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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/92527/overview
|
Habitats Lesson
Overview
This lesson is about the various types of shelter animals live in and how they adapt to their environment.
Habitat Lesson Plan
| Teacher: Evelina Jackson Subject: Science Class: 2E Dates: 5/1 – 5/5, 2022 |
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | |
| Standards:2-LS4-1. Use scientific inquiry/research skills to make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats. | Objective: Students will be able to define the term habitat and list the four basic elements which habitats provide for animals to survive there. | Objective: Students will be able to define the term habitat and list the four basic elements which habitats provide for animals to survive there. | Objective: Students will be able to identify three different types of habitats, as well as wildlife that lives in each. | Objective: Students will be able to identify three different types of habitats, as well as wildlife that lives in each. | Objective: Students will be able to identify three different types of habitats, as well as wildlife that lives in each. |
| Focus Questions | How do animals and plants depend on their habitats for survival? | Where do animals and plants find water in different habitats? | Why are animals’ habitats important? | Do animals have adaptations to help them survive? | How can we protect animal habitats? |
| Direct Instruction | The teacher will state the objective to the students clearly. The teacher will post and write these three questions that students should be able to answer. 1. What am I learning today? 2. Why am I learning this? 3. How will I know that I learned it? My learning intentions and success criteria will be posted also with the “I can statement”.The teacher will ask the focus question to get the kids ready to learn about habitats. I will explain the various type of animal habitats. | The teacher will state the learning objective to the students clearly. The teacher will review new vocabulary words. Next, the teacher will have the students watch a YouTube video on “Animal Habitats and where they live” | The teacher will state the objective to the students clearly. The teachers will help students understand that animals live in many kinds of habitats by showing students an anchor chart of where animals live. Next, the teacher will introduce new vocabulary words for this lesson | The teacher will state the objective to the students clearly. Next, the teacher will help students understand that animal adaptation helps them survive in their habitats.The teacher will show students examples of different animals with structural adaptations. | The teacher will take students outside to look for habitats. |
| Guided Instruction | The teacher will ask students some prior-knowledge questions such as: What do already know about habitats? | The teacher will write Desert, Forest, Ocean, and jungle on the board and ask students to think about each habitat and what animals and plants they might see in that habitat. (Grassland, forest, mountain, desert,) | The teacher will ask students to name 5 parts of a habitat: Air, Food, Water, Shelter, Space, | The teacher will ask students to think about some of the different kinds of habitats they may see when walking in their neighborhood.The teacher will have students describe what the adaptation are (lizard=mimicry, bird= beak) | The teacher will review the lesson on animal habitats with students. The teacher will show photos of animal’s habitats and ask students to describe the environment. |
| Independent Practice | The students will draw on cards pictures of animals that would live in each habitat. | The teacher will have students write, in twenty words or less, a definition of habitat in their science journal. | The students will create a Venn diagram to compare and contrast two different animals by habitats. | The student will write a descriptive sentence about animal habitats with a detailed illustration. The students will divide pictures of animals into behavioral adaptations and will record responses in a notebook to justify why each animal was placed in each category. Ex: bear, skunk, giraffe. | The students will write two sentences in their science journal what could happen if people in their community don’t take care of their habitat. |
| Closure | Today we discuss what is a habitat and where animals lived. | Today we named some different habitats such as (grassland, forest, mountain, desert). | Today students gave examples of animals that live on land, water, and both. | Today we shared with partners an animal who lives in one of the habitats that were listed on the smartboard. | Today, we will review some things we learned about habitats before taking our quiz. |
| Assessment | The student will complete a worksheet on animal habitats to assess understanding. | The students will complete a five animal habitats worksheet by matching the habitat with its description and an animal that lives there. | Students will match the animals to their listed home by completing the science worksheet on Animal Habitat. | The students will brainstorm a K-W-L chart on animal habitats. | Students will take a science quiz and complete a worksheet to classify the animals and put them in the correct habitat. |
| Materials | Video YouTube on animal habitatsIndex cards | Science Journal photosWorksheet | ChartWorksheet Animals Adaptations Pictures | K-W-L Chart | Assessment – QuizWorksheet |
| DifferentiatedActivity Stations A-E | Below grade level: The students will work at this Station A with a partner on a habitat worksheet guessing which animal habitat each animal live in. Then print the name of the animal in each space. | On grade level: Students will work at Station B with their peers on filling in the blank worksheet with the correct home of where animal live. Ex: Ocean, Desert, Rainforest | Beyond grade level: The students will work at Station C drafting a short essay comparing two different habitats. | Students will rotate to this Station D to watch a video on “Animal Habitats on land and in water.” | The teacher will call each separate group one at a time to question them to check for understanding to give and get feedback from the worksheets and drafting essay. |
Action Plan
| Goals | Objectives | Activities | Materials | Timeline | Resources |
2-LS4-1 Use scientific inquiry/research skills to compare the diversity of life in different habitats.
| Students will be able to define the term habitat and list the four basic elements which habitats provide for animals to survive there. Students will be able to identify three different types of habitat as well as wildlife that lives in each. | Warm-up Exercise Vocabular Words (habitat, shelter, people, places) Interactive videos and activities Animal Cracker Habitat Shoe Box Habitat Pictures of animals in their habitat | Science Worksheets Paper and Pencil Interactive video and activities images of different habitats ipads, computer, Promethean boards, Science Journals, Quiz, Shoeboxes, Crackers, Index cards. KWL Chart | Week | Curriki-/(https://www.currikistudio.org/org/currikistudio/project/15927) Khan Academy OER Commons YouTube
|
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:18.615874
|
evelina Jackson
|
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/92527/overview",
"title": "Habitats Lesson",
"author": "Homework/Assignment"
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|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/66288/overview
|
The Structure of the Texas Court System
Overview
The Structure of the Texas Court System
Learning Objective
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Describe how state courts are structured in Texas
Introduction
Even before Texas became its own Republic, Texas had a system of courts. As citizens of Mexico, Texans were given access to state and local courts created by the Mexican constitutions of 1824 and 1827. Appeals, however, were handled only in Saltillo, over 600 miles from the northern parts of the state.
Accordingly, the Republic of Texas and, later, the State of Texas established a judiciary with local access to both trial and appeals courts. Texas has more courts than any other state, creating more access to courts, but also additional costs.
The Structure of the Texas Court System
Although the Supreme Court tends to draw the most public attention, it typically hears fewer than one hundred cases every year. In fact, the entire federal side—both trial and appellate—handles proportionately very few cases, with about 90 percent of all cases in the U.S. court system being heard at the state level. The several hundred thousand cases handled every year on the federal side pale in comparison to the several million handled by the states.
State courts really are the core of the U.S. judicial system, and they are responsible for a huge area of law. Most crimes and criminal activity, such as robbery, rape, and murder, are violations of state laws, and cases are thus heard by state courts. State courts also handle civil matters; personal injury, malpractice, divorce, family, juvenile, probate, and contract disputes and real estate cases, to name just a few, are usually state-level cases.
In our legal system criminal cases are those where a defendant is accused of violating the law. If found guilty, a punishment ranging from a small monetary fine to the death penalty may be inflicted. All other cases are civil, ranging from negligence cases like Del Lago v. Smith to eviction, divorce and child custody, wills and estates, protective orders and the enforcement of business contracts.
In all cases, a trial court – generally with a jury of citizens – must determine matters of fact. Appellate courts are there only to determine matters of law did the trial court conduct its proceedings fairly and correctly? What sorts of courts handle judicial cases in Texas?
Types of Jurisdiction
Every court system has jurisdiction over certain cases, from enforcing traffic laws to hearing capital murder charges. There are three types of jurisdictions:
- Original Jurisdiction– the court that gets to hear the case first. For example, Municipal courts typically have original jurisdiction over traffic offenses the occur within city limits.
- Appellate Jurisdiction– the power for a higher court to review a lower courts decision. For example, the Texas Court of Appeals has appellate jurisdiction over the District Courts (see the hierarchy of Texas Court Structure in Section 5.2).
- Exclusive Jurisdiction– only that court can hear a specific case. For example, only the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Court can hear appeals for death penalty sentences.
Judicial Hierarchy
The Texas court system is hierarchical, meaning cases start in local trial courts, then work their way up to appeals courts. State district courts have original jurisdiction, meaning that cases are generally heard by juries of citizens. District courts in rural Texas can be all-purpose courts – hearing all types of criminal and civil cases. District courts in urban areas often specialize. Harris County, with its population of more than 5 million, has courts specifically assigned only to criminal cases, with others specifically assigned to civil, juvenile and family cases.
Any case appealed from one of Texas’ 472 district courts goes to one of 14 courts of appeals, each of which hears all types of cases. From there, the system splits. Criminal cases appealed from any court of appeals go to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. All civil cases go to the Texas Supreme Court. These two co-equal highest courts have the final say on all cases in the state system, although some cases can be further appealed into the federal system.
Municipal Courts
Municipal courts are city courts, often with judges appointed by mayors and city councils – the only judges in Texas who are not elected by the citizens. They have exclusive jurisdiction over cases involving the violation of city ordinances (like building something without getting a building permit) but handle mostly parking and traffic tickets.
Justice of the Peace Courts
Texas has 822 justices of the peace (JPs), selected by voters in partisan elections. Harris County has 16 “JP” courts, but even rural counties have at least one. JPs are the true jacks-of-all-trades in the Texas judicial system. They handle traffic tickets and other low-level criminal offenses, civil cases involving amounts up to $20,000, debt collection cases, commercial and residential evictions, truancy – even inquests (declaring people dead) in all but the largest urban counties. Justices of the Peace do not have to be attorneys, and a majority of Texas JPs are, in fact, not lawyers.
Constitutional County Courts
The Texas Constitution assigns certain judicial powers to county commissioners’ courts, which are also the governing bodies of Texas counties. As a constitutional county court, they hold hearings on beer and wine license applications, assignment of the mentally ill to hospitals, juvenile work permits, and temporary guardianship.
County Courts at Law
Harris County has 16 county criminal courts-at-law, along with 4 county civil courts-at-law. The legislature has allowed counties specific numbers of these courts, depending on the county’s population. County criminal courts- at-law can handle cases involving up to a year in county jail, and where the fine would exceed $500. Civil courts-at-law handle disputes involving between $20,000 and $100,000, as well as civil appeals from justice of the peace courts. County court judges are elected by voters to four-year terms in partisan elections.
Probate Courts
Probate courts handle wills and estates for deceased persons in Texas’ largest counties. Judges are elected to 4-year terms by county voters in partisan elections. In smaller counties, these matters are handled by the local district or county court.
State District Courts
State District Courts are the starting point for serious criminal and civil cases in Texas. Civil cases involving more than $200 and criminal cases for which the penalty can involve the state prison system or the death penalty begin with a trial in state district court. District courts also have exclusive jurisdiction over divorce and land title cases. State District Judges are elected in partisan elections and serve 4-year terms.
Appellate Courts
Texas has 14 courts of appeal, each serving a specific set of counties. Each court has nine members, each of which is elected to a six-year term in a partisan election. The terms are staggered so that three of the nine positions on each court are placed before the area’s voters every two years. While each court of appeals has nine judges, the caseload for courts of appeal in Texas is staggering. For the sake of efficiency, nearly all cases are heard by three judge panels – allowing the court to triple the number of cases they can consider at any one time. Occasionally, a party to a particularly difficult or controversial case may petition to have the case heard en banc – meaning by all nine judges.
While the district courts from which a court of appeals’ appellate cases are referred may be highly specialized, the courts of appeals are not. All 14 courts have first appellate jurisdiction over every type of criminal and civil case.
If a case is appealed from one of Texas’ 14 courts of appeals, however, the system splits. Criminal cases go to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Civil cases go to the Texas Supreme Court. Each of Texas’ two highest courts has nine members, elected statewide in partisan elections. Unlike courts of appeals, however, the Texas Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals hear all cases en banc.
Chapter Five: Check Your Understanding
Check your understanding of of this section by taking the quiz linked below. The quiz will open in a new browser window or tab.
Diagram of the Bifurcated Texas Court System
The structure of the Texas court system is set up as a bifurcated system, meaning there are two highest courts of appeals for criminal and civil cases. The table below depicts the structure of the Texas court system with some additional jurisdiction and court information. Note that Juvenile Courts preside in the District Courts - In Texas, a juvenile is defined as young as 10 years old, and a juvenile can be convicted as an adult as young as 14 years old.
Licenses and Attributions
CC LICENSED CONTENT, ORIGINAL
Court Organization. Authored by: Daniel M. Regalado. License: CC BY: Attribution
The Structure of the Texas Court System. Authored by: Andrew Teas. License: CC BY: Attribution
PUBLIC DOMAIN CONTENT
Court Structure of Texas. Authored by: Texas Judicial Branch. Located at: http://www.txcourts.gov/media/1436909/court-structure-chart- jan-2017.pdf License: Public Domain: No Known Copyright
CC LICENSED CONTENT, ORIGINAL
The Court System of Texas: Introduction. Authored by: Andrew Teas. License: CC BY: Attribution
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:18.650655
|
05/05/2020
|
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/66288/overview",
"title": "Texas Government 2.0, The Court System of Texas, The Structure of the Texas Court System",
"author": "Kris Seago"
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|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/66282/overview
|
The Informal Powers of the Executive Branch
Overview
The Informal Powers of the Executive Branch
Learning Objective
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Discuss the informal powers of the executive branch
Introduction
A Governor's powers are not limited to their constitutional and statutory authority. This section discusses a Governor's informal powers.
The Informal Powers of the Executive Branch
In addition to the formal powers of the governor and other executive branch officials, a smart governor can accomplish a lot using informal powers. Governor George W. Bush was legendary for his ability to forge genuine friendships with other state officials – notably House Speaker Pete Laney and Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock. The three had breakfast at the Governor’s Mansion weekly during legislative sessions. When he announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President in 1999, Speaker Laney, a Democrat, introduced him. Friendly late night meetings over a beer or two helped Governor Bush and some of his staunchest political opponents find common ground on a variety of policy issues.
The Texas Governor has the highest-profile role of any state official and can use that to his advantage. An endorsement from a governor can mean a lot in a race for the state house or senate, and a grateful legislator should be eager to return the favor. Conversely, Governor Greg Abbott actively worked against the reelection of two legislators from his own party in 2018 – helping to defeat one.
The governor's appointment power to appoint members to boards, commissions, councils, and committees can provide the governor with significant informal power over policy in many key areas. The executive branch of the Texas government is made up of over 400 state boards, commissions, and agencies. Finally, the governor’s unilateral post-session veto power creates a lot of informal leverage during the legislative session. A legislative bill author asked by the governor to support a change to his bill – even a drastic one – has little alternative, knowing the bill can be vetoed with no opportunity for an override vote.
Licensing and Attribution
CC LICENSED CONTENT, ORIGINAL
The Informal Powers of the Executive Branch. Authored by: Andrew Teas. License: CC BY: Attribution
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:18.667580
|
05/05/2020
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/66282/overview",
"title": "Texas Government 2.0, The Executive Department and the Office of the Governor of Texas, The Informal Powers of the Executive Branch",
"author": "Kris Seago"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/66283/overview
|
The Plural Executive
Overview
The Plural Executive
Learning Objective
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Explain Texas’ plural executive and discuss the various offices and powers
Introduction
Texas fragmented the Governor's power at the end of Reconstruction and dispersed executive power by creating a plural executive. This section discusses Texas' plural executive.
Texas' Plural Executive
Article 4 of the Texas Constitution describes the executive department (branch) of Texas. Texas utilizes a plural executive which means the power of the Governor is limited and distributed amongst other government officials. In other words, there is not one government official in Texas that is solely responsible for the Texas Executive Branch.
The state bureaucracy in Texas has numerous state boards, commissions, councils, and committees. Additionally, several major agencies within the plural executive have administrative and advisory functions.
Below are some of the members of the Texas Plural Executive and their roles:
The lieutenant governor is technically a member of the executive branch, but with duties that are mostly legislative. While not a member of the Senate, he serves as the state senate's presiding officer - not in a ceremonial role such as that served by the United States Vice President over the U.S. Senate, but as the state senate's day-to-day leader. He is also first in line of succession for Governor, member of the Legislative Redistricting Board and Chair of the Legislative Budget Board. He is elected statewide and serves a four-year term. The current lieutenant governor is Dan Patrick, a former state senator, and former television sports anchor from Houston.
The Texas Attorney General serves at the official lawyer for the State of Texas representing the state on civil matters and is responsible for interpreting the application of statutory law in the absence of an applicable court ruling. His office has additional duties relating to child support enforcement and consumer protection. Elected to a four-year term statewide, the current attorney general is Ken Paxton, a former state senator from the Dallas area.
The Commissioner of the General Land Office is the state's real estate asset manager - an unusual position for voters to choose in a statewide election until you remember that Texas, as a condition of admission to the United States in 1845, maintained state ownership of vast amounts of public land that would have become federal in most other states. The leasing of public land for everything from oil exploration to grazing has been an important source of funding for state universities and public schools. The land commissioner is also responsible for Texas' 367 miles of Gulf Coast beach and has played an increasingly central role in managing disaster relief funds since Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Elected to a four-year term, the current commissioner is George P. Bush, nephew of former President George H. W. Bush.
The Comptroller of Public Accounts is the state's independently-elected chief financial officer. Even if passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, the state's biennial budget cannot take effect unless "certified" by the Comptroller - his official finding that the budgeted amount will not exceed the amount of revenue he believes the state will collect during the budget period. The Comptroller is also the state's tax collector and banker. Glenn Hegar, a former state representative and senator from Katy, is the current Comptroller.
The Texas Agriculture Commissioner is elected to both promote and regulate Texas agriculture, which some perceive as a potential conflict. He administers the Texas Agriculture Department, the duties of which include weights and measures - including gasoline. Inspectors check every gas pump in Texas periodically to make sure consumers are receiving the amount they purchase. The current Agriculture Commissioner is Sid Miller, a former state representative from Stephenville.
The Texas Railroad Commission consists of three commissioners, all elected statewide, who serve staggered six-year terms. Originally created to regulate intrastate rail commerce, that task was largely assumed by the federal government, leaving the Commission to take on other tasks. During the Great Depression, the Commission was given the responsibility of regulating the Texas oil industry, which was a substantial percentage of the world's oil industry in the early Twentieth Century. By setting an "allowable" for every oil well in Texas - the maximum amount that could be legally extracted - the Texas Railroad Commission basically set the global price of oil for many years. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) used the Texas Railroad Commission as their model for creating a worldwide oil cartel in 1960. The commission still has some authority over gas utilities, pipeline safety, liquified natural gas production, surface coal, and uranium mining.
The Texas State Board of Education is the largest elected body in the state's executive branch, with 15 members elected from single-member districts. Chaired by Donna Bahorich, of Houston, the Board is charged with setting curriculum standards, reviewing textbooks, establishing graduation requirements, overseeing the Texas Permanent School Fund, and approving new charter schools. The Board works with the Texas Education Agency, which is administered by a Commissioner of Education appointed by the governor, not the Board. The current Commissioner of Education is Mike Morath, a software developer who served on the Dallas Independent School District Board before his appointment by Governor Greg Abbott in 2016.
The Texas Secretary of State is not elected but is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state senate. The Secretary of State has a variety of duties, including administration of elections within Texas, publishing the Texas Register (which notifies the public of proposed and final state agency rules), and advising the governor on border matters. The Secretary of State also presides over the Texas House of Representatives at the beginning of each legislative session, presiding over the election of his replacement to serve as Speaker of the House.
Governor Abbott appointed John Scott — a Fort Worth attorney who briefly represented former President Donald Trump in a lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania — as Texas' new secretary of state on October 21, 2021.
Abbott announced Scott’s appointment two days after the end of the third special legislative session. That means the Senate will not have to confirm him until the next time it meets, which is currently scheduled for January 2023.
Other executive branch officials include hundreds of appointees to state boards and commissions from the powerful to the obscure. The Texas Transportation Commission oversees billions in highway funding, while the Board of Criminal Justice oversees one of the nations’ largest prison systems. Texas also has a state poet laureate, a state musician and two-state artists – one for two-dimensional and one for three-dimensional media.
Licenses and Attributions
CC LICENSED CONTENT, ORIGINAL
The Texas Plural Executive. Authored by: Daniel M. Regalado. License: CC BY: Attribution
CC LICENSED CONTENT, ADAPTATION
The Texas Plural Executive: Revision and Adaptation. Authored by: Andrew Teas. License: CC BY: Attribution
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:18.688150
|
05/05/2020
|
{
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/66283/overview",
"title": "Texas Government 2.0, The Executive Department and the Office of the Governor of Texas, The Plural Executive",
"author": "Kris Seago"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/66295/overview
|
Municipal (City) Government
Overview
Municipal (City) Government
Learning Objective
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Explain the structure and function of municipal government in Texas
Introduction
This section discusses the structure and function of municipal government in Texas.
General Law and Home Rule Cities
While every square inch of Texas is included in one of its 254 counties, not all of Texas falls inside the limits of a city. Cities are created by its citizens, who are granted a charter by the state of Texas in the same way a corporation operates under a state charter.
Cities can be organized in two basic ways, depending on their size. Cities with a population of less than 5000 people can only exist as general law cities. A general law city has only the powers specifically granted by the legislature, which do not include broad annexation or regulatory powers. Cities with a population greater than 5000 may elect home rule status. Home rule cities can do virtually anything they want that isn’t prohibited by the legislature – leading to some of the issues discussed at the beginning of this chapter.
Larger cities (those exceeding 225,000) have a unique authority: that of “limited annexation”, whereby an adjoining area may be annexed for purposes of imposing city ordinances related to safety and building codes. The residents can vote for mayor and council races but cannot vote in bond elections (and, consequently, the city cannot directly collect city sales tax from businesses or city property tax from owners).
The City of Houston has exploited a provision in the state law that allows it to share in sales tax revenues along with special districts (municipal utility districts, for instance) that cross an area “annexed for limited purposes.” This has led to a spiderwebbing known as limited purpose or special purpose annexations that consist of mostly commercial properties facing major streets. These extend through otherwise unincorporated areas in what is known as the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ), which, for Houston, extends five miles beyond its city limits. This has led to conflicts between city and county officials over the provision of services to these areas not included in the agreements.
The purpose of limited annexation is to allow the city to control development in an area that it eventually will fully annex; it is meant to do so within three years (though it can arrange “non-annexation agreements” with local property owners), and those agreements with municipal utility districts also cloud the picture. During each of the three years, the city is to develop land-use planning for the area (zoning, for example), identify needed capital improvements and ongoing projects, and identify the financing for such as well as to provide essential municipal services.
Municipal elections in Texas are nonpartisan in the sense that candidates do not appear on the ballot on party lines, and do not run as party tickets. However, a candidate’s party affiliation is usually known or can be discerned with minimal effort (as the candidate most likely has supported other candidates on partisan tickets). In some instances, an informal citizen’s group will support a slate of candidates that it desires to see elected (often in opposition to an incumbent group with which it disagreed on an issue). However, each candidate must be voted on individually.
Governance
Who runs city government?
