Students will use primary documents to determine the views and dreams of freedmen in the Exoduster migration to Kansas using a photo of an Exoduster family in NE, the Kansas Emigrant Song, and NARA’s document analysis form.
Students seem to have a good grasp on the buffalo, the gold rush, and the wagon trains of the West, but overlook the experience of minorities, such as freedmen, the Irish, and Chinese during the Expansion period.
Analyze primary documents to determine the goals and causes of the migration of freedmen to Kansas (and Nebraska)
Show Me Standards:
2. Continuity and change in the history of Missouri, the United States and the world
6. Relationships of the individual and groups to institutions and cultural traditions
7. The use of tools of social science inquiry (such as surveys, statistics, maps, documents)
Course Level Expectations
3aI - Analyze the evolution of American democracy, its ideas, institutions and political processes from Reconstruction to the present, including:
- Reconstruction
- Struggle for civil rights
5D - Distinguish major patterns and issues with regard to population distribution, demographics, settlements, migrations, cultures and economic systems in the United States and world
7A – distinguish between and analyze primary and secondary sources
7C – distinguish between sources to recognize bias and point of view
7F – interpret primary documents
- American History Textbook or secondary reading selection of teacher’s choosing. One comprehensive website is: The National Park Services’ Stories of the Great Westward Expansion: http://www.nps.gov/untold/banners_and_backgrounds/expansionbanner/exoduster.htm
- National Archives’ Document Analysis Worksheet: http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/worksheets/
- (if desired) PBS documentary The West Episode 7: Geography of Hope: http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/program/episodes/seven/theexodust.htm
- Teacher created photograph analysis worksheet (located at the end of this file with answer key)
- Kansas Emigrant Song by J. G. WHITTIER: http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/kansas-day/16773
- Photo of Nebraska Exoduster family http://theomahaproject.org/module_display.php?mod_id=89&review=yes
- (If continuing the lesson is desired), selected letters from potential exodusters to KS Governor John St. John at Kansas Memory: http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/210296
- You could use the same document analysis form with any of these letters
- Introduce the lesson by informally accessing prior knowledge of the MO/KS Border War before and during the Civil War, key vocabulary terms like migration and the prefix “ex-“ and understanding of hardships faced by freedmen in the South and all in the West.
- Divide students into halves (for stations) or smaller groups if desired. Each group, regardless of size, will receive either :
- The Kansas Emigrant song and NARA Document Analysis
- A secondary reading on Exodusters and the Exoduster Family Photograph ws.
- Students will be given an appropriate amount of time (est. 20 min) to complete their “station.”
- Students can then stay in these groups to complete the opposite assignment or can be re-shuffled in a “Jigsaw” or “Sage and Scribe” cooperative learning structure to teach their peers what they have just learned. The teacher will have to decide if they prefer practicing cooperative techniques or analysis methods with the particular class.
- An answer key for the Exoduster Family Photograph worksheet has been provided.
- The teacher will grade the NARA Document Analysis worksheet for accuracy.
- An “Exit Ticket” question can have students free write or answer a specific question targeting the teacher’s specific learning goal. Examples:
- What were 2 hopes and 2 realities experienced by Exodusters?
- How did the end of Reconstruction feed into the Exoduster migration?
- List 3 things you learned specifically from the song and photograph.