses of the North and
South. As I explain what we will be doing, I will point out our learning target. Before reading
we will have a discussion about annotating non-fiction texts. I will ask “can anyone tell me

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what a non-fiction text is?” and then I will ask students what strategies they have learned in
their other classes for reading and annotating text. They should have learned annotating in
English and Science. I will repeat the answers they give to point out good strategies to use
while they are annotating the text.
Then I will ask the students what they will be looking for as they read this text (connect back to
learning target). We will connect to the activity and video from the previous class.
I will also explain to them that either as they are reading or once they finish reading, they
should make a T-chart on the white board at their table and list the advantages from each side.
While students are reading they should be annotating the text and adding to their organizer in
their notebooks if they want. They should also be making a list on their white boards of
important advantages and disadvantages from each side. Once students are finished, we will
come back together as a class and I will ask students to circle the advantage they think was
most important from each side. Once they have done that I will ask students to share what
they thought was most important and why. As they are sharing I will create a T-chart on the
board with all the answers they gave me.
If we have time at the end of class, I will have students cut and glue the article into their
notebooks. If not, I will have students put their articles into their drawers so they won’t get
lost. I will remind students of the learning target and will assess what they learned with a short
quiz during the next class.

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