Cities in Texas can be organized in a variety of ways. The most common structure is the council-manager form of government. Citizens in San Antonio decided long ago that the political skill set required to be elected mayor of the city was not necessarily the skill set required to manage the day-to-day operations of a municipal water and sewer system with more than 12,000 miles of pipe – enough to stretch from Texas to Australia. While the mayor of San Antonio presides over council meetings, the daily operations of city government are overseen by a professional city manager, who is hired by the city council for that purpose. Most major Texas cities, including Austin, Galveston, Dallas, and Fort Worth, use a council-manager form of government.
Houston, on the other hand, uses a strong-mayor form of government. The mayor of Houston not only presides over city council meetings, but is also the city’s chief executive officer. Houston’s strong-mayor system is considered especially strong since Houston mayors also have unilateral control over the city council agenda. On the other hand, Houston has a unique counterbalance in the form of an independently-elected city controller, a chief financial officer who must concur in all city expenditures and bond issues, and who can conduct independent audits of city departments.
Some cities elect all their council member-at-large, meaning any qualified person who lives in the city can run for any position. Other cities have adopted single-member districts to ensure that every part of town has a council member looking after the needs of its residents. At-large systems are frequently criticized for making it difficult for members of racial minority groups to be elected. Single-member district systems are criticized for creating a “turf” mentality that places parts of town in competition with each other for parks and libraries, removing the political incentive for council members to consider the needs of the city as a whole. Houston has a mixed system, with five members elected at large, eleven from single-member districts.
Licenses and Attributions
CC LICENSED CONTENT, ORIGINAL
Municipal (City) Government in Texas. Authored by: Andrew Teas. License: CC BY: Attribution
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:18.708527
|
05/05/2020
|
{
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/66295/overview",
"title": "Texas Government 2.0, Local Government in Texas, Municipal (City) Government",
"author": "Kris Seago"
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|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/62318/overview
|
Daily Life Video
Edpuzzle
Google classroom
LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT
Overview
Middle school intro to life in Ancient Egypt, Social Classes, Pyramid, Tut, etc
Social Classes, Social Pyramid Video
Please get in groups of 2-4 and first watch this video...
Reading from CTB
Now, with your partners, click the link below for the CTB reading. Get out your yellow Egypt packet and open to page 16. Read pages 155 to 161 in the CTB as you fill in the blanks in your yellow packet. Please each fill in your own packet.
Test your Knowledge
Now, as a group, follow this link to my Google Classroom post for two EXCITING Quizziz to test your Egyptian knowledge. You may all play together.
TUT...What do you know??
Lastly, how well do you know King Tut??? Do this task ALONE please.
Hop on this EDpuzzle I created to test your TUT KNOWLEDGE ;) Watch and answer as you are promted by the video.
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:18.731108
|
02/07/2020
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/62318/overview",
"title": "LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT",
"author": "abby bevington"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/76003/overview
|
https://ucla.app.box.com/v/elpa21-enrichment-activities/file/731899371002
K-2 Recordings
Overview
These are listening comprehension recordings for K-2 developed by ELPA. They align with ELP listening comrehension standards.
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:18.747511
|
Activity/Lab
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/76003/overview",
"title": "K-2 Recordings",
"author": "Speaking and Listening"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/77700/overview
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Moosling the Babysitter Word Search
Overview
This word search is developed to accompany struggling readers with the book Moosling the Babysitter. This provides a fun activity for after reading to help students to develop vocabulary. Intended to use with an anchor chart that defines the words listed in the word search if students do not already know the words. Repeat several times for fluency.
Word Search
ANTLERS
BABYSITTER
CAREFUL
FORGOT
LOVED
MOOSLING
NEVER
SING
SKUNK
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:18.760866
|
Language, Grammar and Vocabulary
|
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"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/77700/overview",
"title": "Moosling the Babysitter Word Search",
"author": "Language Education (ESL)"
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28791/overview
|
Introduction to Elasticity
That Will Be How Much?
Imagine going to your favorite coffee shop and having the waiter inform you the pricing has changed. Instead of $3 for a cup of coffee, you will now be charged $2 for coffee, $1 for creamer, and $1 for your choice of sweetener. If you pay your usual $3 for a cup of coffee, you must choose between creamer and sweetener. If you want both, you now face an extra charge of $1. Sound absurd? Well, that is similar to the situation Netflix customers found themselves in—they faced a 60% price hike to retain the same service in 2011.
In early 2011, Netflix consumers paid about $10 a month for a package consisting of streaming video and DVD rentals. In July 2011, the company announced a packaging change. Customers wishing to retain both streaming video and DVD rental would be charged $15.98 per month, a price increase of about 60%. In 2014, Netflix also raised its streaming video subscription price from $7.99 to $8.99 per month for new U.S. customers. The company also changed its policy of 4K streaming content from $9.00 to $12.00 per month that year.
How would customers of the 18-year-old firm react? Would they abandon Netflix? Would the ease of access to other venues make a difference in how consumers responded to the Netflix price change? We will explore the answers to those questions in this chapter, which focuses on the change in quantity with respect to a change in price, a concept economists call elasticity.
Introduction to Elasticity
In this chapter, you will learn about:
- Price Elasticity of Demand and Price Elasticity of Supply
- Polar Cases of Elasticity and Constant Elasticity
- Elasticity and Pricing
- Elasticity in Areas Other Than Price
Anyone who has studied economics knows the law of demand: a higher price will lead to a lower quantity demanded. What you may not know is how much lower the quantity demanded will be. Similarly, the law of supply states that a higher price will lead to a higher quantity supplied. The question is: How much higher? This chapter will explain how to answer these questions and why they are critically important in the real world.
To find answers to these questions, we need to understand the concept of elasticity. Elasticity is an economics concept that measures responsiveness of one variable to changes in another variable. Suppose you drop two items from a second-floor balcony. The first item is a tennis ball. The second item is a brick. Which will bounce higher? Obviously, the tennis ball. We would say that the tennis ball has greater elasticity.
Consider an economic example. Cigarette taxes are an example of a “sin tax,” a tax on something that is bad for you, like alcohol. Governments tax cigarettes at the state and national levels. State taxes range from a low of 17 cents per pack in Missouri to $4.35 per pack in New York. The average state cigarette tax is $1.69 per pack. The 2014 federal tax rate on cigarettes was $1.01 per pack, but in 2015 the Obama Administration proposed raising the federal tax nearly a dollar to $1.95 per pack. The key question is: How much would cigarette purchases decline?
Taxes on cigarettes serve two purposes: to raise tax revenue for government and to discourage cigarette consumption. However, if a higher cigarette tax discourages consumption considerably, meaning a greatly reduced quantity of cigarette sales, then the cigarette tax on each pack will not raise much revenue for the government. Alternatively, a higher cigarette tax that does not discourage consumption by much will actually raise more tax revenue for the government. Thus, when a government agency tries to calculate the effects of altering its cigarette tax, it must analyze how much the tax affects the quantity of cigarettes consumed. This issue reaches beyond governments and taxes. Every firm faces a similar issue. When a firm considers raising the sales price, it must consider how much a price increase will reduce the quantity demanded of what it sells. Conversely, when a firm puts its products on sale, it must expect (or hope) that the lower price will lead to a significantly higher quantity demanded.
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:18.776302
|
09/20/2018
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28791/overview",
"title": "Principles of Macroeconomics 2e, Elasticity, Introduction to Elasticity",
"author": null
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28783/overview
|
Shifts in Demand and Supply for Goods and Services
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Identify factors that affect demand
- Graph demand curves and demand shifts
- Identify factors that affect supply
- Graph supply curves and supply shifts
The previous module explored how price affects the quantity demanded and the quantity supplied. The result was the demand curve and the supply curve. Price, however, is not the only factor that influences demand, nor is it the only thing that influences supply. For example, how is demand for vegetarian food affected if, say, health concerns cause more consumers to avoid eating meat? How is the supply of diamonds affected if diamond producers discover several new diamond mines? What are the major factors, in addition to the price, that influence demand or supply?
Visit this website to read a brief note on how marketing strategies can influence supply and demand of products.
What Factors Affect Demand?
We defined demand as the amount of some product a consumer is willing and able to purchase at each price. That suggests at least two factors in addition to price that affect demand. Willingness to purchase suggests a desire, based on what economists call tastes and preferences. If you neither need nor want something, you will not buy it. Ability to purchase suggests that income is important. Professors are usually able to afford better housing and transportation than students, because they have more income. Prices of related goods can affect demand also. If you need a new car, the price of a Honda may affect your demand for a Ford. Finally, the size or composition of the population can affect demand. The more children a family has, the greater their demand for clothing. The more driving-age children a family has, the greater their demand for car insurance, and the less for diapers and baby formula.
These factors matter for both individual and market demand as a whole. Exactly how do these various factors affect demand, and how do we show the effects graphically? To answer those questions, we need the ceteris paribus assumption.
The Ceteris Paribus Assumption
A demand curve or a supply curve is a relationship between two, and only two, variables: quantity on the horizontal axis and price on the vertical axis. The assumption behind a demand curve or a supply curve is that no relevant economic factors, other than the product’s price, are changing. Economists call this assumption ceteris paribus, a Latin phrase meaning “other things being equal.” Any given demand or supply curve is based on the ceteris paribus assumption that all else is held equal. A demand curve or a supply curve is a relationship between two, and only two, variables when all other variables are kept constant. If all else is not held equal, then the laws of supply and demand will not necessarily hold, as the following Clear It Up feature shows.
When does ceteris paribus apply?
We typically apply ceteris paribus when we observe how changes in price affect demand or supply, but we can apply ceteris paribus more generally. In the real world, demand and supply depend on more factors than just price. For example, a consumer’s demand depends on income and a producer’s supply depends on the cost of producing the product. How can we analyze the effect on demand or supply if multiple factors are changing at the same time—say price rises and income falls? The answer is that we examine the changes one at a time, assuming the other factors are held constant.
For example, we can say that an increase in the price reduces the amount consumers will buy (assuming income, and anything else that affects demand, is unchanged). Additionally, a decrease in income reduces the amount consumers can afford to buy (assuming price, and anything else that affects demand, is unchanged). This is what the ceteris paribus assumption really means. In this particular case, after we analyze each factor separately, we can combine the results. The amount consumers buy falls for two reasons: first because of the higher price and second because of the lower income.
How Does Income Affect Demand?
Let’s use income as an example of how factors other than price affect demand. Figure shows the initial demand for automobiles as D0. At point Q, for example, if the price is $20,000 per car, the quantity of cars demanded is 18 million. D0 also shows how the quantity of cars demanded would change as a result of a higher or lower price. For example, if the price of a car rose to $22,000, the quantity demanded would decrease to 17 million, at point R.
The original demand curve D0, like every demand curve, is based on the ceteris paribus assumption that no other economically relevant factors change. Now imagine that the economy expands in a way that raises the incomes of many people, making cars more affordable. How will this affect demand? How can we show this graphically?
Return to Figure. The price of cars is still $20,000, but with higher incomes, the quantity demanded has now increased to 20 million cars, shown at point S. As a result of the higher income levels, the demand curve shifts to the right to the new demand curve D1, indicating an increase in demand. Table shows clearly that this increased demand would occur at every price, not just the original one.
| Price | Decrease to D2 | Original Quantity Demanded D0 | Increase to D1 |
|---|---|---|---|
| $16,000 | 17.6 million | 22.0 million | 24.0 million |
| $18,000 | 16.0 million | 20.0 million | 22.0 million |
| $20,000 | 14.4 million | 18.0 million | 20.0 million |
| $22,000 | 13.6 million | 17.0 million | 19.0 million |
| $24,000 | 13.2 million | 16.5 million | 18.5 million |
| $26,000 | 12.8 million | 16.0 million | 18.0 million |
Now, imagine that the economy slows down so that many people lose their jobs or work fewer hours, reducing their incomes. In this case, the decrease in income would lead to a lower quantity of cars demanded at every given price, and the original demand curve D0 would shift left to D2. The shift from D0 to D2 represents such a decrease in demand: At any given price level, the quantity demanded is now lower. In this example, a price of $20,000 means 18 million cars sold along the original demand curve, but only 14.4 million sold after demand fell.
When a demand curve shifts, it does not mean that the quantity demanded by every individual buyer changes by the same amount. In this example, not everyone would have higher or lower income and not everyone would buy or not buy an additional car. Instead, a shift in a demand curve captures a pattern for the market as a whole.
In the previous section, we argued that higher income causes greater demand at every price. This is true for most goods and services. For some—luxury cars, vacations in Europe, and fine jewelry—the effect of a rise in income can be especially pronounced. A product whose demand rises when income rises, and vice versa, is called a normal good. A few exceptions to this pattern do exist. As incomes rise, many people will buy fewer generic brand groceries and more name brand groceries. They are less likely to buy used cars and more likely to buy new cars. They will be less likely to rent an apartment and more likely to own a home. A product whose demand falls when income rises, and vice versa, is called an inferior good. In other words, when income increases, the demand curve shifts to the left.
Other Factors That Shift Demand Curves
Income is not the only factor that causes a shift in demand. Other factors that change demand include tastes and preferences, the composition or size of the population, the prices of related goods, and even expectations. A change in any one of the underlying factors that determine what quantity people are willing to buy at a given price will cause a shift in demand. Graphically, the new demand curve lies either to the right (an increase) or to the left (a decrease) of the original demand curve. Let’s look at these factors.
Changing Tastes or Preferences
From 1980 to 2014, the per-person consumption of chicken by Americans rose from 48 pounds per year to 85 pounds per year, and consumption of beef fell from 77 pounds per year to 54 pounds per year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Changes like these are largely due to movements in taste, which change the quantity of a good demanded at every price: that is, they shift the demand curve for that good, rightward for chicken and leftward for beef.
Changes in the Composition of the Population
The proportion of elderly citizens in the United States population is rising. It rose from 9.8% in 1970 to 12.6% in 2000, and will be a projected (by the U.S. Census Bureau) 20% of the population by 2030. A society with relatively more children, like the United States in the 1960s, will have greater demand for goods and services like tricycles and day care facilities. A society with relatively more elderly persons, as the United States is projected to have by 2030, has a higher demand for nursing homes and hearing aids. Similarly, changes in the size of the population can affect the demand for housing and many other goods. Each of these changes in demand will be shown as a shift in the demand curve.
Changes in the prices of related goods such as substitutes or complements also can affect the demand for a product. A substitute is a good or service that we can use in place of another good or service. As electronic books, like this one, become more available, you would expect to see a decrease in demand for traditional printed books. A lower price for a substitute decreases demand for the other product. For example, in recent years as the price of tablet computers has fallen, the quantity demanded has increased (because of the law of demand). Since people are purchasing tablets, there has been a decrease in demand for laptops, which we can show graphically as a leftward shift in the demand curve for laptops. A higher price for a substitute good has the reverse effect.
Other goods are complements for each other, meaning we often use the goods together, because consumption of one good tends to enhance consumption of the other. Examples include breakfast cereal and milk; notebooks and pens or pencils, golf balls and golf clubs; gasoline and sport utility vehicles; and the five-way combination of bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, and bread. If the price of golf clubs rises, since the quantity demanded of golf clubs falls (because of the law of demand), demand for a complement good like golf balls decreases, too. Similarly, a higher price for skis would shift the demand curve for a complement good like ski resort trips to the left, while a lower price for a complement has the reverse effect.
Changes in Expectations about Future Prices or Other Factors that Affect Demand
While it is clear that the price of a good affects the quantity demanded, it is also true that expectations about the future price (or expectations about tastes and preferences, income, and so on) can affect demand. For example, if people hear that a hurricane is coming, they may rush to the store to buy flashlight batteries and bottled water. If people learn that the price of a good like coffee is likely to rise in the future, they may head for the store to stock up on coffee now. We show these changes in demand as shifts in the curve. Therefore, a shift in demand happens when a change in some economic factor (other than price) causes a different quantity to be demanded at every price. The following Work It Out feature shows how this happens.
Shift in Demand
A shift in demand means that at any price (and at every price), the quantity demanded will be different than it was before. Following is an example of a shift in demand due to an income increase.
Step 1. Draw the graph of a demand curve for a normal good like pizza. Pick a price (like P0). Identify the corresponding Q0. See an example in Figure.
Step 2. Suppose income increases. As a result of the change, are consumers going to buy more or less pizza? The answer is more. Draw a dotted horizontal line from the chosen price, through the original quantity demanded, to the new point with the new Q1. Draw a dotted vertical line down to the horizontal axis and label the new Q1. Figure provides an example.
Step 3. Now, shift the curve through the new point. You will see that an increase in income causes an upward (or rightward) shift in the demand curve, so that at any price the quantities demanded will be higher, as Figure illustrates.
Summing Up Factors That Change Demand
Figure summarizes six factors that can shift demand curves. The direction of the arrows indicates whether the demand curve shifts represent an increase in demand or a decrease in demand. Notice that a change in the price of the good or service itself is not listed among the factors that can shift a demand curve. A change in the price of a good or service causes a movement along a specific demand curve, and it typically leads to some change in the quantity demanded, but it does not shift the demand curve.
When a demand curve shifts, it will then intersect with a given supply curve at a different equilibrium price and quantity. We are, however, getting ahead of our story. Before discussing how changes in demand can affect equilibrium price and quantity, we first need to discuss shifts in supply curves.
How Production Costs Affect Supply
A supply curve shows how quantity supplied will change as the price rises and falls, assuming ceteris paribus so that no other economically relevant factors are changing. If other factors relevant to supply do change, then the entire supply curve will shift. Just as we described a shift in demand as a change in the quantity demanded at every price, a shift in supply means a change in the quantity supplied at every price.
In thinking about the factors that affect supply, remember what motivates firms: profits, which are the difference between revenues and costs. A firm produces goods and services using combinations of labor, materials, and machinery, or what we call inputs or factors of production. If a firm faces lower costs of production, while the prices for the good or service the firm produces remain unchanged, a firm’s profits go up. When a firm’s profits increase, it is more motivated to produce output, since the more it produces the more profit it will earn. When costs of production fall, a firm will tend to supply a larger quantity at any given price for its output. We can show this by the supply curve shifting to the right.
Take, for example, a messenger company that delivers packages around a city. The company may find that buying gasoline is one of its main costs. If the price of gasoline falls, then the company will find it can deliver messages more cheaply than before. Since lower costs correspond to higher profits, the messenger company may now supply more of its services at any given price. For example, given the lower gasoline prices, the company can now serve a greater area, and increase its supply.
Conversely, if a firm faces higher costs of production, then it will earn lower profits at any given selling price for its products. As a result, a higher cost of production typically causes a firm to supply a smaller quantity at any given price. In this case, the supply curve shifts to the left.
Consider the supply for cars, shown by curve S0 in Figure. Point J indicates that if the price is $20,000, the quantity supplied will be 18 million cars. If the price rises to $22,000 per car, ceteris paribus, the quantity supplied will rise to 20 million cars, as point K on the S0 curve shows. We can show the same information in table form, as in Table.
| Price | Decrease to S1 | Original Quantity Supplied S0 | Increase to S2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| $16,000 | 10.5 million | 12.0 million | 13.2 million |
| $18,000 | 13.5 million | 15.0 million | 16.5 million |
| $20,000 | 16.5 million | 18.0 million | 19.8 million |
| $22,000 | 18.5 million | 20.0 million | 22.0 million |
| $24,000 | 19.5 million | 21.0 million | 23.1 million |
| $26,000 | 20.5 million | 22.0 million | 24.2 million |
Now, imagine that the price of steel, an important ingredient in manufacturing cars, rises, so that producing a car has become more expensive. At any given price for selling cars, car manufacturers will react by supplying a lower quantity. We can show this graphically as a leftward shift of supply, from S0 to S1, which indicates that at any given price, the quantity supplied decreases. In this example, at a price of $20,000, the quantity supplied decreases from 18 million on the original supply curve (S0) to 16.5 million on the supply curve S1, which is labeled as point L.
Conversely, if the price of steel decreases, producing a car becomes less expensive. At any given price for selling cars, car manufacturers can now expect to earn higher profits, so they will supply a higher quantity. The shift of supply to the right, from S0 to S2, means that at all prices, the quantity supplied has increased. In this example, at a price of $20,000, the quantity supplied increases from 18 million on the original supply curve (S0) to 19.8 million on the supply curve S2, which is labeled M.
Other Factors That Affect Supply
In the example above, we saw that changes in the prices of inputs in the production process will affect the cost of production and thus the supply. Several other things affect the cost of production, too, such as changes in weather or other natural conditions, new technologies for production, and some government policies.
Changes in weather and climate will affect the cost of production for many agricultural products. For example, in 2014 the Manchurian Plain in Northeastern China, which produces most of the country's wheat, corn, and soybeans, experienced its most severe drought in 50 years. A drought decreases the supply of agricultural products, which means that at any given price, a lower quantity will be supplied. Conversely, especially good weather would shift the supply curve to the right.
When a firm discovers a new technology that allows the firm to produce at a lower cost, the supply curve will shift to the right, as well. For instance, in the 1960s a major scientific effort nicknamed the Green Revolution focused on breeding improved seeds for basic crops like wheat and rice. By the early 1990s, more than two-thirds of the wheat and rice in low-income countries around the world used these Green Revolution seeds—and the harvest was twice as high per acre. A technological improvement that reduces costs of production will shift supply to the right, so that a greater quantity will be produced at any given price.
Government policies can affect the cost of production and the supply curve through taxes, regulations, and subsidies. For example, the U.S. government imposes a tax on alcoholic beverages that collects about $8 billion per year from producers. Businesses treat taxes as costs. Higher costs decrease supply for the reasons we discussed above. Other examples of policy that can affect cost are the wide array of government regulations that require firms to spend money to provide a cleaner environment or a safer workplace. Complying with regulations increases costs.
A government subsidy, on the other hand, is the opposite of a tax. A subsidy occurs when the government pays a firm directly or reduces the firm’s taxes if the firm carries out certain actions. From the firm’s perspective, taxes or regulations are an additional cost of production that shifts supply to the left, leading the firm to produce a lower quantity at every given price. Government subsidies reduce the cost of production and increase supply at every given price, shifting supply to the right. The following Work It Out feature shows how this shift happens.
Shift in Supply
We know that a supply curve shows the minimum price a firm will accept to produce a given quantity of output. What happens to the supply curve when the cost of production goes up? Following is an example of a shift in supply due to a production cost increase.
Step 1. Draw a graph of a supply curve for pizza. Pick a quantity (like Q0). If you draw a vertical line up from Q0 to the supply curve, you will see the price the firm chooses. Figure provides an example.
Step 2. Why did the firm choose that price and not some other? One way to think about this is that the price is composed of two parts. The first part is the cost of producing pizzas at the margin; in this case, the cost of producing the pizza, including cost of ingredients (e.g., dough, sauce, cheese, and pepperoni), the cost of the pizza oven, the shop rent, and the workers' wages. The second part is the firm’s desired profit, which is determined, among other factors, by the profit margins in that particular business. If you add these two parts together, you get the price the firm wishes to charge. The quantity Q0 and associated price P0 give you one point on the firm’s supply curve, as Figure illustrates.
