SOCIAL SCIENCE WEEKLY LESSON PLAN FORMAT

Unit Title Civil War

Subject US History Grade 8 Week of 5/1/23
Essential/Driving
/Historical Question Why did the North win?
and/or Theme
Day M T W R F

Lesson Topic/Title Perspectives of Slavery Spectrum Advantages of the Confederacy and the Union Comparison Table

Students will be able to identify and describe the

different perspectives on slavery, including the
perspectives of abolitionists, pro-slavery
Objectives
advocates, and those who held more moderate
or ambiguous views.
Students will know and compare the advantages of the Confederacy and
the Union during the Civil War with regard to population, leadership, food,
transportation, and strategy.

HSS Framework Chapter 12: The causes, course,

Content Standards HSS Framework Chapter 12: The causes, course, and Consequences of the
and Consequences of the Civil War – Why was
and ELA Common Civil War - How was the Civil War conducted militarily, politically,
there a Civil War?
Core State Standards economically, and culturally?
Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Hinton
Helper, William Lloyd Garrison, Abraham Vocabulary for this lesson include whichever battle that the student
Vocabulary Lincoln, John C. Calhoun, Grimke Sisters, James selects. They will have to create an infographic of the battle, pointing to
K. Paulding, George Fitzhugh key figures that were involved.

Lesson Intro Start them with an easy prompt: do you like
pickles, ask students to line up where they stand
on the spectrum
Helps them get use to what a spectrum is and
how the lesson is going to go.
The first informal assessment that I will use is a brainstorm activity. To
start, students will begin thinking about the lesson set’s essential
question, “why did the North win?” Additionally, this activity will help
students activate prior knowledge and will help me adjust the which
topics need more focus. Students will come up with a list of answers, and
additional questions that they have about the essential question. For this
activity, I am not looking for right answers. My goal is to have students in
the correct mind space for the lesson’s activities and to gauge their
understanding of previous topics. This assessment will also be used as a

Tell students that there were multiple
perspectives on history and remind them of the
presentations that they did last week. Explaining
how just because one person was born in the
South, doesn’t mean that they were
automatically pro-slavery, or how a Northerner
is not automatically anti-slavery.
Content Delivery
I will then introduce students to what the
activity is today and what they will be doing. I
will have chairs lined up to represent different
parts of a spectrum with one side being totally
opposes slavery (abolitionists) and the other
totally for slavery.
Students will meet with their groups and decide
who their representative will be. The rest of the
students will sit in the audience and take notes.
The representatives will take on the role of their
historical figure and place themselves along the
spectrum.
Student Engagement
There will be a Canva template for them to use
that will allow them to plot each historical figure
on a digital spectrum. Each placement will have
students including a 1 sentence reasoning for
why that person is placed where they are.
Lesson Closure I will review the answers with the group and
remind them that this is not the end all be all.
Each person’s views are nuanced, and it is not
realistic to box them into these categories.
point of reflection in lesson 3’s informal assessment.
Call on volunteers
Brainstorm is very low risk, no right answers just thoughts at this point
minimizing threat, mastery-orientated it is all part of the process
Scaffolding questions, directing attention to certain points
Write thoughts on the board and have students follow along
Review at the end of the class – having review is focusing on the process
and improvement, not having the right answers all the time, learning
process
Using prior experience to guide their thoughts, multiple means of
engagement
Make it personalized, students get to choose any topic, use basketball
reference and tv show reference
Self-regulation
Students will come up with a list of answers, and additional questions that
they have about the essential question. For this activity, I am not looking
for right answers. My goal is to have students in the correct mind space for
the lesson’s activities and to gauge their understanding of previous topics.
This assessment will also be used as a point of reflection in lesson 3’s
informal assessment.
Students will engage in a close reading of textbook excerpts and are
required to highlight compare and contrast signal words in yellow. To
show evidence of close reading, students will also highlight key
information in green. Once they have completed their close reading,
students will transfer the key information they highlighted onto a
comparison table graphic organizer. They will also use the information to
state which side had the advantage in each category.
Students will reflect back to the first template and add to their previous
thinking. Students will think-pair-share and I will guide discussion based
on the students’ responses.
 Students will make sure that they have
something similar on their own documents, and
they will walk out knowing approximately
where these historical figures lie on the
spectrum.
Informal: I will look to see how students react to
where they should go on the spectrum. If a
student is lost and in the completely wrong side,
that shows that that student may not know their
historical figure that well. The adverse is true,
where students who are placed in the right area,
Assessments have a good understanding of their person.
Formal: the Canva template that they submit,
which should have a completed spectrum
coupled with their reasonings, will let me know
if they have a solid grasp of the content.
Accommodations for Students are placed in heterogenous groups that
ELs and SSNs are mixed in a way where ELs and SSNs have
The first informal assessment that I will use is a brainstorm activity. To
start, students will begin thinking about the lesson set’s essential
question, “why did the North win?” Additionally, this activity will help
students activate prior knowledge and will help me adjust the which
topics need more focus. Students will come up with a list of answers, and
additional questions that they have about the essential question. For this
activity, I am not looking for right answers. My goal is to have students in
the correct mind space for the lesson’s activities and to gauge their
understanding of previous topics. This assessment will also be used as a
point of reflection in lesson 3’s informal assessment.
Students will engage in a close reading of textbook excerpts and are
required to highlight compare and contrast signal words in yellow. To
show evidence of close reading, students will also highlight key
information in green. Once they have completed their close reading,
students will transfer the key information they highlighted onto a
comparison table graphic organizer. They will also use the information to
state which side had the advantage in each category.
Near the end of class and when students are finished are nearly finished, I
will review the answers for the chart with the class. Students will first be
asked what they had typed out into their tables before I reveal the correct
information. I will use equity sticks to see who will respond. All students
will assess their work and compare what they had typed out to the answer
key. When adding or correcting their tables, students will write the
changes made in red.
Heterogenous groups for collaborations, meaningful seating chart where
there are different levels of proficiency, sentence frames, graphic
 group partners of varying proficiency.

I will also be reviewing the information at the

organizers, digital versions of all the texts so text-to-speech is an option,
end, so that if any student missed information
modeling and scaffolding, Ways of customizing displayed information
during the class activity, there is time to catch up
and better understand the content.

Resources Canva, chairs Canva templates