Step 3. Now, suppose that the cost of production increases. Perhaps cheese has become more expensive by $0.75 per pizza. If that is true, the firm will want to raise its price by the amount of the increase in cost ($0.75). Draw this point on the supply curve directly above the initial point on the curve, but $0.75 higher, as Figure shows.
Step 4. Shift the supply curve through this point. You will see that an increase in cost causes an upward (or a leftward) shift of the supply curve so that at any price, the quantities supplied will be smaller, as Figure illustrates.
Summing Up Factors That Change Supply
Changes in the cost of inputs, natural disasters, new technologies, and the impact of government decisions all affect the cost of production. In turn, these factors affect how much firms are willing to supply at any given price.
Figure summarizes factors that change the supply of goods and services. Notice that a change in the price of the product itself is not among the factors that shift the supply curve. Although a change in price of a good or service typically causes a change in quantity supplied or a movement along the supply curve for that specific good or service, it does not cause the supply curve itself to shift.
Because demand and supply curves appear on a two-dimensional diagram with only price and quantity on the axes, an unwary visitor to the land of economics might be fooled into believing that economics is about only four topics: demand, supply, price, and quantity. However, demand and supply are really “umbrella” concepts: demand covers all the factors that affect demand, and supply covers all the factors that affect supply. We include factors other than price that affect demand and supply are included by using shifts in the demand or the supply curve. In this way, the two-dimensional demand and supply model becomes a powerful tool for analyzing a wide range of economic circumstances.
Key Concepts and Summary
Economists often use the ceteris paribus or “other things being equal” assumption: while examining the economic impact of one event, all other factors remain unchanged for analysis purposes. Factors that can shift the demand curve for goods and services, causing a different quantity to be demanded at any given price, include changes in tastes, population, income, prices of substitute or complement goods, and expectations about future conditions and prices. Factors that can shift the supply curve for goods and services, causing a different quantity to be supplied at any given price, include input prices, natural conditions, changes in technology, and government taxes, regulations, or subsidies.
Self-Check Questions
Why do economists use the ceteris paribus assumption?
Hint:
To make it easier to analyze complex problems. Ceteris paribus allows you to look at the effect of one factor at a time on what it is you are trying to analyze. When you have analyzed all the factors individually, you add the results together to get the final answer.
In an analysis of the market for paint, an economist discovers the facts listed below. State whether each of these changes will affect supply or demand, and in what direction.
- There have recently been some important cost-saving inventions in the technology for making paint.
- Paint is lasting longer, so that property owners need not repaint as often.
- Because of severe hailstorms, many people need to repaint now.
- The hailstorms damaged several factories that make paint, forcing them to close down for several months.
Hint:
- An improvement in technology that reduces the cost of production will cause an increase in supply. Alternatively, you can think of this as a reduction in price necessary for firms to supply any quantity. Either way, this can be shown as a rightward (or downward) shift in the supply curve.
- An improvement in product quality is treated as an increase in tastes or preferences, meaning consumers demand more paint at any price level, so demand increases or shifts to the right. If this seems counterintuitive, note that demand in the future for the longer-lasting paint will fall, since consumers are essentially shifting demand from the future to the present.
- An increase in need causes an increase in demand or a rightward shift in the demand curve.
- Factory damage means that firms are unable to supply as much in the present. Technically, this is an increase in the cost of production. Either way you look at it, the supply curve shifts to the left.
Many changes are affecting the market for oil. Predict how each of the following events will affect the equilibrium price and quantity in the market for oil. In each case, state how the event will affect the supply and demand diagram. Create a sketch of the diagram if necessary.
- Cars are becoming more fuel efficient, and therefore get more miles to the gallon.
- The winter is exceptionally cold.
- A major discovery of new oil is made off the coast of Norway.
- The economies of some major oil-using nations, like Japan, slow down.
- A war in the Middle East disrupts oil-pumping schedules.
- Landlords install additional insulation in buildings.
- The price of solar energy falls dramatically.
- Chemical companies invent a new, popular kind of plastic made from oil.
Hint:
- More fuel-efficient cars means there is less need for gasoline. This causes a leftward shift in the demand for gasoline and thus oil. Since the demand curve is shifting down the supply curve, the equilibrium price and quantity both fall.
- Cold weather increases the need for heating oil. This causes a rightward shift in the demand for heating oil and thus oil. Since the demand curve is shifting up the supply curve, the equilibrium price and quantity both rise.
- A discovery of new oil will make oil more abundant. This can be shown as a rightward shift in the supply curve, which will cause a decrease in the equilibrium price along with an increase in the equilibrium quantity. (The supply curve shifts down the demand curve so price and quantity follow the law of demand. If price goes down, then the quantity goes up.)
- When an economy slows down, it produces less output and demands less input, including energy, which is used in the production of virtually everything. A decrease in demand for energy will be reflected as a decrease in the demand for oil, or a leftward shift in demand for oil. Since the demand curve is shifting down the supply curve, both the equilibrium price and quantity of oil will fall.
- Disruption of oil pumping will reduce the supply of oil. This leftward shift in the supply curve will show a movement up the demand curve, resulting in an increase in the equilibrium price of oil and a decrease in the equilibrium quantity.
- Increased insulation will decrease the demand for heating. This leftward shift in the demand for oil causes a movement down the supply curve, resulting in a decrease in the equilibrium price and quantity of oil.
- Solar energy is a substitute for oil-based energy. So if solar energy becomes cheaper, the demand for oil will decrease as consumers switch from oil to solar. The decrease in demand for oil will be shown as a leftward shift in the demand curve. As the demand curve shifts down the supply curve, both equilibrium price and quantity for oil will fall.
- A new, popular kind of plastic will increase the demand for oil. The increase in demand will be shown as a rightward shift in demand, raising the equilibrium price and quantity of oil.
Review Questions
When analyzing a market, how do economists deal with the problem that many factors that affect the market are changing at the same time?
Name some factors that can cause a shift in the demand curve in markets for goods and services.
Name some factors that can cause a shift in the supply curve in markets for goods and services.
Critical Thinking Questions
Consider the demand for hamburgers. If the price of a substitute good (for example, hot dogs) increases and the price of a complement good (for example, hamburger buns) increases, can you tell for sure what will happen to the demand for hamburgers? Why or why not? Illustrate your answer with a graph.
How do you suppose the demographics of an aging population of “Baby Boomers” in the United States will affect the demand for milk? Justify your answer.
We know that a change in the price of a product causes a movement along the demand curve. Suppose consumers believe that prices will be rising in the future. How will that affect demand for the product in the present? Can you show this graphically?
Suppose there is a soda tax to curb obesity. What should a reduction in the soda tax do to the supply of sodas and to the equilibrium price and quantity? Can you show this graphically? Hint: Assume that the soda tax is collected from the sellers.
Problems
Table shows information on the demand and supply for bicycles, where the quantities of bicycles are measured in thousands.
| Price | Qd | Qs |
|---|---|---|
| $120 | 50 | 36 |
| $150 | 40 | 40 |
| $180 | 32 | 48 |
| $210 | 28 | 56 |
| $240 | 24 | 70 |
- What is the quantity demanded and the quantity supplied at a price of $210?
- At what price is the quantity supplied equal to 48,000?
- Graph the demand and supply curve for bicycles. How can you determine the equilibrium price and quantity from the graph? How can you determine the equilibrium price and quantity from the table? What are the equilibrium price and equilibrium quantity?
- If the price was $120, what would the quantities demanded and supplied be? Would a shortage or surplus exist? If so, how large would the shortage or surplus be?
The computer market in recent years has seen many more computers sell at much lower prices. What shift in demand or supply is most likely to explain this outcome? Sketch a demand and supply diagram and explain your reasoning for each.
- A rise in demand
- A fall in demand
- A rise in supply
- A fall in supply
References
Landsburg, Steven E. The Armchair Economist: Economics and Everyday Life. New York: The Free Press. 2012. specifically Section IV: How Markets Work.
National Chicken Council. 2015. "Per Capita Consumption of Poultry and Livestock, 1965 to Estimated 2015, in Pounds." Accessed April 13, 2015. http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/statistics/per-capita-consumption-of-poultry-and-livestock-1965-to-estimated-2012-in-pounds/.
Wessel, David. “Saudi Arabia Fears $40-a-Barrel Oil, Too.” The Wall Street Journal. May 27, 2004, p. 42. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB108561000087822300.
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oercommons
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28784/overview
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Changes in Equilibrium Price and Quantity: The Four-Step Process
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Identify equilibrium price and quantity through the four-step process
- Graph equilibrium price and quantity
- Contrast shifts of demand or supply and movements along a demand or supply curve
- Graph demand and supply curves, including equilibrium price and quantity, based on real-world examples
Let’s begin this discussion with a single economic event. It might be an event that affects demand, like a change in income, population, tastes, prices of substitutes or complements, or expectations about future prices. It might be an event that affects supply, like a change in natural conditions, input prices, or technology, or government policies that affect production. How does this economic event affect equilibrium price and quantity? We will analyze this question using a four-step process.
Step 1. Draw a demand and supply model before the economic change took place. To establish the model requires four standard pieces of information: The law of demand, which tells us the slope of the demand curve; the law of supply, which gives us the slope of the supply curve; the shift variables for demand; and the shift variables for supply. From this model, find the initial equilibrium values for price and quantity.
Step 2. Decide whether the economic change you are analyzing affects demand or supply. In other words, does the event refer to something in the list of demand factors or supply factors?
Step 3. Decide whether the effect on demand or supply causes the curve to shift to the right or to the left, and sketch the new demand or supply curve on the diagram. In other words, does the event increase or decrease the amount consumers want to buy or producers want to sell?
Step 4. Identify the new equilibrium and then compare the original equilibrium price and quantity to the new equilibrium price and quantity.
Let’s consider one example that involves a shift in supply and one that involves a shift in demand. Then we will consider an example where both supply and demand shift.
Good Weather for Salmon Fishing
Supposed that during the summer of 2015, weather conditions were excellent for commercial salmon fishing off the California coast. Heavy rains meant higher than normal levels of water in the rivers, which helps the salmon to breed. Slightly cooler ocean temperatures stimulated the growth of plankton, the microscopic organisms at the bottom of the ocean food chain, providing everything in the ocean with a hearty food supply. The ocean stayed calm during fishing season, so commercial fishing operations did not lose many days to bad weather. How did these climate conditions affect the quantity and price of salmon? Figure illustrates the four-step approach, which we explain below, to work through this problem. Table also provides the information to work the problem.
| Price per Pound | Quantity Supplied in 2014 | Quantity Supplied in 2015 | Quantity Demanded |
|---|---|---|---|
| $2.00 | 80 | 400 | 840 |
| $2.25 | 120 | 480 | 680 |
| $2.50 | 160 | 550 | 550 |
| $2.75 | 200 | 600 | 450 |
| $3.00 | 230 | 640 | 350 |
| $3.25 | 250 | 670 | 250 |
| $3.50 | 270 | 700 | 200 |
Step 1. Draw a demand and supply model to illustrate the market for salmon in the year before the good weather conditions began. The demand curve D0 and the supply curve S0 show that the original equilibrium price is $3.25 per pound and the original equilibrium quantity is 250,000 fish. (This price per pound is what commercial buyers pay at the fishing docks. What consumers pay at the grocery is higher.)
Step 2. Did the economic event affect supply or demand? Good weather is an example of a natural condition that affects supply.
Step 3. Was the effect on supply an increase or a decrease? Good weather is a change in natural conditions that increases the quantity supplied at any given price. The supply curve shifts to the right, moving from the original supply curve S0 to the new supply curve S1, which Figure and Table show.
Step 4. Compare the new equilibrium price and quantity to the original equilibrium. At the new equilibrium E1, the equilibrium price falls from $3.25 to $2.50, but the equilibrium quantity increases from 250,000 to 550,000 salmon. Notice that the equilibrium quantity demanded increased, even though the demand curve did not move.
In short, good weather conditions increased supply of the California commercial salmon. The result was a higher equilibrium quantity of salmon bought and sold in the market at a lower price.
Newspapers and the Internet
According to the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, increasingly more people, especially younger people, are obtaining their news from online and digital sources. The majority of U.S. adults now own smartphones or tablets, and most of those Americans say they use them in part to access the news. From 2004 to 2012, the share of Americans who reported obtaining their news from digital sources increased from 24% to 39%. How has this affected consumption of print news media, and radio and television news? Figure and the text below illustrates using the four-step analysis to answer this question.
Step 1. Develop a demand and supply model to think about what the market looked like before the event. The demand curve D0 and the supply curve S0 show the original relationships. In this case, we perform the analysis without specific numbers on the price and quantity axis.
Step 2. Did the described change affect supply or demand? A change in tastes, from traditional news sources (print, radio, and television) to digital sources, caused a change in demand for the former.
Step 3. Was the effect on demand positive or negative? A shift to digital news sources will tend to mean a lower quantity demanded of traditional news sources at every given price, causing the demand curve for print and other traditional news sources to shift to the left, from D0 to D1.
Step 4. Compare the new equilibrium price and quantity to the original equilibrium price. The new equilibrium (E1) occurs at a lower quantity and a lower price than the original equilibrium (E0).
The decline in print news reading predates 2004. Print newspaper circulation peaked in 1973 and has declined since then due to competition from television and radio news. In 1991, 55% of Americans indicated they received their news from print sources, while only 29% did so in 2012. Radio news has followed a similar path in recent decades, with the share of Americans obtaining their news from radio declining from 54% in 1991 to 33% in 2012. Television news has held its own over the last 15 years, with a market share staying in the mid to upper fifties. What does this suggest for the future, given that two-thirds of Americans under 30 years old say they do not obtain their news from television at all?
The Interconnections and Speed of Adjustment in Real Markets
In the real world, many factors that affect demand and supply can change all at once. For example, the demand for cars might increase because of rising incomes and population, and it might decrease because of rising gasoline prices (a complementary good). Likewise, the supply of cars might increase because of innovative new technologies that reduce the cost of car production, and it might decrease as a result of new government regulations requiring the installation of costly pollution-control technology.
Moreover, rising incomes and population or changes in gasoline prices will affect many markets, not just cars. How can an economist sort out all these interconnected events? The answer lies in the ceteris paribus assumption. Look at how each economic event affects each market, one event at a time, holding all else constant. Then combine the analyses to see the net effect.
A Combined Example
The U.S. Postal Service is facing difficult challenges. Compensation for postal workers tends to increase most years due to cost-of-living increases. At the same time, increasingly more people are using email, text, and other digital message forms such as Facebook and Twitter to communicate with friends and others. What does this suggest about the continued viability of the Postal Service? Figure and the text below illustrate this using the four-step analysis to answer this question.
Since this problem involves two disturbances, we need two four-step analyses, the first to analyze the effects of higher compensation for postal workers, the second to analyze the effects of many people switching from “snail mail” to email and other digital messages.
Figure (a) shows the shift in supply discussed in the following steps.
Step 1. Draw a demand and supply model to illustrate what the market for the U.S. Postal Service looked like before this scenario starts. The demand curve D0 and the supply curve S0 show the original relationships.
Step 2. Did the described change affect supply or demand? Labor compensation is a cost of production. A change in production costs caused a change in supply for the Postal Service.
Step 3. Was the effect on supply positive or negative? Higher labor compensation leads to a lower quantity supplied of postal services at every given price, causing the supply curve for postal services to shift to the left, from S0 to S1.
Step 4. Compare the new equilibrium price and quantity to the original equilibrium price. The new equilibrium (E1) occurs at a lower quantity and a higher price than the original equilibrium (E0).
Figure (b) shows the shift in demand in the following steps.
Step 1. Draw a demand and supply model to illustrate what the market for U.S. Postal Services looked like before this scenario starts. The demand curve D0 and the supply curve S0 show the original relationships. Note that this diagram is independent from the diagram in panel (a).
Step 2. Did the change described affect supply or demand? A change in tastes away from snail mail toward digital messages will cause a change in demand for the Postal Service.
Step 3. Was the effect on demand positive or negative? A change in tastes away from snailmail toward digital messages causes lower quantity demanded of postal services at every given price, causing the demand curve for postal services to shift to the left, from D0 to D1.
Step 4. Compare the new equilibrium price and quantity to the original equilibrium price. The new equilibrium (E2) occurs at a lower quantity and a lower price than the original equilibrium (E0).
The final step in a scenario where both supply and demand shift is to combine the two individual analyses to determine what happens to the equilibrium quantity and price. Graphically, we superimpose the previous two diagrams one on top of the other, as in Figure.
Following are the results:
Effect on Quantity: The effect of higher labor compensation on Postal Services because it raises the cost of production is to decrease the equilibrium quantity. The effect of a change in tastes away from snail mail is to decrease the equilibrium quantity. Since both shifts are to the left, the overall impact is a decrease in the equilibrium quantity of Postal Services (Q3). This is easy to see graphically, since Q3 is to the left of Q0.
Effect on Price: The overall effect on price is more complicated. The effect of higher labor compensation on Postal Services, because it raises the cost of production, is to increase the equilibrium price. The effect of a change in tastes away from snail mail is to decrease the equilibrium price. Since the two effects are in opposite directions, unless we know the magnitudes of the two effects, the overall effect is unclear. This is not unusual. When both curves shift, typically we can determine the overall effect on price or on quantity, but not on both. In this case, we determined the overall effect on the equilibrium quantity, but not on the equilibrium price. In other cases, it might be the opposite.
The next Clear It Up feature focuses on the difference between shifts of supply or demand and movements along a curve.
What is the difference between shifts of demand or supply versus movements along a demand or supply curve?
One common mistake in applying the demand and supply framework is to confuse the shift of a demand or a supply curve with movement along a demand or supply curve. As an example, consider a problem that asks whether a drought will increase or decrease the equilibrium quantity and equilibrium price of wheat. Lee, a student in an introductory economics class, might reason:
“Well, it is clear that a drought reduces supply, so I will shift back the supply curve, as in the shift from the original supply curve S0 to S1 on the diagram (Shift 1). The equilibrium moves from E0 to E1, the equilibrium quantity is lower and the equilibrium price is higher. Then, a higher price makes farmers more likely to supply the good, so the supply curve shifts right, as shows the shift from S1 to S2, shows on the diagram (Shift 2), so that the equilibrium now moves from E1 to E2. The higher price, however, also reduces demand and so causes demand to shift back, like the shift from the original demand curve, D0 to D1 on the diagram (labeled Shift 3), and the equilibrium moves from E2 to E3.”
At about this point, Lee suspects that this answer is headed down the wrong path. Think about what might be wrong with Lee’s logic, and then read the answer that follows.
Answer: Lee’s first step is correct: that is, a drought shifts back the supply curve of wheat and leads to a prediction of a lower equilibrium quantity and a higher equilibrium price. This corresponds to a movement along the original demand curve (D0), from E0 to E1. The rest of Lee’s argument is wrong, because it mixes up shifts in supply with quantity supplied, and shifts in demand with quantity demanded. A higher or lower price never shifts the supply curve, as suggested by the shift in supply from S1 to S2. Instead, a price change leads to a movement along a given supply curve. Similarly, a higher or lower price never shifts a demand curve, as suggested in the shift from D0 to D1. Instead, a price change leads to a movement along a given demand curve. Remember, a change in the price of a good never causes the demand or supply curve for that good to shift.
Think carefully about the timeline of events: What happens first, what happens next? What is cause, what is effect? If you keep the order right, you are more likely to get the analysis correct.
In the four-step analysis of how economic events affect equilibrium price and quantity, the movement from the old to the new equilibrium seems immediate. As a practical matter, however, prices and quantities often do not zoom straight to equilibrium. More realistically, when an economic event causes demand or supply to shift, prices and quantities set off in the general direction of equilibrium. Even as they are moving toward one new equilibrium, a subsequent change in demand or supply often pushes prices toward another equilibrium.
Key Concepts and Summary
When using the supply and demand framework to think about how an event will affect the equilibrium price and quantity, proceed through four steps: (1) sketch a supply and demand diagram to think about what the market looked like before the event; (2) decide whether the event will affect supply or demand; (3) decide whether the effect on supply or demand is negative or positive, and draw the appropriate shifted supply or demand curve; (4) compare the new equilibrium price and quantity to the original ones.
Self-Check Questions
Let’s think about the market for air travel. From August 2014 to January 2015, the price of jet fuel increased roughly 47%. Using the four-step analysis, how do you think this fuel price increase affected the equilibrium price and quantity of air travel?
Hint:
Step 1. Draw the graph with the initial supply and demand curves. Label the initial equilibrium price and quantity.
Step 2. Did the economic event affect supply or demand? Jet fuel is a cost of producing air travel, so an increase in jet fuel price affects supply.
Step 3. An increase in the price of jet fuel caused a decrease in the cost of air travel. We show this as a downward or rightward shift in supply.
Step 4. A rightward shift in supply causes a movement down the demand curve, lowering the equilibrium price of air travel and increasing the equilibrium quantity.
A tariff is a tax on imported goods. Suppose the U.S. government cuts the tariff on imported flat screen televisions. Using the four-step analysis, how do you think the tariff reduction will affect the equilibrium price and quantity of flat screen TVs?
Hint:
Step 1. Draw the graph with the initial supply and demand curves. Label the initial equilibrium price and quantity.
Step 2. Did the economic event affect supply or demand? A tariff is treated like a cost of production, so this affects supply.
Step 3. A tariff reduction is equivalent to a decrease in the cost of production, which we can show as a rightward (or downward) shift in supply.
Step 4. A rightward shift in supply causes a movement down the demand curve, lowering the equilibrium price and raising the equilibrium quantity.
Review Questions
How does one analyze a market where both demand and supply shift?
What causes a movement along the demand curve? What causes a movement along the supply curve?
Critical Thinking Questions
Use the four-step process to analyze the impact of the advent of the iPod (or other portable digital music players) on the equilibrium price and quantity of the Sony Walkman (or other portable audio cassette players).
Use the four-step process to analyze the impact of a reduction in tariffs on imports of iPods on the equilibrium price and quantity of Sony Walkman-type products.
Suppose both of these events took place at the same time. Combine your analyses of the impacts of the iPod and the tariff reduction to determine the likely impact on the equilibrium price and quantity of Sony Walkman-type products. Show your answer graphically.
Problems
Table illustrates the market's demand and supply for cheddar cheese. Graph the data and find the equilibrium. Next, create a table showing the change in quantity demanded or quantity supplied, and a graph of the new equilibrium, in each of the following situations:
- The price of milk, a key input for cheese production, rises, so that the supply decreases by 80 pounds at every price.
- A new study says that eating cheese is good for your health, so that demand increases by 20% at every price.
| Price per Pound | Qd | Qs |
|---|---|---|
| $3.00 | 750 | 540 |
| $3.20 | 700 | 600 |
| $3.40 | 650 | 650 |
| $3.60 | 620 | 700 |
| $3.80 | 600 | 720 |
| $4.00 | 590 | 730 |
Table shows the supply and demand for movie tickets in a city. Graph demand and supply and identify the equilibrium. Then calculate in a table and graph the effect of the following two changes.
- Three new nightclubs open. They offer decent bands and have no cover charge, but make their money by selling food and drink. As a result, demand for movie tickets falls by six units at every price.
- The city eliminates a tax that it placed on all local entertainment businesses. The result is that the quantity supplied of movies at any given price increases by 10%.
| Price per Pound | Qd | Qs |
|---|---|---|
| $5.00 | 26 | 16 |
| $6.00 | 24 | 18 |
| $7.00 | 22 | 20 |
| $8.00 | 21 | 21 |
| $9.00 | 20 | 22 |
References
Pew Research Center. “Pew Research: Center for the People & the Press.” http://www.people-press.org/.
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:18.864735
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09/20/2018
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28887/overview
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The Use of Mathematics in Principles of Economics
(This appendix should be consulted after first reading Welcome to Economics!) Economics is not math. There is no important concept in this course that cannot be explained without mathematics. That said, math is a tool that can be used to illustrate economic concepts. Remember the saying a picture is worth a thousand words? Instead of a picture, think of a graph. It is the same thing. Economists use models as the primary tool to derive insights about economic issues and problems. Math is one way of working with (or manipulating) economic models.
There are other ways of representing models, such as text or narrative. But why would you use your fist to bang a nail, if you had a hammer? Math has certain advantages over text. It disciplines your thinking by making you specify exactly what you mean. You can get away with fuzzy thinking in your head, but you cannot when you reduce a model to algebraic equations. At the same time, math also has disadvantages. Mathematical models are necessarily based on simplifying assumptions, so they are not likely to be perfectly realistic. Mathematical models also lack the nuances which can be found in narrative models. The point is that math is one tool, but it is not the only tool or even always the best tool economists can use. So what math will you need for this book? The answer is: little more than high school algebra and graphs. You will need to know:
- What a function is
- How to interpret the equation of a line (i.e., slope and intercept)
- How to manipulate a line (i.e., changing the slope or the intercept)
- How to compute and interpret a growth rate (i.e., percentage change)
- How to read and manipulate a graph
In this text, we will use the easiest math possible, and we will introduce it in this appendix. So if you find some math in the book that you cannot follow, come back to this appendix to review. Like most things, math has diminishing returns. A little math ability goes a long way; the more advanced math you bring in, the less additional knowledge that will get you. That said, if you are going to major in economics, you should consider learning a little calculus. It will be worth your while in terms of helping you learn advanced economics more quickly.
Algebraic Models
Often economic models (or parts of models) are expressed in terms of mathematical functions. What is a function? A function describes a relationship. Sometimes the relationship is a definition. For example (using words), your professor is Adam Smith. This could be expressed as Professor = Adam Smith. Or Friends = Bob + Shawn + Margaret.
Often in economics, functions describe cause and effect. The variable on the left-hand side is what is being explained (“the effect”). On the right-hand side is what is doing the explaining (“the causes”). For example, suppose your GPA was determined as follows:
This equation states that your GPA depends on three things: your combined SAT score, your class attendance, and the number of hours you spend studying. It also says that study time is twice as important (0.50) as either combined_SAT score (0.25) or class_attendance (0.25). If this relationship is true, how could you raise your GPA? By not skipping class and studying more. Note that you cannot do anything about your SAT score, since if you are in college, you have (presumably) already taken the SATs.
Of course, economic models express relationships using economic variables, like Budget = money_spent_on_econ_books + money_spent_on_music, assuming that the only things you buy are economics books and music.
Most of the relationships we use in this course are expressed as linear equations of the form:
Expressing Equations Graphically
Graphs are useful for two purposes. The first is to express equations visually, and the second is to display statistics or data. This section will discuss expressing equations visually.
To a mathematician or an economist, a variable is the name given to a quantity that may assume a range of values. In the equation of a line presented above, x and y are the variables, with x on the horizontal axis and y on the vertical axis, and b and m representing factors that determine the shape of the line. To see how this equation works, consider a numerical example:
In this equation for a specific line, the b term has been set equal to 9 and the m term has been set equal to 3. Table shows the values of x and y for this given equation. Figure shows this equation, and these values, in a graph. To construct the table, just plug in a series of different values for x, and then calculate what value of y results. In the figure, these points are plotted and a line is drawn through them.
| x | y |
|---|---|
| 0 | 9 |
| 1 | 12 |
| 2 | 15 |
| 3 | 18 |
| 4 | 21 |
| 5 | 24 |
| 6 | 27 |
This example illustrates how the b and m terms in an equation for a straight line determine the shape of the line. The b term is called the y-intercept. The reason for this name is that, if x = 0, then the b term will reveal where the line intercepts, or crosses, the y-axis. In this example, the line hits the vertical axis at 9. The m term in the equation for the line is the slope. Remember that slope is defined as rise over run; more specifically, the slope of a line from one point to another is the change in the vertical axis divided by the change in the horizontal axis. In this example, each time the x term increases by one (the run), the y term rises by three. Thus, the slope of this line is three. Specifying a y-intercept and a slope—that is, specifying b and m in the equation for a line—will identify a specific line. Although it is rare for real-world data points to arrange themselves as an exact straight line, it often turns out that a straight line can offer a reasonable approximation of actual data.
Interpreting the Slope
The concept of slope is very useful in economics, because it measures the relationship between two variables. A positive slope means that two variables are positively related; that is, when x increases, so does y, or when x decreases, y decreases also. Graphically, a positive slope means that as a line on the line graph moves from left to right, the line rises. The length-weight relationship, shown in Figure later in this Appendix, has a positive slope. We will learn in other chapters that price and quantity supplied have a positive relationship; that is, firms will supply more when the price is higher.
A negative slope means that two variables are negatively related; that is, when x increases, y decreases, or when x decreases, y increases. Graphically, a negative slope means that, as the line on the line graph moves from left to right, the line falls. The altitude-air density relationship, shown in Figure later in this appendix, has a negative slope. We will learn that price and quantity demanded have a negative relationship; that is, consumers will purchase less when the price is higher.
A slope of zero means that there is no relationship between x and y. Graphically, the line is flat; that is, zero rise over the run. Figure of the unemployment rate, shown later in this appendix, illustrates a common pattern of many line graphs: some segments where the slope is positive, other segments where the slope is negative, and still other segments where the slope is close to zero.
The slope of a straight line between two points can be calculated in numerical terms. To calculate slope, begin by designating one point as the “starting point” and the other point as the “end point” and then calculating the rise over run between these two points. As an example, consider the slope of the air density graph between the points representing an altitude of 4,000 meters and an altitude of 6,000 meters:
Rise: Change in variable on vertical axis (end point minus original point)
Run: Change in variable on horizontal axis (end point minus original point)
Thus, the slope of a straight line between these two points would be that from the altitude of 4,000 meters up to 6,000 meters, the density of the air decreases by approximately 0.1 kilograms/cubic meter for each of the next 1,000 meters.
Suppose the slope of a line were to increase. Graphically, that means it would get steeper. Suppose the slope of a line were to decrease. Then it would get flatter. These conditions are true whether or not the slope was positive or negative to begin with. A higher positive slope means a steeper upward tilt to the line, while a smaller positive slope means a flatter upward tilt to the line. A negative slope that is larger in absolute value (that is, more negative) means a steeper downward tilt to the line. A slope of zero is a horizontal flat line. A vertical line has an infinite slope.
Suppose a line has a larger intercept. Graphically, that means it would shift out (or up) from the old origin, parallel to the old line. If a line has a smaller intercept, it would shift in (or down), parallel to the old line.
Solving Models with Algebra
Economists often use models to answer a specific question, like: What will the unemployment rate be if the economy grows at 3% per year? Answering specific questions requires solving the “system” of equations that represent the model.
Suppose the demand for personal pizzas is given by the following equation:
where Qd is the amount of personal pizzas consumers want to buy (i.e., quantity demanded), and P is the price of pizzas. Suppose the supply of personal pizzas is:
where Qs is the amount of pizza producers will supply (i.e., quantity supplied).
Finally, suppose that the personal pizza market operates where supply equals demand, or
We now have a system of three equations and three unknowns (Qd, Qs, and P), which we can solve with algebra:
Since Qd = Qs, we can set the demand and supply equation equal to each other:
Subtracting 2 from both sides and adding 2P to both sides yields:
In other words, the price of each personal pizza will be $2. How much will consumers buy?
Taking the price of $2, and plugging it into the demand equation, we get:
So if the price is $2 each, consumers will purchase 12. How much will producers supply? Taking the price of $2, and plugging it into the supply equation, we get:
So if the price is $2 each, producers will supply 12 personal pizzas. This means we did our math correctly, since Qd = Qs.
Solving Models with Graphs
If algebra is not your forte, you can get the same answer by using graphs. Take the equations for Qd and Qs and graph them on the same set of axes as shown in Figure. Since P is on the vertical axis, it is easiest if you solve each equation for P. The demand curve is then P = 8 – 0.5Qd and the supply curve is P = –0.4 + 0.2Qs. Note that the vertical intercepts are 8 and –0.4, and the slopes are –0.5 for demand and 0.2 for supply. If you draw the graphs carefully, you will see that where they cross (Qs = Qd), the price is $2 and the quantity is 12, just like the algebra predicted.
We will use graphs more frequently in this book than algebra, but now you know the math behind the graphs.
Growth Rates
Growth rates are frequently encountered in real world economics. A growth rate is simply the percentage change in some quantity. It could be your income. It could be a business’s sales. It could be a nation’s GDP. The formula for computing a growth rate is straightforward:
Suppose your job pays $10 per hour. Your boss, however, is so impressed with your work that he gives you a $2 per hour raise. The percentage change (or growth rate) in your pay is $2/$10 = 0.20 or 20%.
To compute the growth rate for data over an extended period of time, for example, the average annual growth in GDP over a decade or more, the denominator is commonly defined a little differently. In the previous example, we defined the quantity as the initial quantity—or the quantity when we started. This is fine for a one-time calculation, but when we compute the growth over and over, it makes more sense to define the quantity as the average quantity over the period in question, which is defined as the quantity halfway between the initial quantity and the next quantity. This is harder to explain in words than to show with an example. Suppose a nation’s GDP was $1 trillion in 2005 and $1.03 trillion in 2006. The growth rate between 2005 and 2006 would be the change in GDP ($1.03 trillion – $1.00 trillion) divided by the average GDP between 2005 and 2006 ($1.03 trillion + $1.00 trillion)/2. In other words:
Note that if we used the first method, the calculation would be ($1.03 trillion – $1.00 trillion) / $1.00 trillion = 3% growth, which is approximately the same as the second, more complicated method. If you need a rough approximation, use the first method. If you need accuracy, use the second method.
A few things to remember: A positive growth rate means the quantity is growing. A smaller growth rate means the quantity is growing more slowly. A larger growth rate means the quantity is growing more quickly. A negative growth rate means the quantity is decreasing.
The same change over times yields a smaller growth rate. If you got a $2 raise each year, in the first year the growth rate would be $2/$10 = 20%, as shown above. But in the second year, the growth rate would be $2/$12 = 0.167 or 16.7% growth. In the third year, the same $2 raise would correspond to a $2/$14 = 14.2%. The moral of the story is this: To keep the growth rate the same, the change must increase each period.
Displaying Data Graphically and Interpreting the Graph
Graphs are also used to display data or evidence. Graphs are a method of presenting numerical patterns. They condense detailed numerical information into a visual form in which relationships and numerical patterns can be seen more easily. For example, which countries have larger or smaller populations? A careful reader could examine a long list of numbers representing the populations of many countries, but with over 200 nations in the world, searching through such a list would take concentration and time. Putting these same numbers on a graph can quickly reveal population patterns. Economists use graphs both for a compact and readable presentation of groups of numbers and for building an intuitive grasp of relationships and connections.
Three types of graphs are used in this book: line graphs, pie graphs, and bar graphs. Each is discussed below. We also provide warnings about how graphs can be manipulated to alter viewers’ perceptions of the relationships in the data.
Line Graphs
The graphs we have discussed so far are called line graphs, because they show a relationship between two variables: one measured on the horizontal axis and the other measured on the vertical axis.
Sometimes it is useful to show more than one set of data on the same axes. The data in Table is displayed in Figure which shows the relationship between two variables: length and median weight for American baby boys and girls during the first three years of life. (The median means that half of all babies weigh more than this and half weigh less.) The line graph measures length in inches on the horizontal axis and weight in pounds on the vertical axis. For example, point A on the figure shows that a boy who is 28 inches long will have a median weight of about 19 pounds. One line on the graph shows the length-weight relationship for boys and the other line shows the relationship for girls. This kind of graph is widely used by healthcare providers to check whether a child’s physical development is roughly on track.
| Boys from Birth to 36 Months | Girls from Birth to 36 Months | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Length (inches) | Weight (pounds) | Length (inches) | Weight (pounds) |
| 20.0 | 8.0 | 20.0 | 7.9 |
| 22.0 | 10.5 | 22.0 | 10.5 |
| 24.0 | 13.5 | 24.0 | 13.2 |
| 26.0 | 16.4 | 26.0 | 16.0 |
| 28.0 | 19.0 | 28.0 | 18.8 |
| 30.0 | 21.8 | 30.0 | 21.2 |
| 32.0 | 24.3 | 32.0 | 24.0 |
| 34.0 | 27.0 | 34.0 | 26.2 |
| 36.0 | 29.3 | 36.0 | 28.9 |
| 38.0 | 32.0 | 38.0 | 31.3 |
Not all relationships in economics are linear. Sometimes they are curves. Figure presents another example of a line graph, representing the data from Table. In this case, the line graph shows how thin the air becomes when you climb a mountain. The horizontal axis of the figure shows altitude, measured in meters above sea level. The vertical axis measures the density of the air at each altitude. Air density is measured by the weight of the air in a cubic meter of space (that is, a box measuring one meter in height, width, and depth). As the graph shows, air pressure is heaviest at ground level and becomes lighter as you climb. Figure shows that a cubic meter of air at an altitude of 500 meters weighs approximately one kilogram (about 2.2 pounds). However, as the altitude increases, air density decreases. A cubic meter of air at the top of Mount Everest, at about 8,828 meters, would weigh only 0.023 kilograms. The thin air at high altitudes explains why many mountain climbers need to use oxygen tanks as they reach the top of a mountain.
| Altitude (meters) | Air Density (kg/cubic meters) |
|---|---|
| 0 | 1.200 |
| 500 | 1.093 |
| 1,000 | 0.831 |
| 1,500 | 0.678 |
| 2,000 | 0.569 |
| 2,500 | 0.484 |
| 3,000 | 0.415 |
| 3,500 | 0.357 |
| 4,000 | 0.307 |
| 4,500 | 0.231 |
| 5,000 | 0.182 |
| 5,500 | 0.142 |
| 6,000 | 0.100 |
| 6,500 | 0.085 |
| 7,000 | 0.066 |
| 7,500 | 0.051 |
| 8,000 | 0.041 |
| 8,500 | 0.025 |
| 9,000 | 0.022 |
| 9,500 | 0.019 |
| 10,000 | 0.014 |
The length-weight relationship and the altitude-air density relationships in these two figures represent averages. If you were to collect actual data on air pressure at different altitudes, the same altitude in different geographic locations will have slightly different air density, depending on factors like how far you are from the equator, local weather conditions, and the humidity in the air. Similarly, in measuring the height and weight of children for the previous line graph, children of a particular height would have a range of different weights, some above average and some below. In the real world, this sort of variation in data is common. The task of a researcher is to organize that data in a way that helps to understand typical patterns. The study of statistics, especially when combined with computer statistics and spreadsheet programs, is a great help in organizing this kind of data, plotting line graphs, and looking for typical underlying relationships. For most economics and social science majors, a statistics course will be required at some point.
One common line graph is called a time series, in which the horizontal axis shows time and the vertical axis displays another variable. Thus, a time series graph shows how a variable changes over time. Figure shows the unemployment rate in the United States since 1975, where unemployment is defined as the percentage of adults who want jobs and are looking for a job, but cannot find one. The points for the unemployment rate in each year are plotted on the graph, and a line then connects the points, showing how the unemployment rate has moved up and down since 1975. The line graph makes it easy to see, for example, that the highest unemployment rate during this time period was slightly less than 10% in the early 1980s and 2010, while the unemployment rate declined from the early 1990s to the end of the 1990s, before rising and then falling back in the early 2000s, and then rising sharply during the recession from 2008–2009.
Pie Graphs
A pie graph (sometimes called a pie chart) is used to show how an overall total is divided into parts. A circle represents a group as a whole. The slices of this circular “pie” show the relative sizes of subgroups.
Figure shows how the U.S. population was divided among children, working age adults, and the elderly in 1970, 2000, and what is projected for 2030. The information is first conveyed with numbers in Table, and then in three pie charts. The first column of Table shows the total U.S. population for each of the three years. Columns 2–4 categorize the total in terms of age groups—from birth to 18 years, from 19 to 64 years, and 65 years and above. In columns 2–4, the first number shows the actual number of people in each age category, while the number in parentheses shows the percentage of the total population comprised by that age group.
| Year | Total Population | 19 and Under | 20–64 years | Over 65 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | 205.0 million | 77.2 (37.6%) | 107.7 (52.5%) | 20.1 (9.8%) |
| 2000 | 275.4 million | 78.4 (28.5%) | 162.2 (58.9%) | 34.8 (12.6%) |
| 2030 | 351.1 million | 92.6 (26.4%) | 188.2 (53.6%) | 70.3 (20.0%) |
In a pie graph, each slice of the pie represents a share of the total, or a percentage. For example, 50% would be half of the pie and 20% would be one-fifth of the pie. The three pie graphs in Figure show that the share of the U.S. population 65 and over is growing. The pie graphs allow you to get a feel for the relative size of the different age groups from 1970 to 2000 to 2030, without requiring you to slog through the specific numbers and percentages in the table. Some common examples of how pie graphs are used include dividing the population into groups by age, income level, ethnicity, religion, occupation; dividing different firms into categories by size, industry, number of employees; and dividing up government spending or taxes into its main categories.
Bar Graphs
A bar graph uses the height of different bars to compare quantities. Table lists the 12 most populous countries in the world. Figure provides this same data in a bar graph. The height of the bars corresponds to the population of each country. Although you may know that China and India are the most populous countries in the world, seeing how the bars on the graph tower over the other countries helps illustrate the magnitude of the difference between the sizes of national populations.
| Country | Population |
|---|---|
| China | 1,369 |
| India | 1,270 |
| United States | 321 |
| Indonesia | 255 |
| Brazil | 204 |
| Pakistan | 190 |
| Nigeria | 184 |
| Bangladesh | 158 |
| Russia | 146 |
| Japan | 127 |
| Mexico | 121 |
| Philippines | 101 |
Bar graphs can be subdivided in a way that reveals information similar to that we can get from pie charts. Figure offers three bar graphs based on the information from Figure about the U.S. age distribution in 1970, 2000, and 2030. Figure (a) shows three bars for each year, representing the total number of persons in each age bracket for each year. Figure (b) shows just one bar for each year, but the different age groups are now shaded inside the bar. In Figure (c), still based on the same data, the vertical axis measures percentages rather than the number of persons. In this case, all three bar graphs are the same height, representing 100% of the population, with each bar divided according to the percentage of population in each age group. It is sometimes easier for a reader to run his or her eyes across several bar graphs, comparing the shaded areas, rather than trying to compare several pie graphs.
Figure and Figure show how the bars can represent countries or years, and how the vertical axis can represent a numerical or a percentage value. Bar graphs can also compare size, quantity, rates, distances, and other quantitative categories.
Comparing Line Graphs with Pie Charts and Bar Graphs
Now that you are familiar with pie graphs, bar graphs, and line graphs, how do you know which graph to use for your data? Pie graphs are often better than line graphs at showing how an overall group is divided. However, if a pie graph has too many slices, it can become difficult to interpret.
Bar graphs are especially useful when comparing quantities. For example, if you are studying the populations of different countries, as in Figure, bar graphs can show the relationships between the population sizes of multiple countries. Not only can it show these relationships, but it can also show breakdowns of different groups within the population.
A line graph is often the most effective format for illustrating a relationship between two variables that are both changing. For example, time series graphs can show patterns as time changes, like the unemployment rate over time. Line graphs are widely used in economics to present continuous data about prices, wages, quantities bought and sold, the size of the economy.
How Graphs Can Be Misleading
Graphs not only reveal patterns; they can also alter how patterns are perceived. To see some of the ways this can be done, consider the line graphs of Figure, Figure, and Figure. These graphs all illustrate the unemployment rate—but from different perspectives.
Suppose you wanted a graph which gives the impression that the rise in unemployment in 2009 was not all that large, or all that extraordinary by historical standards. You might choose to present your data as in Figure (a). Figure (a) includes much of the same data presented earlier in Figure, but stretches the horizontal axis out longer relative to the vertical axis. By spreading the graph wide and flat, the visual appearance is that the rise in unemployment is not so large, and is similar to some past rises in unemployment. Now imagine you wanted to emphasize how unemployment spiked substantially higher in 2009. In this case, using the same data, you can stretch the vertical axis out relative to the horizontal axis, as in Figure (b), which makes all rises and falls in unemployment appear larger.
A similar effect can be accomplished without changing the length of the axes, but by changing the scale on the vertical axis. In Figure (c), the scale on the vertical axis runs from 0% to 30%, while in Figure (d), the vertical axis runs from 3% to 10%. Compared to Figure, where the vertical scale runs from 0% to 12%, Figure (c) makes the fluctuation in unemployment look smaller, while Figure (d) makes it look larger.
Another way to alter the perception of the graph is to reduce the amount of variation by changing the number of points plotted on the graph. Figure (e) shows the unemployment rate according to five-year averages. By averaging out some of the year-to-year changes, the line appears smoother and with fewer highs and lows. In reality, the unemployment rate is reported monthly, and Figure (f) shows the monthly figures since 1960, which fluctuate more than the five-year average. Figure (f) is also a vivid illustration of how graphs can compress lots of data. The graph includes monthly data since 1960, which over almost 50 years, works out to nearly 600 data points. Reading that list of 600 data points in numerical form would be hypnotic. You can, however, get a good intuitive sense of these 600 data points very quickly from the graph.
A final trick in manipulating the perception of graphical information is that, by choosing the starting and ending points carefully, you can influence the perception of whether the variable is rising or falling. The original data show a general pattern with unemployment low in the 1960s, but spiking up in the mid-1970s, early 1980s, early 1990s, early 2000s, and late 2000s. Figure (g), however, shows a graph that goes back only to 1975, which gives an impression that unemployment was more-or-less gradually falling over time until the 2009 recession pushed it back up to its “original” level—which is a plausible interpretation if one starts at the high point around 1975.
These kinds of tricks—or shall we just call them “presentation choices”— are not limited to line graphs. In a pie chart with many small slices and one large slice, someone must decided what categories should be used to produce these slices in the first place, thus making some slices appear bigger than others. If you are making a bar graph, you can make the vertical axis either taller or shorter, which will tend to make variations in the height of the bars appear more or less.
Being able to read graphs is an essential skill, both in economics and in life. A graph is just one perspective or point of view, shaped by choices such as those discussed in this section. Do not always believe the first quick impression from a graph. View with caution.
Key Concepts and Summary
Math is a tool for understanding economics and economic relationships can be expressed mathematically using algebra or graphs. The algebraic equation for a line is y = b + mx, where x is the variable on the horizontal axis and y is the variable on the vertical axis, the b term is the y-intercept and the m term is the slope. The slope of a line is the same at any point on the line and it indicates the relationship (positive, negative, or zero) between two economic variables.
Economic models can be solved algebraically or graphically. Graphs allow you to illustrate data visually. They can illustrate patterns, comparisons, trends, and apportionment by condensing the numerical data and providing an intuitive sense of relationships in the data. A line graph shows the relationship between two variables: one is shown on the horizontal axis and one on the vertical axis. A pie graph shows how something is allotted, such as a sum of money or a group of people. The size of each slice of the pie is drawn to represent the corresponding percentage of the whole. A bar graph uses the height of bars to show a relationship, where each bar represents a certain entity, like a country or a group of people. The bars on a bar graph can also be divided into segments to show subgroups.
Any graph is a single visual perspective on a subject. The impression it leaves will be based on many choices, such as what data or time frame is included, how data or groups are divided up, the relative size of vertical and horizontal axes, whether the scale used on a vertical starts at zero. Thus, any graph should be regarded somewhat skeptically, remembering that the underlying relationship can be open to different interpretations.
Review Questions
Name three kinds of graphs and briefly state when is most appropriate to use each type of graph.
What is slope on a line graph?
What do the slices of a pie chart represent?
Why is a bar chart the best way to illustrate comparisons?
How does the appearance of positive slope differ from negative slope and from zero slope?
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:18.910657
|
09/20/2018
|
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28887/overview",
"title": "Principles of Macroeconomics 2e, The Use of Mathematics in Principles of Economics, The Use of Mathematics in Principles of Economics",
"author": null
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/73405/overview
|
Education Standards
Generic Planning Guide
"I Hear My School Singing" Model Poem Worksheet
"I Hear My School Singing" Planning Sheet
Lesson Reflection Worksheet
POWER Library
SICK by Shel Silverstein
I Hear ........
Overview
Students will learn and utilize list poems, understand and appreciate multiple perspectives while analyzing figures, memories and events in their educational community. They will also apply what they have learned to create a new product.
Lesson Objectives
Students will know / be able to.....
- Understand and appreciate multiple perspectives.
- Understand the meaning of a list poem.
- Analyze figures, memories, and events, in their educational community.
- Create list poems about their school and community.
- Apply what they have learned in creating a new product.
* This lesson plan has been adapted from the Walt Whitman as a Model Poet: "I Hear My School Singing" Lesson Plan from Read Write Think. The original plan was developed as part of a collaborative professional writing initiative sponsored by the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project (KMWP) at Kennedaw State University.
Warm Up / Introduction
Instructor Notes:
A list or catalog verse poem gets its name from the fact that most of the poem is made up of a long list of things. This list is in the middle of the poem with a few lines placed at the beginning and the end. These poems can rhyme but it is not needed to make them a list or catalog verse poem.
- Have students read the poem "SICK" by Shel Silverstein as an example of a list poem. Have the students discuss their thoughts about the poem.
- Brainstorm with your students some ideas that can be used for a list poem (i.e. list of Christmas gifts, groceries, laundry items, likes / dislikes, places, items that are green, things I did today). Place suggestions on the board or a large sheet of paper at the front of the room.
- As a group, create a list poem using one of the brainstorming ideas. You may need to prompt the students with questions like:
- How does it taste?
- What color?
- How does it feel?
- What is associated with it?
Additional Resources:
- If available, the book "The List Poem: A Guide to Teaching and Writing Catalog Verse" by Larry Fagin can be used for additional ideas on how to teach students about list poems.
Activity Directions:A list or catalog verse poem gets its name from the fact that most of the poem is made up of a long list of things. This list is in the middle of the poem with a few lines placed at the beginning and the end. These poems can rhyme but it is not needed to make them a list or catalog verse poem.
|
Research / Explore Activity
Instructor Notes:
- Using the POWER Library resource LitFinder, students should read the following poems:
- I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman
- I Too by Langston Hughes
- Praise Song for the Day by Elizabeth Alexander (This resource can be used as an additional poem) - This poem is not in LitFinder - It is available on Poets.org
- As the students read the poems, they should answer the following questions:
- What jumps out at them?
- Who is "singing" in the poem?
- What does the poet mean by "singing"?
- What do you think the poem is about?
- What questions do you have about the poem?
- Using the "I Hear My School Singing" Planning Sheet and Model Poem Worksheet, compose a list poem about your school community.
Assessment:
- Assessment will be based on the completed planning and model poem worksheets.
Extended Activities:
- Have the students compare and contrast the two or three poems.
Activity Directions:
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Reinforcement / Creation Activity
Instructor Notes:
- As a group, students should create a list poem about their community. They should use the Generic Model Poem Worksheet and Generic Planning Worksheet to complete this activity.
- Once the students have the poem created, they should divide the verses so each student has a part. Remind the students that they will be creating a book and also need people to create a title page, an author page with their names, and other components.
- Students will be creative and draw an interpretation for their section of the poem. This interpretation will be used as a page in an ebook about the community.
- Once all interpretations are completed, they should be complied into an ebook which will be provided to the elementary school(s) to use with their students.
Extended Activity:
- If there is extra time or there is a large number of students, an ebook can also be created for the My School poem.
eBook Example:
- "I Hear America" - OER Children's Book Citation: Nash, Marc. ""I Hear America" - OER Children's Book". OER Commons. Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, 19 Apr. 2019. Web. 12 Oct. 2020. <https://www.oercommons.org/authoring/53577-i-hear-america-oer-children-s-book>.
Activity Directions:
Sample Book:
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Reflection
Instructor Reflection:
Reflect on the lesson plan and document what worked for you, what did not work for you, and what would you change for the next time you use this lesson.
Directions:Using the Lesson Reflection Worksheet, reflect on the following questions:
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:18.955079
|
Lesson
|
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/73405/overview",
"title": "I Hear ........",
"author": "Reading Informational Text"
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/91953/overview
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Brave Bora
Overview
Free book for the teacher and class to read and interact.
Bora must go to the doctor for vaccination. Text to Self Connection, Probblem Solution, .
Brave Bora Text to Self-connection
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:18.972108
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04/19/2022
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/91953/overview",
"title": "Brave Bora",
"author": "ANN blackman"
}
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/71819/overview
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Quickstart Guide: Openly Licensed Images and Attribution
Top 10 Tips for Creating Accessible Documents
Using the Open Author Toolbar
Washington OER Hub - Submission Guidelines
OSPI Open Author Resource Template - ADA compliant
Overview
This is an Open Author resource template for OSPI staff and collaborators creating openly licensed resources. Please use the REMIX option to adapt this template for your needs - deleteing any instructions, notes, Edand examples.
Cover mage by ElasticComputeFarm from Pixabay
Insert First Lesson/Unit/Module/Chapter Title Here - Omit if there is only one section!
Template users - if you have guidance for facilitators using your materials, please insert that here. Areas to consider would be additional information about use with English Learner students, adaptations for students performing above or below grade level, extension activities, etc.
If you would like to have a thought partner in discussing template design that is pertinent to your content area or program, contact oer@k12.wa.us.
Overview
These headings and subheadings are completely generic - they not meant to guide your work. Instead, they just are examples of using Styles to format your document and keep it ADA compliant. This is about as plain vanilla template as you can get, it is only intended as a springboard for your design.
Subheading 1
Enter information
Subheading 2
Enter information
Sample List
- Thing 1
- Thing 2
- Thing 3
Sample Table
Do not use tables for formatting content. Do not forget to add alt text to table.
| Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 |
|---|---|---|
Sample Image
Photo by Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for American Education: Images of Teachers and Students in Action | CC BY NC
Sample Video
Notes
- Use headers in correct order – e.g. do not start with header 3
- You can click on the Accessibility icon - upper left on toolbar to check for ADA compliance
- Any image/icon/piece of content that is not your original work needs to be used with permission – either via an open license or written permission from the copyright holder – and properly attributed.
- Attach any resources - be sure to include editable files in addition to the PDF version. For example, you could attach a PowerPoint slide deck, a graphic organizer in word and PDF formats, and a link to an external site with more information
Attribution and License
Attribution
Insert any attribution info here that was not included next to the specific content. For example:
- NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press | Public License
- Common Core State Standards © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved | Public License
License
Except where otherwise noted, this work by the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. All logos and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Sections used under fair use doctrine (17 U.S.C. § 107) are marked.
This resource may contain links to websites operated by third parties. These links are provided for your convenience only and do not constitute or imply any endorsement or monitoring by OSPI. Please confirm the license status of any third-party resources and understand their terms before use.
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:19.004375
|
08/27/2020
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/71819/overview",
"title": "OSPI Open Author Resource Template - ADA compliant",
"author": "Barbara Soots"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/99653/overview
|
WINDS OF CHANGE: THE GALVESTON HURRICANE OF 1900 (Using Primary Sources)
Overview
The Galveston hurricane of 1900 and its effects on Texas' political, economic, and social development will be discussed in this lesson. With many immigrant families still in the greater Galveston/Houston area, they don’t realize how something like this can impact those that are new to an area or don’t have the financial stability as others.
Educator Activity Plan - Grades 6-8
Crossroads of History
Activity Plan – Monica Crane
| Program Title:How do the hopes of one group become the fears of another? | Instructional LevelMiddle School | Target AudienceGrade 7 | |||
| TPS Western Region Location | Galveston, Texas |
| Resources UsedSocial Justice Standards | JU.6-8.12 I can recognize and describe unfairnessand injustice in many forms includingattitudes, speech, behaviors, practicesand laws. |
| Facing History and Ourselves | |
| Library of Congress Teacher Resources C3 Teachers: Inquiry Design ModelAdditional sources: | Parts of the Primary Source Analysis ToolLibrary of Congress Primary resources (see links below)D2.Geo.5.6-8. Analyze the combinations of cultural and environmental characteristics that make places both like and different from otherplaces. Texas Essential Knowledge & Standards, Grade 77.9.C analyze the effects of physical and human factorssuch as climate, weather, landforms, irrigation,transportation, and communication on majorevents in Texas7.10.B Students will be able to explain ways in which geographic factors such as the Galveston Hurricane affected the political, economic and socialdevelopment of Texas.ISTE Standards for Students 1.3 Knowledge Constructor – 1.3a Students curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaning connections or conclusions. |
| Introductory Text/ Program justification | The Galveston hurricane of 1900 and its effects on Texas' political, economic, and social development will be discussed in this lesson. With many immigrant families still in the greater Galveston/Houston area, they don’t realize how something like this can impact those that are new to an area or don’t have the financial stability as others. |
| Materials needed: | Video created by Thomas Edison about The Great Storm, Images and then full-length news story, |
| Technology | Laptop, Internet Connection, Projector |
| LOC Primary Source links | American Stereoscopic Company. Shelter for the homeless, Galveston's awful disaster. New York, U.S.A.: American Stereoscopic Co. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/00651085/>.Bain News Service, Publisher. Galveston- Gathering Dead. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2014699676/>.Galveston Disaster, Texas: beginning life anew after the storm. Oct. 15. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2004680422/>.Vitagraph Company Of America, Inc Thomas A. Edison, and Paper Print Collection. Searching ruins on Broadway, Galveston, for dead bodies. prod by Smith, Albert E. , Uction, Camera United States: Edison Manufacturing Co, 1900. Video. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/00694301/>.Vitagraph Company Of America, Inc Thomas A. Edison, and Paper Print Collection. Panorama of Orphans' Home, Galveston. prod by Smith, Albert E. , Uction, Camera United States: Edison Manufacturing Co, 1900. Video. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/00694269/>.Zahner, M. H. Galveston disaster, I'm glad Ise living. Niagara Falls, N.Y.: M.H. Zahner, publisher. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/00651010/>. |
| Entry Activity/Task | Discussion starter: What natural disasters can you think of that you have learned about or studied? Students can use a map or globe to point out where they think these disasters occur more often. How can these natural disasters affect the people that live in that area and how different does it look when there is no advance notice? |
| Focused Activity/Task | |
| Conclusion Activity/Task | Students will watch the video “Galveston Hurricane of 1900 - Panorama of Galveston Power House”. This is a primary source video clip created by Thomas Edison after the Great Storm. This film captures scenes of the building that once supplied electricity for the city of Galveston, destroyed by the Hurricane of 1900- shot in September 1900. Students will jot down their thoughts on the following question as they watch the video clip – “What questions would you ask a survivor of the Great Storm who lost their home or place of work?” In groups of 3, have students will review the images provided that show different stages of the storm and different areas of Galveston and write a short news story about how individuals or families who have lost their home would receive help for food and shelter. Finally, students will watch a full-length news story called “Story of a Hurricane (1961)”. They will review the original question as well as the news story they created and think about how they would change their thoughts on their original answers and add on to how it would affect the social and economic situation of these individuals/families. |
| Assessment of Student Learning | Teacher observation and evaluation during student discussion. Answers to how students reacted to the video and images they viewed using a variety of questions. |
| Student Learning Accommodations & Modifications | Use a Padlet or a shared PowerPoint to post each learner’s thoughts; put students out into digital breakout rooms for small group discussion. Use Post-It notes on a board/construction paper for students to post their thoughts; put students into table groups to discuss with a small group before sharing their thoughts with the whole class afterward. |
| Multicultural Considerations | Use Immersive Reader to translate conversations for students who need such an accommodation. Also, awareness of those students who may be the in a lower poverty situation or have experienced a loss due to disaster who may have strong feelings about this subject. |
All Resources:
Adapted from template by Creator: Morgen Larsen for NCCE.org
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.023731
|
Monica Crane
|
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/99653/overview",
"title": "WINDS OF CHANGE: THE GALVESTON HURRICANE OF 1900 (Using Primary Sources)",
"author": "Homework/Assignment"
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|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/82732/overview
|
Do Your Socks Smell? Exploration of bacteria & colloidal silver
Overview
This lab will reinforce the experimental design process while also learning about nanomaterials such as colloidal silver.
Learning Objectives
Students will design an experiment to discover the antimicrobial properties of colloidal silver.
- Lesson developed from “Real Science or Marketing Hype
- ”http://www.districtor1.org/pages/uploaded_files/HighSchoolSTEM_Nanoparticles.pdf
Materials
- Colloidal Silver
- White tube socks cut into strips
- Prepared agar plates with/without E. coli
Procedure
- Distribute Nanooze article on “Smelly Feet” (electronic version http://www.nanooze.org/smelly-feet/)
- Class discussion on the article
- Students will be asked to design an experiment in pairs to test the antimicrobial properties of colloidal silver.
Experimental Design Steps:
1.Identify Problem or Question
2.Form Hypothesis
3.Procedure
4.Data & Observations
5.Conclusion
Students will design and carry out the experiment over the course of 3-5 days.
Day 1 & 2—students will read the article and design the experiment.
Day 3—students will carry out the experiment.
Days 4& 5—students will make observations, collect data and draw conclusions.
Post-lab: Students will present their experiment and results to class in 3 minute presentation.
Credits
This learning module was created by Nicole Simpsom, a participant in Indiana University-Purdue University’s NSF-Funded “Nanotechnology Experiences for Students and Teachers (NEST)” Program (Award # 1513112).
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.041761
|
06/23/2021
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/82732/overview",
"title": "Do Your Socks Smell? Exploration of bacteria & colloidal silver",
"author": "Integrated Nanosystems Development Institute (INDI)"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/70915/overview
|
Education Standards
Sock Shoot-Out
Overview
An underhand or overhand throwing activity. Can be played in a regular physical education setting, classroom or at home.
Sock Shoot-Out
Lesson Topic: Sock Shoot-Out
Lesson Description: Practice throwing to a target or shooting to a target. Students will throw from 5 different spots to a target for 3 rounds.
Learning Goals/Outcomes: Students will use underhand/overhand throwing techniques to throw a small ball or pair of socks into a target trying to score as many points as possible for 3 rounds.
Nebraska Standards:
PE.K.1.3.a Throws underhand with opposite foot forward.
PE.1.1.3.a Throws underhand, demonstrating 2 of 5 critical elements.
PE.2.1.3.a Throws underhand using a mature pattern.
PE.3.1.3.a Throws underhand to a partner or target using a mature pattern.
PE.4.1.3.a Applies underhand throwing skills with different sizes and types of objects
PE.5.2.2.c Recognizes the types of throw, volley, or striking actions needed for different small sided game situations and activities.
PE.6.1.2.a Throws with a mature pattern for distance, force, and speed in a variety of practice tasks
Teacher Planning: Background knowledge of underhand and overhand throwing patterns.
Equipment/Materials Needed: Pair of socks or small soft ball, Laundry basket or similar target.
Time Required for Lesson: 30 minutes
Diagram/Setup: See attached
Technology Use:
_____ YES __X___NO
Instructional Plan:
1. Mark out 5 spots to throw from for each target
2. Each student gets 5 throws per spot for a total of 25 throws each round
3. Have students keep track of how many makes they get each round and record their score on a score sheet. An example is provided under resources.
4. Play 3 rounds or as many as time allows
5. Teacher feedback on correct technique is important during the game
Activity: This game can be used as a way for students to practice underhand or overhand throwing. It can be used with multiple grades and allows the teacher to provide feedback for students during a game like setting.
Modifications: Change the distance of spots to target. Older kids longer distances, change the type of ball thrown at each target, modify the rules to allow a ball to bounce into the basket. Add a time limit to the round example 60 seconds. Offer fewer spots for younger kids. Limit the throws per spot
Safety Precautions: Design the exercises for the students to be able to safely complete. Use only soft balls and avoid throwing balls at other students or targets.
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.070737
|
Lesson Plan
|
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"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/70915/overview",
"title": "Sock Shoot-Out",
"author": "Game"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/75740/overview
|
House pets
I Have a Pet - Animal Song
Module about pets and farm animals
Overview
This is an online module that focuses on house pets and farm animals. The language level of the students is A1 acoording to CERF.
Introduction
Animals
Introduction:
Humans and animals have always had a close connection. Like humans, most animals can move and they need food and oxygen in order to survive. These living animal species have different characteristcs, sizes, age and interactions within the animal kingdom. Animals are very important and we should protect them in order to maintain the natural order of things. As we already discussed during our lesson, there are some animals that we can have as pets in our house, and some others that typically live in a farm. Based on your knowledge, you are now going to complete some activities to better your understanding of the topic.
Prerequisites: some vocabulary knowledge about animals, understanding the different characteristics each animal has, knowing the names of the most popular pets or farm animals.
Lets start with a song!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWepfJ-8XU0
Videos about animals
Watch the following videos and answer to the activity bellow.
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgHNbUD_Uz0
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veCHAz_HbOY
Activity 1
Look at the pictures and write down the name of the animal.
1. ......................................................................... 2. ...................................................................
3. ................................................................... 4. ...........................................................................
5. ................................................................. 6. ....................................................................
7. ............................................................... 8. ..............................................................................
9. ................................................................. 10. ...................................................................................
Activities part I
Activity 2
Decide if the following sentences are true or false.
1. Dogs and cats can live on a farm as well as in a house. ..........................
2. Snakes don't have legs. ...........................
3. Cats are always friendly with dogs. ...........................
4. Hamsters are as big as dogs in size. ..........................
5. Pigs are a farm animal. .........................
6. Some parrots are very colourful. ............................
7. Fishes live underwater. .............................
8. Cows are only black and white. .............................
Activity 3
Match the animals to their characteristics.
1. A cow a. can fly
2. A fish b. makes milk
3. A turtle c. chases a mouse
4. A cat d. has a poisonous bite.
5. A dog e. wiggles its tail
6. A bird f. lives in a bowl
7. A snake g. is pink
8. A pig h. walks really slow
Activities part II
Activity 4
How many words can you find in the puzzle?
.............................. .............................. ............................. ..............................
.............................. .............................. ............................. .............................
.............................. .............................. .............................. ............................
Activity 5
Place the following words to the category that they belong.
Words: run fast, legs, walk, swim, paws, fly, beautiful, small, big, whiskers, wings, fast, tail, teeth, bite, cute.
An animal can: ....................................................................................................................
An animal is: ........................................................................................................................
An animal has: .....................................................................................................................
Check your answers
Take a look at the correct answers and compare them to your own.
Activity 1
1. Cat 2. Horse
3. Turtle 4. Chicken
5. Rabbit 6. Sheep
7. Pig 8. Snake
9. Dog 10. Parrot
Activity 2
1. True 2. True
3. False 4. False
5. True 6. True
7. True 8. False
Activity 3
1. a 2. f
3. h 4. c
5. e 6. a
7. d 8. g
Activity 4
Horizontally
1. bird 2. pig
3..cat 4. rabbit
5. mouse 6. chicken
7. cow
Vertically
1. horse 2. snake
3. dog 4. fish
Activity 5
An animal can: run fast, walk, swim, fly, bite.
An animal is: beautiful, small, big, fast, cute.
An animal has: legs, paws, whiskers, wings, tail, teeth.
Now, lets find out how well you did!
35 - 40: EXCELLENT
30 - 35: GREAT
25 - 30: VERY GOOD
20 - 25: GOOD
15 - 20: OKAY
If you got under 15 correct answers,focus on the wrong answers and try to complete this online module again. Thank you very much for participating, I now you all tried your best. Now you can rest by playing the following game!
Kahoot Game!
Play the Kahoot Quiz Game with your classmates and let's see who will be the winner!
Follow the link: http://play.kahoot.it/v2/lobby?quizId=d6f3f870-2690-4adc-9e72-83d72b0c0702
Thank you for completing all of the activities, you did great! See you next time!
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.106417
|
12/15/2020
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/75740/overview",
"title": "Module about pets and farm animals",
"author": "Aikaterini Malouta"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/87273/overview
|
Creating Quiz in Moodle
Overview
Steps to create Moodle Quiz
Please find attached a PDF document explaining the steps.
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.122861
|
10/31/2021
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/87273/overview",
"title": "Creating Quiz in Moodle",
"author": "sushumna Rao"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28808/overview
|
How Economists Define and Compute Unemployment Rate
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Calculate the labor force participation rate and the unemployment rate
- Explain hidden unemployment and what it means to be in or out of the labor force
- Evaluate the collection and interpretation of unemployment data
Newspaper or television reports typically describe unemployment as a percentage or a rate. A recent report might have said, for example, from August 2009 to November 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate rose from 9.7% to 10.0%, but by June 2010, it had fallen to 9.5%. At a glance, the changes between the percentages may seem small. However, remember that the U.S. economy has about 160 million adults (as of the beginning of 2017) who either have jobs or are looking for them. A rise or fall of just 0.1% in the unemployment rate of 160 million potential workers translates into 160,000 people, which is roughly the total population of a city like Syracuse, New York, Brownsville, Texas, or Pasadena, California. Large rises in the unemployment rate mean large numbers of job losses. In November 2009, at the peak of the recession, about 15 million people were out of work. Even with the unemployment rate now at 4.8% as of January 2017, about 7.6 million people who would like to have jobs are out of work.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks and reports all data related to unemployment.
Who’s In or Out of the Labor Force?
Should we count everyone without a job as unemployed? Of course not. For example, we should not count children as unemployed. Surely, we should not count the retired as unemployed. Many full-time college students have only a part-time job, or no job at all, but it seems inappropriate to count them as suffering the pains of unemployment. Some people are not working because they are rearing children, ill, on vacation, or on parental leave.
The point is that we do not just divide the adult population into employed and unemployed. A third group exists: people who do not have a job, and for some reason—retirement, looking after children, taking a voluntary break before a new job—are not interested in having a job, either. It also includes those who do want a job but have quit looking, often due to discouragement due to their inability to find suitable employment. Economists refer to this third group of those who are not working and not looking for work as out of the labor force or not in the labor force.
The U.S. unemployment rate, which is based on a monthly survey carried out by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, asks a series of questions to divide the adult population into employed, unemployed, or not in the labor force. To be classified as unemployed, a person must be without a job, currently available to work, and actively looking for work in the previous four weeks. Thus, a person who does not have a job but who is not currently available to work or has not actively looked for work in the last four weeks is counted as out of the labor force.
Employed: currently working for pay
Unemployed: Out of work and actively looking for a job
Out of the labor force: Out of paid work and not actively looking for a job
Labor force: the number of employed plus the unemployed
Calculating the Unemployment Rate
Figure shows the three-way division of the 16-and-over population. In January 2017, about 62.9% of the adult population was "in the labor force"; that is, people are either employed or without a job but looking for work. We can divide those in the labor force into the employed and the unemployed. Table shows those values. The unemployment rate is not the percentage of the total adult population without jobs, but rather the percentage of adults who are in the labor force but who do not have jobs:
| Total adult population over the age of 16 | 254.082 million |
| In the labor force | 159.716 million (62.9%) |
| Employed | 152.081 million |
| Unemployed | 7.635 million |
| Out of the labor force | 94.366 million (37.1%) |
In this example, we can calculate the unemployment rate as 7.635 million unemployed people divided by 159.716 million people in the labor force, which works out to a 4.8% rate of unemployment. The following Work It Out feature will walk you through the steps of this calculation.
Calculating Labor Force Percentages
How do economists arrive at the percentages in and out of the labor force and the unemployment rate? We will use the values in Table to illustrate the steps.
To determine the percentage in the labor force:
Step 1. Divide the number of people in the labor force (159.716 million) by the total adult (working-age) population (254.082 million).
Step 2. Multiply by 100 to obtain the percentage.
To determine the percentage out of the labor force:
Step 1. Divide the number of people out the labor force (94.366 million) by the total adult (working-age) population (254.082 million).
Step 2. Multiply by 100 to obtain the percentage.
To determine the unemployment rate:
Step 1. Divide the number of unemployed people (7.635 million) by the total labor force (157 million).
Step 2. Multiply by 100 to obtain the rate.
Hidden Unemployment
Even with the “out of the labor force” category, there are still some people who are mislabeled in the categorization of employed, unemployed, or out of the labor force. There are some people who have only part time or temporary jobs, and they are looking for full time and permanent employment that are counted as employed, although they are not employed in the way they would like or need to be. Additionally, there are individuals who are underemployed. This includes those who are trained or skilled for one type or level of work but are working in a lower paying job or one that does not utilize their skills. For example, we would consider an individual with a college degree in finance who is working as a sales clerk underemployed. They are, however, also counted in the employed group. All of these individuals fall under the umbrella of the term “hidden unemployment.” Discouraged workers, those who have stopped looking for employment and, hence, are no longer counted in the unemployed also fall into this group
Labor Force Participation Rate
Another important statistic is the labor force participation rate. This is the percentage of adults in an economy who are either employed or who are unemployed and looking for a job. Using the data in Figure and Table, those included in this calculation would be the 159.716 million individuals in the labor force. We calculate the rate by taking the number of people in the labor force, that is, the number employed and the number unemployed, divided by the total adult population and multiplying by 100 to get the percentage. For the data from January 2017, the labor force participation rate is 62.9%. Historically, the civilian labor force participation rate in the United States climbed beginning in the 1960s as women increasingly entered the workforce, and it peaked at just over 67% in late 1999 to early 2000. Since then, the labor force participation rate has steadily declined, slowly to about 66% in 2008, early in the Great Recession, and then more rapidly during and after that recession, reaching its present level, where it has remained stable, near the end of 2013.
The Establishment Payroll Survey
When the unemployment report comes out each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) also reports on the number of jobs created—which comes from the establishment payroll survey. The payroll survey is based on a survey of about 147,000 businesses and government agencies throughout the United States. It generates payroll employment estimates by the following criteria: all employees, average weekly hours worked, and average hourly, weekly, and overtime earnings. One of the criticisms of this survey is that it does not count the self-employed. It also does not make a distinction between new, minimum wage, part time or temporary jobs and full time jobs with “decent” pay.
How Does the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Collect the U.S. Unemployment Data?
The unemployment rate announced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on the first Friday of each month for the previous month is based on the Current Population Survey (CPS), which the Bureau has carried out every month since 1940. The Bureau takes great care to make this survey representative of the country as a whole. The country is first divided into 3,137 areas. The U.S. Bureau of the Census then selects 729 of these areas to survey. It divides the 729 areas into districts of about 300 households each, and divides each district into clusters of about four dwelling units. Every month, Census Bureau employees call about 15,000 of the four-household clusters, for a total of 60,000 households. Employees interview households for four consecutive months, then rotate them out of the survey for eight months, and then interview them again for the same four months the following year, before leaving the sample permanently.
Based on this survey, state, industry, urban and rural areas, gender, age, race or ethnicity, and level of education statistics comprise components that contribute to unemployment rates. A wide variety of other information is available, too. For example, how long have people been unemployed? Did they become unemployed because they quit, or were laid off, or their employer went out of business? Is the unemployed person the only wage earner in the family? The Current Population Survey is a treasure trove of information about employment and unemployment. If you are wondering what the difference is between the CPS and EPS, read the following Clear it Up feature.
What is the difference between CPS and EPS?
The United States Census Bureau conducts the Current Population Survey (CPS), which measures the percentage of the labor force that is unemployed. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' establishment payroll survey (EPS) is a payroll survey that measures the net change in jobs created for the month.
Criticisms of Measuring Unemployment
There are always complications in measuring the number of unemployed. For example, what about people who do not have jobs and would be available to work, but are discouraged by the lack of available jobs in their area and stopped looking? Such people, and their families, may be suffering the pains of unemployment. However, the survey counts them as out of the labor force because they are not actively looking for work. Other people may tell the Census Bureau that they are ready to work and looking for a job but, truly, they are not that eager to work and are not looking very hard at all. They are counted as unemployed, although they might more accurately be classified as out of the labor force. Still other people may have a job, perhaps doing something like yard work, child care, or cleaning houses, but are not reporting the income earned to the tax authorities. They may report being unemployed, when they actually are working.
Although the unemployment rate gets most of the public and media attention, economic researchers at the Bureau of Labor Statistics publish a wide array of surveys and reports that try to measure these kinds of issues and to develop a more nuanced and complete view of the labor market. It is not exactly a hot news flash that economic statistics are imperfect. Even imperfect measures like the unemployment rate, however, can still be quite informative, when interpreted knowledgeably and sensibly.
Click here to learn more about the CPS and to read frequently asked questions about employment and labor.
Key Concepts and Summary
Unemployment imposes high costs. Unemployed individuals suffer from loss of income and from stress. An economy with high unemployment suffers an opportunity cost of unused resources. We can divide the adult population into those in the labor force and those out of the labor force. In turn, we divide those in the labor force into employed and unemployed. A person without a job must be willing and able to work and actively looking for work to be counted as unemployed; otherwise, a person without a job is counted as out of the labor force. Economists define the unemployment rate as the number of unemployed persons divided by the number of persons in the labor force (not the overall adult population). The Current Population Survey (CPS) conducted by the United States Census Bureau measures the percentage of the labor force that is unemployed. The establishment payroll survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures the net change in jobs created for the month.
Self-Check Questions
Suppose the adult population over the age of 16 is 237.8 million and the labor force is 153.9 million (of whom 139.1 million are employed). How many people are “not in the labor force?” What are the proportions of employed, unemployed and not in the labor force in the population? Hint: Proportions are percentages.
Hint:
The population is divided into those “in the labor force” and those “not in the labor force.” Thus, the number of adults not in the labor force is 237.8 – 153.9 = 83.9 million. Since the labor force is divided into employed persons and unemployed persons, the number of unemployed persons is 153.9 – 139.1 = 14.8 million. Thus, the adult population has the following proportions:
- 139.1/237.8 = 58.5% employed persons
- 14.8/237.8 = 6.2% unemployed persons
- 83.9/237.8 = 35.3% persons out of the labor force
Using the above data, what is the unemployment rate? These data are U.S. statistics from 2010. How does it compare to the February 2015 unemployment rate computed earlier?
Hint:
The unemployment rate is defined as the number of unemployed persons as a percentage of the labor force or 14.8/153.9 = 9.6%. This is higher than the February 2015 unemployment rate, computed earlier, of 5.5%.
Review Questions
What is the difference between being unemployed and being out of the labor force?
How do you calculate the unemployment rate? How do you calculate the labor force participation rate?
Are all adults who do not hold jobs counted as unemployed?
If you are out of school but working part time, are you considered employed or unemployed in U.S. labor statistics? If you are a full time student and working 12 hours a week at the college cafeteria are you considered employed or not in the labor force? If you are a senior citizen who is collecting social security and a pension and working as a greeter at Wal-Mart are you considered employed or not in the labor force?
What happens to the unemployment rate when unemployed workers are reclassified as discouraged workers?
What happens to the labor force participation rate when employed individuals are reclassified as unemployed? What happens when they are reclassified as discouraged workers?
What are some of the problems with using the unemployment rate as an accurate measure of overall joblessness?
What criteria do the BLS use to count someone as employed? As unemployed?
Assess whether the following would be counted as “unemployed” in the Current Employment Statistics survey.
- A husband willingly stays home with children while his wife works.
- A manufacturing worker whose factory just closed down.
- A college student doing an unpaid summer internship.
- A retiree.
- Someone who has been out of work for two years but keeps looking for a job.
- Someone who has been out of work for two months but isn’t looking for a job.
- Someone who hates her present job and is actively looking for another one.
- Someone who decides to take a part time job because she could not find a full time position.
Critical Thinking Questions
Using the definition of the unemployment rate, is an increase in the unemployment rate necessarily a bad thing for a nation?
Is a decrease in the unemployment rate necessarily a good thing for a nation? Explain.
If many workers become discouraged from looking for jobs, explain how the number of jobs could decline but the unemployment rate could fall at the same time.
Would you expect hidden unemployment to be higher, lower, or about the same when the unemployment rate is high, say 10%, versus low, say 4%? Explain.
Problems
A country with a population of eight million adults has five million employed, 500,000 unemployed, and the rest of the adult population is out of the labor force. What’s the unemployment rate? What share of population is in the labor force? Sketch a pie chart that divides the adult population into these three groups.
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.202268
|
09/20/2018
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28808/overview",
"title": "Principles of Macroeconomics 2e, Unemployment, How Economists Define and Compute Unemployment Rate",
"author": null
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28832/overview
|
Introduction to the Keynesian Perspective
The Great Recession
The 2008-2009 Great Recession hit the U.S. economy hard. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the number of unemployed Americans rose from 6.8 million in May 2007 to 15.4 million in October 2009. During that time, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that approximately 170,000 small businesses closed. Mass layoffs peaked in February 2009 when employers gave 326,392 workers notice. U.S. productivity and output fell as well. Job losses, declining home values, declining incomes, and uncertainty about the future caused consumption expenditures to decrease. According to the BLS, household spending dropped by 7.8%.
Home foreclosures and the meltdown in U.S. financial markets called for immediate action by Congress, the President, and the Federal Reserve Bank. For example, the government implemented programs such as the American Restoration and Recovery Act to help millions of people by providing tax credits for homebuyers, paying “cash for clunkers,” and extending unemployment benefits. From cutting back on spending, filing for unemployment, and losing homes, millions of people were affected by the recession. While the United States is now on the path to recovery, people will feel the impact for many years to come.
What caused this recession and what prevented the economy from spiraling further into another depression? Policymakers looked to the lessons learned from the 1930s Great Depression and to John Maynard Keynes' models to analyze the causes and find solutions to the country’s economic woes. The Keynesian perspective is the subject of this chapter.
Introduction to the Keynesian Perspective
In this chapter, you will learn about:
- Aggregate Demand in Keynesian Analysis
- The Building Blocks of Keynesian Analysis
- The Phillips Curve
- The Keynesian Perspective on Market Forces
We have learned that the level of economic activity, for example output, employment, and spending, tends to grow over time. In The Keynesian Perspective we learned the reasons for this trend. The Macroeconomic Perspective pointed out that the economy tends to cycle around the long-run trend. In other words, the economy does not always grow at its average growth rate. Sometimes economic activity grows at the trend rate, sometimes it grows more than the trend, sometimes it grows less than the trend, and sometimes it actually declines. You can see this cyclical behavior in Figure.
This empirical reality raises two important questions: How can we explain the cycles, and to what extent can we moderate them? This chapter (on the Keynesian perspective) and The Neoclassical Perspective explore those questions from two different points of view, building on what we learned in The Aggregate Demand/Aggregate Supply Model.
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.219347
|
09/20/2018
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28832/overview",
"title": "Principles of Macroeconomics 2e, The Keynesian Perspective, Introduction to the Keynesian Perspective",
"author": null
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28817/overview
|
Indexing and Its Limitations
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Explain the relationship between indexing and inflation
- Identify three ways the government can control inflation through macroeconomic policy
When a price, wage, or interest rate is adjusted automatically with inflation, economists use the term indexed. An indexed payment increases according to the index number that measures inflation. Those in private markets and government programs observe a wide range of indexing arrangements. Since the negative effects of inflation depend in large part on having inflation unexpectedly affect one part of the economy but not another—say, increasing the prices that people pay but not the wages that workers receive—indexing will take some of the sting out of inflation.
Indexing in Private Markets
In the 1970s and 1980s, labor unions commonly negotiated wage contracts that had cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) which guaranteed that their wages would keep up with inflation. These contracts were sometimes written as, for example, COLA plus 3%. Thus, if inflation was 5%, the wage increase would automatically be 8%, but if inflation rose to 9%, the wage increase would automatically be 12%. COLAs are a form of indexing applied to wages.
Loans often have built-in inflation adjustments, too, so that if the inflation rate rises by two percentage points, then the interest rate that a financial institution charges on the loan rises by two percentage points as well. An adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) is a type of loan that one can use to purchase a home in which the interest rate varies with the rate of inflation. Often, a borrower will be able receive a lower interest rate if borrowing with an ARM, compared to a fixed-rate loan. The reason is that with an ARM, the lender is protected against the risk that higher inflation will reduce the real loan payments, and so the risk premium part of the interest rate can be correspondingly lower.
A number of ongoing or long-term business contracts also have provisions that prices will adjust automatically according to inflation. Sellers like such contracts because they are not locked into a low nominal selling price if inflation turns out higher than expected. Buyers like such contracts because they are not locked into a high buying price if inflation turns out to be lower than expected. A contract with automatic adjustments for inflation in effect agrees on a real price for the borrower to pay, rather than a nominal price.
Indexing in Government Programs
Many government programs are indexed to inflation. The U.S. income tax code is designed so that as a person’s income rises above certain levels, the tax rate on the marginal income earned rises as well. That is what the expression “move into a higher tax bracket” means. For example, according to the basic tax tables from the Internal Revenue Service, in 2017 a single person owed 10% of all taxable income from $0 to $9,325; 15% of all income from $9,326 to $37,950; 25% of all taxable income from $37,951 to $91,900; 28% of all taxable income from $91,901 to $191,650; 33% of all taxable income from $191,651 to $416,700; 35% of all taxable income from $416,701 to $418,400; and 39.6% of all income from $418,401 and above.
Because of the many complex provisions in the rest of the tax code, it is difficult to determine exactly the taxes an individual owes the government based on these numbers, but the numbers illustrate the basic theme that tax rates rise as the marginal dollar of income rises. Until the late 1970s, if nominal wages increased along with inflation, people were moved into higher tax brackets and owed a higher proportion of their income in taxes, even though their real income had not risen. In 1981, the government eliminated this “bracket creep”. Now, the income levels where higher tax rates kick in are indexed to rise automatically with inflation.
The Social Security program offers two examples of indexing. Since the passage of the Social Security Indexing Act of 1972, the level of Social Security benefits increases each year along with the Consumer Price Index. Also, Social Security is funded by payroll taxes, which the government imposes on the income earned up to a certain amount—$117,000 in 2014. The government adjusts this level of income upward each year according to the rate of inflation, so that an indexed increase in the Social Security tax base accompanies the indexed rise in the benefit level.
As yet another example of a government program affected by indexing, in 1996 the U.S., government began offering indexed bonds. Bonds are means by which the U.S. government (and many private-sector companies as well) borrows money; that is, investors buy the bonds, and then the government repays the money with interest. Traditionally, government bonds have paid a fixed rate of interest. This policy gave a government that had borrowed an incentive to encourage inflation, because it could then repay its past borrowing in inflated dollars at a lower real interest rate. However, indexed bonds promise to pay a certain real rate of interest above whatever inflation rate occurs. In the case of a retiree trying to plan for the long term and worried about the risk of inflation, for example, indexed bonds that guarantee a rate of return higher than inflation—no matter the level of inflation—can be a very comforting investment.
Might Indexing Reduce Concern over Inflation?
Indexing may seem like an obviously useful step. After all, when individuals, firms, and government programs are indexed against inflation, then people can worry less about arbitrary redistributions and other effects of inflation.
However, some of the fiercest opponents of inflation express grave concern about indexing. They point out that indexing is always partial. Not every employer will provide COLAs for workers. Not all companies can assume that costs and revenues will rise in lockstep with the general rates of inflation. Not all interest rates for borrowers and savers will change to match inflation exactly. However, as partial inflation indexing spreads, the political opposition to inflation may diminish. After all, older people whose Social Security benefits are protected against inflation, or banks that have loaned their money with adjustable-rate loans, no longer have as much reason to care whether inflation heats up. In a world where some people are indexed against inflation and some are not, financially savvy businesses and investors may seek out ways to be protected against inflation, while the financially unsophisticated and small businesses may suffer from it most.
A Preview of Policy Discussions of Inflation
This chapter has focused on how economists measure inflation, historical experience with inflation, how to adjust nominal variables into real ones, how inflation affects the economy, and how indexing works. We have barely hinted at the causes of inflation, and we have not addressed government policies to deal with inflation. We will examine these issues in depth in other chapters. However, it is useful to offer a preview here.
We can sum up the cause of inflation in one phrase: Too many dollars chasing too few goods. The great surges of inflation early in the twentieth century came after wars, which are a time when government spending is very high, but consumers have little to buy, because production is going to the war effort. Governments also commonly impose price controls during wartime. After the war, the price controls end and pent-up buying power surges forth, driving up inflation. Otherwise, if too few dollars are chasing too many goods, then inflation will decline or even turn into deflation. Therefore, we typically associate slowdowns in economic activity, as in major recessions and the Great Depression, with a reduction in inflation or even outright deflation.
The policy implications are clear. If we are to avoid inflation, the amount of purchasing power in the economy must grow at roughly the same rate as the production of goods. Macroeconomic policies that the government can use to affect the amount of purchasing power—through taxes, spending, and regulation of interest rates and credit—can thus cause inflation to rise or reduce inflation to lower levels.
A $550 Million Loaf of Bread?
As we will learn in Money and Banking, the existence of money provides enormous benefits to an economy. In a real sense, money is the lubrication that enhances the workings of markets. Money makes transactions easier. It allows people to find employment producing one product, then use the money earned to purchase the other products they need to live. However, too much money in circulation can lead to inflation. Extreme cases of governments recklessly printing money lead to hyperinflation. Inflation reduces the value of money. Hyperinflation, because money loses value so quickly, ultimately results in people no longer using money. The economy reverts to barter, or it adopts another country’s more stable currency, like U.S. dollars. In the meantime, the economy literally falls apart as people leave jobs and fend for themselves because it is not worth the time to work for money that will be worthless in a few days.
Only national governments have the power to cause hyperinflation. Hyperinflation typically happens when government faces extraordinary demands for spending, which it cannot finance by taxes or borrowing. The only option is to print money—more and more of it. With more money in circulation chasing the same amount (or even fewer) goods and services, the only result is increasingly higher prices until the economy and/or the government collapses. This is why economists are generally wary of letting inflation spiral out of control.
Key Concepts and Summary
A payment is indexed if it is automatically adjusted for inflation. Examples of indexing in the private sector include wage contracts with cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) and loan agreements like adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs). Examples of indexing in the public sector include tax brackets and Social Security payments.
Self-Check Questions
How should an increase in inflation affect the interest rate on an adjustable-rate mortgage?
Hint:
Higher inflation reduces real interest rates on fixed rate mortgages. Because ARMs can be adjusted, higher inflation leads to higher interest rates on ARMs.
A fixed-rate mortgage has the same interest rate over the life of the loan, whether the mortgage is for 15 or 30 years. By contrast, an adjustable-rate mortgage changes with market interest rates over the life of the mortgage. If inflation falls unexpectedly by 3%, what would likely happen to a homeowner with an adjustable-rate mortgage?
Hint:
Because the mortgage has an adjustable rate, the rate should fall by 3%, the same as inflation, to keep the real interest rate the same.
Review Questions
What is indexing?
Name several forms of indexing in the private and public sector.
Critical Thinking Questions
If a government gains from unexpected inflation when it borrows, why would it choose to offer indexed bonds?
Do you think perfect indexing is possible? Why or why not?
Problems
If inflation rises unexpectedly by 5%, indicate for each of the following whether the economic actor is helped, hurt, or unaffected:
- A union member with a COLA wage contract
- Someone with a large stash of cash in a safe deposit box
- A bank lending money at a fixed rate of interest
- A person who is not due to receive a pay raise for another 11 months
Rosalie the Retiree knows that when she retires in 16 years, her company will give her a one-time payment of $20,000. However, if the inflation rate is 6% per year, how much buying power will that $20,000 have when measured in today’s dollars? Hint: Start by calculating the rise in the price level over the 16 years.
References
Wines, Michael. “How Bad is Inflation in Zimbabwe?” The New York Times, May 2, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/world/africa/02zimbabwe.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
Hanke, Steve H. “R.I.P. Zimbabwe Dollar.” CATO Institute. Accessed December 31, 2013. http://www.cato.org/zimbabwe.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 2015. "Billion Prices Project." Accessed March 4, 2015. http://bpp.mit.edu/usa/.
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The Phillips Curve
Overview
- Explain the Phillips curve, noting its impact on the theories of Keynesian economics
- Graph a Phillips curve
- Identify factors that cause the instability of the Phillips curve
- Analyze the Keynesian policy for reducing unemployment and inflation
The simplified AD/AS model that we have used so far is fully consistent with Keynes’s original model. More recent research, though, has indicated that in the real world, an aggregate supply curve is more curved than the right angle that we used in this chapter. Rather, the real-world AS curve is very flat at levels of output far below potential (“the Keynesian zone”), very steep at levels of output above potential (“the neoclassical zone”) and curved in between (“the intermediate zone”). Figure illustrates this. The typical aggregate supply curve leads to the concept of the Phillips curve.
The Discovery of the Phillips Curve
In the 1950s, A.W. Phillips, an economist at the London School of Economics, was studying the Keynesian analytical framework. The Keynesian theory implied that during a recession inflationary pressures are low, but when the level of output is at or even pushing beyond potential GDP, the economy is at greater risk for inflation. Phillips analyzed 60 years of British data and did find that tradeoff between unemployment and inflation, which became known as the Phillips curve. Figure shows a theoretical Phillips curve, and the following Work It Out feature shows how the pattern appears for the United States.
The Phillips Curve for the United States
Step 1. Go to this website to see the 2005 Economic Report of the President.
Step 2. Scroll down and locate Table B-63 in the Appendices. This table is titled “Changes in special consumer price indexes, 1960–2004.”
Step 3. Download the table in Excel by selecting the XLS option and then selecting the location in which to save the file.
Step 4. Open the downloaded Excel file.
Step 5. View the third column (labeled “Year to year”). This is the inflation rate, measured by the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index.
Step 6. Return to the website and scroll to locate the Appendix Table B-42 “Civilian unemployment rate, 1959–2004.
Step 7. Download the table in Excel.
Step 8. Open the downloaded Excel file and view the second column. This is the overall unemployment rate.
Step 9. Using the data available from these two tables, plot the Phillips curve for 1960–69, with unemployment rate on the x-axis and the inflation rate on the y-axis. Your graph should look like Figure.
Step 10. Plot the Phillips curve for 1960–1979. What does the graph look like? Do you still see the tradeoff between inflation and unemployment? Your graph should look like Figure.
Over this longer period of time, the Phillips curve appears to have shifted out. There is no tradeoff any more.
The Instability of the Phillips Curve
During the 1960s, economists viewed the Phillips curve as a policy menu. A nation could choose low inflation and high unemployment, or high inflation and low unemployment, or anywhere in between. Economies could use fiscal and monetary policy to move up or down the Phillips curve as desired. Then a curious thing happened. When policymakers tried to exploit the tradeoff between inflation and unemployment, the result was an increase in both inflation and unemployment. What had happened? The Phillips curve shifted.
The U.S. economy experienced this pattern in the deep recession from 1973 to 1975, and again in back-to-back recessions from 1980 to 1982. Many nations around the world saw similar increases in unemployment and inflation. This pattern became known as stagflation. (Recall from The Aggregate Demand/Aggregate Supply Model that stagflation is an unhealthy combination of high unemployment and high inflation.) Perhaps most important, stagflation was a phenomenon that traditional Keynesian economics could not explain.
Economists have concluded that two factors cause the Phillips curve to shift. The first is supply shocks, like the mid-1970s oil crisis, which first brought stagflation into our vocabulary. The second is changes in people’s expectations about inflation. In other words, there may be a tradeoff between inflation and unemployment when people expect no inflation, but when they realize inflation is occurring, the tradeoff disappears. Both factors (supply shocks and changes in inflationary expectations) cause the aggregate supply curve, and thus the Phillips curve, to shift.
In short, we should interpret a downward-sloping Phillips curve as valid for short-run periods of several years, but over longer periods, when aggregate supply shifts, the downward-sloping Phillips curve can shift so that unemployment and inflation are both higher (as in the 1970s and early 1980s) or both lower (as in the early 1990s or first decade of the 2000s).
Keynesian Policy for Fighting Unemployment and Inflation
Keynesian macroeconomics argues that the solution to a recession is expansionary fiscal policy, such as tax cuts to stimulate consumption and investment, or direct increases in government spending that would shift the aggregate demand curve to the right. For example, if aggregate demand was originally at ADr in Figure, so that the economy was in recession, the appropriate policy would be for government to shift aggregate demand to the right from ADr to ADf, where the economy would be at potential GDP and full employment.
Keynes noted that while it would be nice if the government could spend additional money on housing, roads, and other amenities, he also argued that if the government could not agree on how to spend money in practical ways, then it could spend in impractical ways. For example, Keynes suggested building monuments, like a modern equivalent of the Egyptian pyramids. He proposed that the government could bury money underground, and let mining companies start digging up the money again. These suggestions were slightly tongue-in-cheek, but their purpose was to emphasize that a Great Depression is no time to quibble over the specifics of government spending programs and tax cuts when the goal should be to pump up aggregate demand by enough to lift the economy to potential GDP.
The other side of Keynesian policy occurs when the economy is operating above potential GDP. In this situation, unemployment is low, but inflationary rises in the price level are a concern. The Keynesian response would be contractionary fiscal policy, using tax increases or government spending cuts to shift AD to the left. The result would be downward pressure on the price level, but very little reduction in output or very little rise in unemployment. If aggregate demand was originally at ADi in Figure, so that the economy was experiencing inflationary rises in the price level, the appropriate policy would be for government to shift aggregate demand to the left, from ADi toward ADf, which reduces the pressure for a higher price level while the economy remains at full employment.
In the Keynesian economic model, too little aggregate demand brings unemployment and too much brings inflation. Thus, you can think of Keynesian economics as pursuing a “Goldilocks” level of aggregate demand: not too much, not too little, but looking for what is just right.
Key Concepts and Summary
A Phillips curve shows the tradeoff between unemployment and inflation in an economy. From a Keynesian viewpoint, the Phillips curve should slope down so that higher unemployment means lower inflation, and vice versa. However, a downward-sloping Phillips curve is a short-term relationship that may shift after a few years.
Keynesian macroeconomics argues that the solution to a recession is expansionary fiscal policy, such as tax cuts to stimulate consumption and investment, or direct increases in government spending that would shift the aggregate demand curve to the right. The other side of Keynesian policy occurs when the economy is operating above potential GDP. In this situation, unemployment is low, but inflationary rises in the price level are a concern. The Keynesian response would be contractionary fiscal policy, using tax increases or government spending cuts to shift AD to the left.
Self-Check Question
How would a decrease in energy prices affect the Phillips curve?
Hint:
A decrease in energy prices, a positive supply shock, would cause the AS curve to shift out to the right, yielding more real GDP at a lower price level. This would shift the Phillips curve down toward the origin, meaning the economy would experience lower unemployment and a lower rate of inflation.
Review Questions
What tradeoff does a Phillips curve show?
Would you expect to see long-run data trace out a stable downward-sloping Phillips curve?
What is the Keynesian prescription for recession? For inflation?
Critical Thinking Questions
Do you think the Phillips curve is a useful tool for analyzing the economy today? Why or why not?
References
Hoover, Kevin. “Phillips Curve.” The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PhillipsCurve.html.
U.S. Government Printing Office. “Economic Report of the President.” http://1.usa.gov/1c3psdL.
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Plant Tissues and Cell Types
Overview
Public Domain Mark
Description
Browallia americana = (Browallia demissa)
Publication/Creation
[Romae (Rome)] : [Bouchard et Gravier], [1774]
Physical description
1 print : etching, with watercolour ; platemark 37.2 x 22.9 cm
Contributors
Lettering
Browallia demissa pedunculis unifloris. H.Cliff.318.t.17. - Hort.Ups.179. - Linn.Sp.Plant.773
Reference
Wellcome Library no. 17029i
Type/Technique
Languages
- Latin
Introduction
Learning Objectives
- List three types of tissues in plants.
- Describe the identifying features of dermal tissue.
- List the most common modifications of dermal tissue.
- List two types of vascular tissues.
- Explain the structure of xylem tracheids and vessels.
- Explain the structure of phloem sieve tube members and companion cells.
- Differentiate between xylem and phloem.
- List the three types of plant cells.
- List the identifying features of parenchyma, collenchyma, and sclerenchyma and their modifications.
Keywords
collenchyma cell: elongated plant cell with unevenly thickened walls; provides structural support to the stem and leaves
companion cell: phloem cell that is connected to sieve-tube cells; has large amounts of ribosomes and mitochondria
dermal tissue - a protective plant tissue covering the outermost part of the plant; controls the gas exchange
ground tissue - plant tissue involved in photosynthesis; provides support, and stores water and sugars
parenchyma - most common type of plant cell; found in the stem, root, leaf, and in fruit pulp; site of photosynthesis and starch storage
phloem - tissue responsible to transport sugars, proteins, and other solutes
sclereids - a type of sclerenchyma cell with thick and highly lignified walls
sclerenchyma - plant cell that has thick secondary walls and provides structural support, usually dead at maturity
sieve cells - (sieve-tube members in angiosperms) phloem cells arranged end to end to form a sieve tube that transports organic substances, such as sugars and amino acids
sieve tube member - (sieve cell in gymnosperms) phloem cell arranged end to end to form a sieve tube that transports organic substances, such as sugars and amino acids
tracheids - a type of xylem cells that specialize in water conduction
vascular tissue - tissue made up of xylem and phloem that transports food and water throughout the plant
vessels - xylem cells that are shorter than tracheids and have thinner walls
xylem - tissue responsible for long-distance transport of water and nutrients
Introduction
Plants are multicellular eukaryotes with tissue systems made of various cell types that carry out specific functions. Plant tissue systems fall into one of two general types: meristematic tissue or permanent (or non-meristematic) tissue. Cells of the meristematic tissue are found in meristems, which are plant regions of continuous cell division and growth. Meristematic tissue cells are either undifferentiated or incompletely differentiated, and they continue to divide and contribute to the growth of the plant. In contrast, permanent tissue consists of plant cells that are no longer actively dividing.
There are two types of meristematic tissues, based on their location in the plant. Apical meristem or primary meristem contains meristematic tissue located at the tips of stems and roots, which enable a plant to extend in length. Lateral meristem or secondary meristem facilitates growth in thickness or girth in a maturing woody plant. Intercalary meristem is found in some monocots such as grasses. Meristems produce cells that quickly differentiate, or specialize, and become permanent tissue. Such cells take on specific roles and lose their ability to divide further. They differentiate into three main types: dermal, vascular, and ground tissue. Primary and secondary meristem is discussed in more detail in lesson 3: Stages of Growth.
Permanent tissues are either simple (composed of similar cell types) or complex (composed of different cell types). Dermal tissue, for example, is a simple tissue that covers the outer surface of the plant and controls gas exchange. Dermal tissue covers and protects the plant, while vascular tissue transports water, minerals, and sugars to different parts of the plant. Vascular tissue is an example of complex tissue and is made of two specialized conducting tissues: xylem and phloem.
Xylem tissue transports water and nutrients from the roots to different parts of the plant and includes three different cell types: vessel elements and tracheids (both of which conduct water), and xylem parenchyma. Phloem tissue, which transports organic compounds from the site of photosynthesis to other parts of the plant, consists of four different cell types: sieve elements (which conduct photosynthates), companion cells, phloem parenchyma, and phloem fibers. Gymnosperms lack sieve elements and companion cells. Cells carrying out similar functions in gymnosperms are called sieve cells. Unlike xylem conducting cells, phloem conducting cells are alive at maturity. The xylem and phloem always lie adjacent to each other (Figure 1.4.1). In stems, the xylem and the phloem form a structure called a vascular bundle; in roots, this is termed the vascular stele or vascular cylinder.
Ground tissue serves as a site for photosynthesis, provides a supporting matrix for the vascular tissue, and helps to store water and sugars.
Any part of a plant has three tissue systems: dermal, vascular, and ground tissue. Each is distinguished by characteristic cell types that perform specific tasks necessary for the plant’s growth and survival.
Figure 1.4.1. This light micrograph shows a cross-section of a squash (Curcurbita maxima) root. Each teardrop-shaped vascular bundle consists of large xylem vessels toward the inside and smaller phloem cells toward the outside. Xylem cells, which transport water and nutrients from the roots to the rest of the plant, are dead at functional maturity. Phloem cells, which transport sugars and other organic compounds from photosynthetic tissue to the rest of the plant, are living. The vascular bundles are encased in ground tissue and surrounded by dermal tissue. (credit: modification of work by "(biophotos)"/Flickr; scale-bar data from Matt Russell). Biology 2e By Mary Ann Clark, Matthew Douglas, Jung Choi. OpenStax is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License v4.0
Dermal Tissue
The dermal tissue of the stem consists primarily of the epidermis, a single layer of cells covering and protecting the underlying tissue. Woody plants have a tough, waterproof outer layer of cork cells commonly known as bark, which further protects the plant from damage. Epidermal cells are the most numerous and least differentiated of the cells in the epidermis. The epidermis of a leaf also contains openings known as stomata, through which the exchange of gases takes place (Figure 1.4.2). Two cells, known as guard cells, surround each leaf stoma, controlling its opening and closing and thus regulating the uptake of carbon dioxide and the release of oxygen and water vapor. Trichomes are hair-like structures on the epidermal surface. They help to reduce transpiration (the loss of water by aboveground plant parts), increase solar reflectance, and store compounds that defend the leaves against predation by herbivores.
Figure 1.4.2. Openings called stomata (singular: stoma) allow a plant to take up carbon dioxide and release oxygen and water vapor. The (a) colorized scanning-electron micrograph shows a closed stoma of a dicot. Each stoma is flanked by two guard cells that regulate its (b) opening and closing. The (c) guard cells sit within the layer of epidermal cells. (credit a: modification of work by Louisa Howard, Rippel Electron Microscope Facility, Dartmouth College; credit b: modification of work by June Kwak, University of Maryland; scale-bar data from Matt Russell). Biology 2e By Mary Ann Clark, Matthew Douglas, Jung Choi. OpenStax is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License v4.0
Vascular Tissue
The xylem and phloem that make up the vascular tissue of the stem are arranged in distinct strands called vascular bundles, which run up and down the length of the stem. When the stem is viewed in cross-section, the vascular bundles of dicot stems are arranged in a ring. In plants with stems that live for more than one year, the individual bundles grow together and produce the characteristic growth rings. In monocot stems, the vascular bundles are randomly scattered throughout the ground tissue (Figure 1.4.3).
Figure 1.4.3. In (a) dicot stems, vascular bundles are arranged around the periphery of the ground tissue. The xylem tissue is located toward the interior of the vascular bundle, and the phloem is located toward the exterior. Sclerenchyma fibers cap the vascular bundles. In (b) monocot stems, vascular bundles composed of xylem and phloem tissues are scattered throughout the ground tissue. Biology 2e By Mary Ann Clark, Matthew Douglas, Jung Choi. OpenStax is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License v4.0
Xylem tissue has three types of cells: xylem parenchyma, tracheids, and vessel elements. The latter two types conduct water and are dead at maturity. Tracheids are xylem cells with thick secondary cell walls that are lignified. Water moves from one tracheid to another through regions on the side walls known as pits, where secondary walls are absent. Vessel elements are xylem cells with thinner walls; they are shorter than tracheids. Each vessel element is connected to the next by means of a perforation plate at the end walls of the element. Water moves through the perforation plates to travel up the plant.
Phloem tissue is composed of sieve-tube cells, companion cells, phloem parenchyma, and phloem fibers. A series of sieve elements (also called sieve-tube members) are arranged end to end to make up a long sieve tube, which transports organic substances such as sugars and amino acids. The sugars flow from one sieve-tube cell to the next through perforated sieve plates, which are found at the end junctions between two cells. Although still alive at maturity, the nucleus and other cell components of the sieve-tube cells have disintegrated. Companion cells are found alongside the sieve-tube cells, providing them with metabolic support. The companion cells contain more ribosomes and mitochondria than the sieve-tube cells, which lack some cellular organelles.
Ground Tissue & cell types
Ground Tissue
Plant tissues that are not dermal or vascular are considered ground tissue. Cells of ground tissues perform many different types of functions, such as photosynthesis, and storage, based on their location. In a stem ground tissue mostly contains parenchyma cells, but may also contain collenchyma and sclerenchyma cells that help support the stem. The ground tissue towards the interior of the vascular tissue in a stem or root is known as the pith, while the layer of tissue between the vascular tissue and the epidermis is known as the cortex.
Let us look at three types of plant cells, parenchyma, collenchyma, and sclerenchyma cells.
Parenchyma cells are the most common plant cells (Figure 1.4.5). They are found in the stem, the root, the inside of the leaf, and the pulp of the fruit. These cells are somewhat spherical and have a thin primary wall. This help in the exchange of raw material and waste products between the outside and the inside of the cell. Parenchyma cells are responsible for metabolic functions, such as photosynthesis, and they help repair and heal wounds. Some parenchyma cells also store starch. Parenchyma cells rarely show the formation of a secondary wall.
Figure 1.4.5. The stem of common St John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum) is shown in cross-section in this light micrograph. The central pith (greenish blue, in the center) and peripheral cortex (narrow zone 3–5 cells thick just inside the epidermis) is composed of parenchyma cells. Vascular tissue composed of xylem (red) and phloem tissue (green, between the xylem and cortex) surrounds the pith. (credit: Rolf-Dieter Mueller). Biology 2e By Mary Ann Clark, Matthew Douglas, Jung Choi. OpenStax is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License v4.0
Collenchyma cells are elongated cells with unevenly thickened walls (Figure 1.4.6). They provide structural support, mainly to the stem and leaves. These cells are alive at maturity and are usually found below the epidermis. The “strings” of a celery stalk are an example of collenchyma cells.
Figure 1.4.6. Collenchyma cell walls are uneven in thickness, as seen in this light micrograph. They provide support to plant structures. (credit: modification of work by Carl Szczerski; scale-bar data from Matt Russell). Biology 2e By Mary Ann Clark, Matthew Douglas, Jung Choi. OpenStax is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License v4.0
Sclerenchyma cells also provide support to the plant, but unlike collenchyma cells, many of them are dead at maturity. There are two types of sclerenchyma cells: fibers and sclereids. Both types have secondary cell walls that are thickened with deposits of lignin—an organic compound that is a key component of wood. Fibers are long, slender cells; sclereids are smaller-sized. Sclereids give pears their gritty texture. Humans use sclerenchyma fibers to make linen and rope (Figure 1.4.7).
Figure 1.4.7. The central pith and outer cortex of the (a) flax stem is made up of parenchyma cells. Inside the cortex is a layer of sclerenchyma cells, which make up the fibers in flax rope and clothing. Humans have grown and harvested flax for thousands of years. In (b) this drawing, fourteenth-century women prepare linen. The (c) flax plant is grown and harvested for its fibers, which are used to weave linen, and for its seeds, which are the source of linseed oil. (credit a: modification of work by Emmanuel Boutet based on original work by Ryan R. MacKenzie; credit c: modification of work by Brian Dearth; scale-bar data from Matt Russell). Biology 2e By Mary Ann Clark, Matthew Douglas, Jung Choi. OpenStax is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License v4.0
Attributes
Biology 2e by Clark Mary Ann, Douglas Matthew, Choi Jung. OpenStax is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License V 4.0
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2025-03-18T00:36:19.316713
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ALka Sharma
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3.3 Movement of Water and Minerals in the Roots
3.4 Movement of Water Against Gravity
3.5 Control of Transpiration
3_Water-Movement-in-Xylem
Water Movement in Xylem
Overview
Photohound, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Did you have an idea for improving this content? We’d love your input.
Introduction
Learning Objectives
- Identify the components of water potential.
- Define transpiration.
- Explain the cohesion tension theory of xylem transport.
Key Terms
adhesion - the attraction between water molecules and other molecules
apoplastic movement - the movement of water along with dissolved ions in the space between the cell wall and plasma membrane
capillary rise - the tendency of a liquid to move up against gravity when confine within a narrow tube
cation exchange capacity - the measure of the total amount of changeable positive ions that a soil can hold
central vacuole - large plant cell organelle that regulates the cell's storage compartment, holds water and plays a significant role in cell growth as the site of macromolecule degradation
cohesion tension theory - is the hypothesis that explains the movement of water up the xylem vessels using the physical properties of water and the process of transpiration
electronegativity - the ability of a compound or particle to attract electrons
evaporation - the process by which water changes from a liquid to a gas or vapor
hydrologic cycle - the continuous circulation of water from land and sea to the atmosphere and back again
stomata - an opening on the leaf surface for the exchange of CO2 and water vapor
symplastic movement - the movement of water along with the dissolved ions from the cytoplasm of one cell into the next cell via plasmodesmata that physically join different plant cells
translocation - mass transport of photosynthates from source to sink in the phloem of vascular plants
transmembrane movement - the movement of water along with the dissolved ions from outside of the cell to inside across the plasma membrane
transpiration - loss of water vapor to the atmosphere through stomata
turgor pressure - the outward pressure generated by the inflow of water via osmosis across the semipermeable plasma membrane causing the plasma membrane to swell and push against the cell wall
water potential - the potential energy of a water solution per unit volume in relation to pure water at atmospheric pressure and ambient temperature
The structure of plant roots, stems, and leaves facilitate the transport of water, nutrients, and photosynthates throughout the plant. The phloem and xylem are the main tissues responsible for this movement. Water potential, evapotranspiration, and stomatal regulation influence how water and nutrients are transported in plants. To understand how these processes work, we must first understand the energetics of water potential.
Water Potential
Plants are phenomenal hydraulic engineers. Using only the basic laws of physics and the simple manipulation of potential energy, plants can move water to the top of a 116-meter-tall tree. Plants can also use hydraulics to generate enough force to split rocks and buckle sidewalks (Figure 2.3.1). Plants achieve this because of water potential.
Water potential is a measure of the potential energy in water—specifically, water movement between two systems. Water potential can be defined as the difference in potential energy between any given water sample and pure water (at atmospheric pressure and ambient temperature). Water potential is denoted by the Greek letter Ψ (psi) and is expressed in units of pressure (pressure is a form of energy) called megapascals (MPa). The potential of pure water (Ψpure H2O) is designated a value of zero (even though pure water contains plenty of potential energy, that energy is ignored). Water potential values for the water in a plant root, stem, or leaf are expressed relative to Ψpure H2O.
The water potential measurement combines the effects of solute concentration (S) and pressure (P):
Ψwater = ΨS + ΨP
where Ψs = solute potential, and Ψp = pressure potential.
The addition of more solutes will decrease the water potential, and the removal of solutes will increase the water potential. The addition of pressure will increase the water potential, and the removal of the pressure (creation of a vacuum) will decrease the water potential.
Water always moves from a region of high water potential to an area of low water potential, until it equilibrates the water potential of the system. At equilibrium, there is no difference in water potential on either side of the system (the difference in water potential is zero). For water to move through the plant from the soil to the air (a process called transpiration), Ψsoil must be > Ψroot > Ψstem > Ψleaf > Ψatmosphere.
Let’s consider solute and pressure potential in the context of plant cells:
Solute potential (Ψs), also called osmotic potential, is negative in a plant cell and zero in distilled water, because solutes reduce water potential to a negative Ψs. The internal water potential of a plant cell is more negative than pure water because of the cytoplasm’s high solute content. Because of this difference in water potential, water will move from the soil into a plant’s root cells via the process of osmosis. This is why solute potential is sometimes called osmotic potential. Plant cells can metabolically manipulate Ψs by adding or removing solute molecules (figure 2.3.2).
Pressure potential (Ψp), also called turgor potential, may be positive or negative. Positive pressure (compression) increases Ψp, and negative pressure (vacuum) decreases Ψp. Positive pressure inside cells is contained by the rigid cell wall, producing turgor pressure. Pressure potentials can reach as high as 1.5 MPa in a well-watered plant. A Ψp of 1.5 MPa equates to 210 pounds per square inch (psi); for comparison, most automobile tires are kept at a pressure of 30-34 psi. A plant can manipulate Ψp via its ability to manipulate Ψs, as well as by the process of osmosis. If a plant cell increases the cytoplasmic solute concentration, Ψs will decline, water will move into the cell by osmosis, and Ψp will increase. Ψp is also under indirect plant control via the opening and closing of stomata. Stomatal openings allow water to evaporate from the leaf, reducing Ψp and Ψtotal of the leaf and increasing the water potential difference between the water in the leaf and the petiole, thereby allowing water to flow from the petiole into the leaf (figure 2.3.2).
This video provides an overview of water potential, including solute and pressure potential.
And this video describes how plants manipulate water potential to absorb water and how water and minerals move through the root tissues.
Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/biology-2e/pages/30-5-transport-of-water-and-solutes-in-plants
Movement of Water and Minerals in the Roots
Negative water potential continues to drive movement once water (and minerals) are inside the root; Ψ of the soil is much higher than Ψ or the root, and Ψ of the cortex (ground tissue) is much higher than Ψ of the stele (location of the root vascular tissue). Once the water has been absorbed by a root hair, it moves through the ground tissue through one of three possible routes before entering the plant’s xylem:
- the symplast “Sym” means “same” or “shared,” so symplast is shared cytoplasm. In this pathway, water and minerals move from the cytoplasm of one cell into the next, via plasmodesmata that physically join different plant cells until eventually reaching the xylem (Figure 2.3.4).
- the transmembrane pathway In this pathway, water moves through water channels present in the plant cell plasma membranes, from one cell to the next, until eventually reaching the xylem (Figure 2.3.4).
- the apoplast “A” means “outside of,” so the apoplast is outside of the cell. In this pathway, water and dissolved minerals never move through a cell’s plasma membrane; instead, they travel through the porous cell walls that surround plant cells (Figure 2.3.4.).
Movement of Water Against Gravity
How is water transported up a plant against gravity, when there is no “pump” to move water through a plant’s vascular tissue? There are three hypotheses that explain the movement of water up a plant against gravity. These hypotheses are not mutually exclusive, and each contributes to the movement of water in a plant, but only one can explain the height of tall trees:
- Root pressure pushes water up.
- Capillary action draws water up within the xylem.
- Cohesion-tension pulls water up the xylem.
We’ll consider each of these in turn.
Root pressure relies on positive pressure that forms in the roots as water moves into the roots from the soil. Water moves into the roots from the soil by osmosis, due to the low solute potential in the roots (lower Ψs in roots than in soil). This intake of water in the roots increases Ψp in the root xylem, driving water up. In extreme circumstances, root pressure results in guttation—or secretion of water droplets from stomata in the leaves. However, root pressure can only move water against gravity by a few meters, so it is not strong enough to move water up the height of a tall tree.
Capillary action or capillarity is the tendency of a liquid to move up against gravity when confined within a narrow tube (capillary). Capillarity occurs due to three properties of water:
- Surface tension occurs because hydrogen bonding between water molecules is stronger at the air-water interface than among molecules within the water.
- Adhesion is the molecular attraction between “unlike” molecules. In the case of the xylem, adhesion occurs between water molecules and the molecules of the xylem cell walls.
- Cohesion is the molecular attraction between “like” molecules. In water, cohesion occurs due to hydrogen bonding between water molecules.
On its own, capillarity can work well within a vertical stem for up to approximately 1 meter, so it is not strong enough to move water up a tall tree.
This video provides an overview of the important properties of water that facilitate this movement.
The cohesion-tension hypothesis (Figure 2.3.7.) is the most widely accepted model for the movement of water in vascular plants. Cohesion-tension essentially combines the process of capillary action with transpiration, or the evaporation of water from the plant stomata.
Transpiration is ultimately the main driver of water movement in the xylem. The cohesion-tension model works like this:
- Transpiration (evaporation) occurs because stomata are open to allow the gas exchange for photosynthesis. As transpiration occurs, it deepens the meniscus of water in the leaf, creating negative pressure (also called tension or suction).
- The tension created by transpiration “pulls” water in the plant xylem, drawing the water upward in much the same way that you draw water upward when you suck on a straw.
- Cohesion (water sticking to each other) causes more water molecules to fill the gap in the xylem as the top-most water is pulled toward the stomata.
Here is a bit more detail on how this process works: Inside the leaf at the cellular level, water on the surface of mesophyll cells saturates the cellulose microfibrils of the primary cell wall. The leaf contains many large intercellular air spaces for the exchange of oxygen for carbon dioxide, which is required for photosynthesis. The wet cell wall is exposed to this leaf's internal air space, and the water on the surface of the cells evaporates into the air spaces, decreasing the thin film on the surface of the mesophyll cells. This decrease creates a greater tension on the water in the mesophyll cells, thereby increasing the pull on the water in the xylem vessels. The xylem vessels and tracheids are structurally adapted to cope with large changes in pressure. Rings in the vessels maintain their tubular shape, much like the rings on a vacuum cleaner hose keep the hose open while it is under pressure. Small perforations between vessel elements reduce the number and size of gas bubbles that can form via a process called cavitation. The formation of gas bubbles in the xylem interrupts the continuous stream of water from the base to the top of the plant, causing a break termed an embolism in the flow of xylem sap. The taller the tree, the greater the tension forces needed to pull water, and the more cavitation events. In larger trees, the resulting embolisms can plug xylem vessels, making them non-functional.
Control of Transpiration
Transpiration is a passive process, meaning that ATP is not required for water movement. The energy that drives transpiration is the water potential difference between the water in the soil and the water in the atmosphere. However, transpiration is tightly controlled.
The atmosphere to which the leaf is exposed drives transpiration, but it also causes massive water loss from the plant. Up to 90 percent of the water taken up by roots may be lost through transpiration.
Leaves are covered by a waxy cuticle on the outer surface that prevents the loss of water. Regulation of transpiration, therefore, is achieved primarily through the opening and closing of stomata on the leaf surface. stomata are surrounded by two specialized cells called guard cells, which open and close in response to environmental cues such as light intensity and quality, leaf water status, and carbon dioxide concentrations. Stomata must open to allow air containing carbon dioxide and oxygen to diffuse into the leaf for photosynthesis and respiration. When stomata are open, however, water vapor is lost to the external environment, increasing the rate of transpiration. Therefore, plants must maintain a balance between efficient photosynthesis and water loss.
Plants have evolved over time to adapt to their local environment and reduce transpiration. Desert plants (xerophytes) and plants that grow on other plants (epiphytes) have limited access to water. Such plants usually have a much thicker waxy cuticle than those growing in more moderate, well-watered environments (mesophytes). Aquatic plants (hydrophytes) also have their own set of anatomical and morphological leaf adaptations.
Xerophytes and epiphytes often have a thick covering of trichomes or of stomata that are sunken below the leaf’s surface. Trichomes are specialized hair-like epidermal cells that secrete oils and substances. These adaptations impede air flow across the stomatal pore and reduce transpiration. Multiple epidermal layers are also commonly found in these types of plants.
Dig Deeper
Chapter 23
Bear, Robert; Rintoul, David; Snyder, Bruce; Smith-Caldas, Martha; Herren, Christopher; and Horne, Eva, "Principles of Biology" (2016). Open Access Textbooks. 1.
https://newprairiepress.org/textbooks/1
Attributions
Biology 2e By Mary Ann Clark, Matthew Douglas, Jung Choi. OpenStax is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License v4.0
Introduction to Organismal Biology at https://sites.gatech.edu/organismalbio/ is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Botany (Ha, Morrow, and Algiers) is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Melissa Ha, Maria Morrow, & Kammy Algiers.
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.397779
|
Anna McCollum
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/87595/overview",
"title": "Statewide Dual Credit Introduction to Plant Science, Plant Function, Water Movement in Xylem",
"author": "Lesson"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/109398/overview
|
OER Commons Hub Admin Training - VIDEO CAPTIONS
How to be a Hub Administrator
Overview
Overview on how to manage your Hub on OER Commons
Watch the Video
View the Slides & Transcripts
See attached PDF of slides and .srt file for transcript.
You can remix our slidedeck if you want to customize our training for your users.
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.416999
|
Lea DeForest
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/109398/overview",
"title": "How to be a Hub Administrator",
"author": "Joanna Schimizzi"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/69634/overview
|
Immigration Lesson
Overview
1 Day Lesson to introduce students to push and pull factors as to why people migrate.
Iowa Core Standards
Standards
SS.7.21. Evaluate the push and pull factors involved in human population movement and patterns.
Learning Targets
I can explain why people leave a place.
I can explain why people come to a place.
Activities
Task #1 - Think-Pair-Share:
Resources Needed: None
Prior Knowledge Needed: Pull Factors, Push Factors, Migrate
Task #2 - Syrian Refugee Activity:
Resources Needed: Internet Access, notebook, pencil, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32057601
Prior Knowledge Needed: Location of Syria, Definition of Refugee
Task #3 - Reflection:
Resources Needed: Paper, pencil
Prior Knowledge: None
Task #1 - Think-Pair-Share:
List 4 examples of push and pull factors that would encourage people to migrate. Partner with a peer to compare your answers. Share your with the whole class.
Task #2 - Syrian Refugee Activity:
Navigate the internet to https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32057601 . Follow the journey of a hypothetical refugee. As you follow the program, take notes of what obstacles you and your fellow refugees come across.
Task #3 - Reflection:
Using your notes write a 2 paragraph reflection. The first paragraph should explain what obstacles do you think were the greatest to you on your journey. The second paragraph should explain how you felt when seeing the obstacles that real refugees have to try to overcome.
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.433514
|
Josh Battern
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/69634/overview",
"title": "Immigration Lesson",
"author": "Activity/Lab"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/76672/overview
|
Website Evaluation Worksheet
Overview
This is a worksheet that helps students consider the websites that they are viewing.
Students learn to:
- Evaluate websites using the following criteria
- Authority
- Purpose
- Coverage
- Accuracy
- Objectivity
- Currency
- Appearance
- Compare websites for accuracy and value
Website Evaluation Worksheet
Website Evaluation
| STEP 1: Importance of Evaluating Websites | |
In the green box below, answer the following question: Why do you feel that it is important to evaluate websites prior to using them?
|
| STEP 2: Dog Island Website Evaluation | ||||||||
Click HERE to visit the DOG ISLAND WEBSITE Look through the website and answer the following questions in the space below:
|
| STEP 3: Research | ||||||||||||||||
The information you read on the previous page about Dog Island was completely fake! While the website looks like it might have contained legitimate information, it did not. So, how can you make sure that the information you are reading online is accurate? It is important to have a way to evaluate which websites contain accurate information.
|
| STEP 4: Comparing Websites | ||||||
Using the rubric above for a guide, click on the links below to compare the three websites: Answer the questions below:
|
| STEP 5: Website Evaluation Wrap-Up |
| The goal of this lesson was to help you see the importance of evaluating a website before believing the claims that it makes. You were shown one rubric that can be used to help you. There are many other evaluation rubrics that can also be helpful. Read through the tutorial below to learn more. Then complete the following practice. In the end, the important thing is that you evaluate the websites that you read and visit! |
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.460674
|
Crystal Van Ausdal
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/76672/overview",
"title": "Website Evaluation Worksheet",
"author": "Becky Ball"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/70996/overview
|
OSKB Group Admin Editor Roles and Responsibilities
Overview
Each OSKB Group will have Group Admininistrators. Group Administrators act as Editors in the OSKB, and have related roles and responsibilities. This document is an evolving document maintained by members of the OSKB Editorial Subcommittee to provide transparency on how the editorial process works, who is responsible for what, and how editorial conflicts or administrative issues may be resolved.
Group Admin Editorial Roles
Editors will be associated with a Group, and be Group Admins.
Groups on the OER Commons, where the OSKB will be hosted, can be created.
Currently, the Groups are by OSKB user:
- Researchers Group
- Educators Group
- Librarians Group
- Funders Group
- Publishers Group
- Policy makers Group
- Future Groups could be created by Topic, Discipline, Region, or Project.
Each Group should have up to 3 Group Admins of different Editor Types.
- Content Editor - The Content Editor ensures that the content of new resources meet certain criteria for accuracy, quality, trustworthiness, and accessibility.
- Curation Editor - The Curation Editor ensures that content is well-organized and discoverable, and that metadata is complete and correct.
- Community Editor - The Community Editor ensures that the Group Discussion Board is moderated and updated, answers questions in the Discussion Board, and facilitates new resource collaborations. Community Editors will recruit new Group members and new submissions from diverse sources. Every Group should have a “Good First Task” Thread in their Discussion Board that invites new Group members to get started; Community Editors maintain and update the “Good First Task” Thread.
Group Admin Editorial Appointments
Editors will apply for a role.
- Prior editorial experience will not be necessary for new editors. All interested volunteers will be encouraged to apply.
- The application process intends to allow transparency in the process and allow the promotion of diversity in the community.
- The application form will be minimal, and can be completed here by anyone interested in the Pilot Cohort of Editors recruited during the Summer/Fall of 2020: https://bit.ly/oskb-pilot-editors.
All Editors have term limits.
- Editors apply to the Editorial Subcommittee to be a Content, Curation, or Community Editor for a specific Group.
- Individuals can be in an Editor role for 1 year at a time. Editors can start their role at different dates, and will pass their role after 1 year. Our Pilot Cohort of Editors recruited during the Summer/Fall of 2020 will have shorter terms of 6 months to facilitate the testing of the model. The Pilot Cohort may apply to renew their role for a year following the pilot.
- When a term limit is over, Editors can remain active in the Group without their editorial rights and responsibilities.
Editor diversity is prioritized.
- The Editorial Subcommittee will work with the Governance Subcommittee to review Editor applications.
- Creating a safe and welcoming community at the OSKB starts with ensuring that Groups have diverse leadership and that diversity is actively built, supported, and prioritized.
- Editors will be recruited and appointed to promote diversity in gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, race, nationality, region, language, educational background, and discipline.
Editorial Process
All Group resource submissions will be reviewed before publication.
- Submissions of an existing online OER Resource can be made by any Group member to be added to the Group Resource.
- After a submission is made, it will be held for review.
- The review process will be started by the Content Editor. The Content Editor will review the submission to ensure that the information is accurate, trustworthy, and accessible.
- If the Content Editor accepts the submission, they will notify the Curation Editor to ensure the metadata is complete and correct.
- If the Content Editor deems the submission to not be accurate, trustworthy, or accessible, the Content Editor will either:
- Contact the Submission Author directly with their decision and their reasoning; or
- Describe their decision in the Editorial Discussion thread so the author can amend or clarify before resubmission.
- Submissions that are not accepted for Group publication may still be published to OER Commons without Editorial approval; they will not be part of the Group Collection and may not be part of the OSKB.
- Once the metadata of a submission is complete and correct, the Curation Editor can publish the resource to the Group Collection.
All Group newly authored resources will be reviewed before publication.
- New resources can be created within the Group through Open Author. New resources can be created by any Group member to be added to the Group Resource.
- After a submission is made, it will be held for review.
- The review process will be started by the Content Editor. The Content Editor will review the submission to ensure that the information is accurate and trustworthy.
- If the Content Editor accepts the submission, they will notify the Curation Editor to ensure the metadata is complete and correct.
- If the Content Editor deems the submission to not be accurate, trustworthy, or accessible, the Content Editor will contact the Resource Author with proposed revisions. After revision, the Authors will contact the Content Editor for review again.
- Submissions that are not accepted for Group publication may still be published to OER Commons without Editorial approval; they will not be part of the Group Collection and may not be part of the OSKB.
- Once the metadata of a submission is complete and correct, the Curation Editor can publish the resource to the Group Collection.
Group Admin Editorial Roles Do’s and Don’ts
- Group Admins are required to adhere to the OSKB Code of Conduct.
- Group Admins are required to report every possible violation of the OSKB Code of Conduct. They will not make personal judgement calls on whether the possible violation is “serious enough” to be reported, but will report liberally to allow the Code of Conduct Committee to assess all incidents. This ensures transparency and consistency, and is intended to improve and strengthen the Code of Conduct document and process over time.
- Group Admins must follow the roles and responsibilities of their assigned editorial role(s). They must limit their acts to those explicitly permitted by their assigned role. If they are unsure whether a certain act is their responsibility, they should raise the issue with the Editorial Subcommittee for guidance.
- Content Editor - The Content Editor ensures that the content of new resources meet certain criteria for accuracy, quality, trustworthiness, and accessibility.
- The Content Editor can assess the accuracy, quality, trustworthiness, and accessibility of a resource using existing OSKB guidelines.
- The Content Editor can choose to respond to a resource in 3 ways, and 3 ways only:
- Accepting the resource for Group Publication by contacting the Curation Editor to initiate the Metadata review.
- Rejecting the resource as-is, and communicating which part of the OSKB guidelines the resource does not meet directly to the submitter. For Open Authored submissions, this communication can include suggested revisions.
- Rejecting the resource as-is, and communicating which part of the OSKB guidelines the resource does not meet publicly in the Editorial Discussion thread. For Open Authored submissions, this communication can include suggested revisions.
- The Content Editor cannot choose to assess the resource by criteria not currently described in the OSKB guidelines. If the Content Editor notices that criteria are missing or unclear, they must raise the issue with the Editorial Subcommittee.
- Curation Editor - The Curation Editor ensures that content is well-organized and discoverable, and that metadata is complete and correct.
- The Curation Editor can choose to respond to a resource passed from the Content Editor in 2 ways, and 2 ways only:
- Accepting and publishing the resource as-is, after assessing that the Keywords are in alignment with the OSKB Metadata and Collections.
- Adding additional OSKB Metadata Keywords, and then accepting and publishing the resource.
- If the Curation Editor feels that the resource does not meet the publication criteria currently described in the OSKB guidelines, they can choose to respond in 2 ways, and 2 ways only:
- Contacting the Content Editor directly and communicating which part of the OSKB guidelines the resource does not meet.
- If the Content Editor and Curation Editor do not agree on their assessment of the OSKB guidelines, they must raise the issue with the Editorial Subcommittee.
- Community Editor - The Community Editor ensures that the Group Discussion Board is moderated and updated, answers questions in the Discussion Board, and facilitates new resource collaborations. Community Editors will recruit new Group members and new submissions from diverse sources. Every Group should have a “Good First Task” Thread in their Discussion Board that invites new Group members to get started; Community Editors maintain and update the “Good First Task” Thread.
- The Community Editor can choose to respond to new Group Discussion posts in 4 ways, and 4 ways only:
- After reviewing the posts and deciding that no Code of Conduct violations, off-topic conversations, or misinformation is within the posts, the Community Editor leaves the posts public.
- Deleting posts that either the Community Editor, another Admin, or a Group Member have flagged as a possible violation of the Code of Conduct. Community Editors have full discretion to delete posts without a full Code of Conduct Incident review. Post Authors have the right to request and receive a private explanation as to why the post might violate the Code of Conduct. The Post Authors have the right to request and receive a Code of Conduct Incident review if they believe that their post does not violate the Code of Conduct.
- Deleting posts that either the Community Editor, another Admin, or a Group Member have flagged as off-topic or misinformation. Community Editors have full discretion to off-topic and misinforming posts, but must provide a private explanation as to why the post was deleted to the Post Author. Post Authors who wish to challenge a pattern of post deletions have the right to request discussion of the posts with the Editorial Subcommittee.
- In addition to deleting posts, the Community Editor can choose to request a user ban from the Code of Conduct Committee or the Editorial Subcommittee. This request is a judgement call by Community Editors for major possible violations of the Code of Conduct, which would be evaluated by the Code of Conduct Committee. This request could also be for repeated posts of misinformation or spam, which would be evaluated by the Editorial Subcommittee.
Current Group Admin Editors
- Researchers Group
- Marcy Reedy (August 2020 - January 2021)
- Felix Henninger (August 2020 - January 2021)
- Educators Group
- Marcy Reedy (August 2020 - January 2021)
- Erin M. Buchanan (August 2020 - January 2021)
- Librarians Group
- Marcy Reedy (August 2020 - January 2021)
- Erin M. Buchanan (August 2020 - January 2021)
- Funders Group
- Marcy Reedy (August 2020 - January 2021)
- Publishers Group
- Marcy Reedy (August 2020 - January 2021)
- Felix Henninger (August 2020 - January 2021)
- Policy makers Group
- Marcy Reedy (August 2020 - January 2021)
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.486225
|
08/07/2020
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/70996/overview",
"title": "OSKB Group Admin Editor Roles and Responsibilities",
"author": "OSKB Admin"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/88849/overview
|
Sun's Shadow
Overview
Here you will find how the sun's shadow works.
This resource aims to enlighten you on the sun's shadows and how it works.
Here you will find how the sun's shadow works.
This resource aims to enlighten you on the sun's shadows and how it works.
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.501499
|
12/17/2021
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/88849/overview",
"title": "Sun's Shadow",
"author": "Stacy Bedeau"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/77838/overview
|
Current Reality and Barriers PD
Overview
This professional development will lead a team of math teachers through a goal-setting process where they first identify their current reality, then set goals for improvement, identify barriers, and finish with generating solutions.
Self Assessment of Current Reality
Teachers will take a self-assessment regarding where they are in regard to certain statements as it pertains to their classroom. They will then identify 3 areas where they would like to see improvement.
Step 1: Click on this link to make a copy of the current reality self-survey.
Step 2: Take the survey.
Step 3: Write down three areas where you would like to make some changes.
Goals
The facilitator will monitor the time and gather the sticky notes when finished. Be sure to mix them up to help maintain privacy.
Now that you have identified the three areas where you would like to improve, write each of those areas on a separate sticky note. These notes will all be pooled together to maintain privacy.
Once all sticky notes are gathered, the facilitator will read them all out loud and sort them into categories. The group will then notice patterns.
Now that patterns have been identified, the group will identify three goal areas for the group to focus on. These goal areas will be recorded on this Google Doc. One member of the group will need to name the forced copy and share it with the other team members. Only complete the goal section at this time.
Barriers
Now that goals have been identified, let's acknowledge the barriers that could pose a challenge to us reaching those goals. Grab your sticky notes again, and for the next 3 minutes, write down all potential barriers to achieving those goals as a team. One barrier per sticky note.
With your list of barriers in front of you, take a moment and look them over. Now, remove all of the barriers that are beyond your control. Maybe it's an administrative decision, perhaps it's something to do with the schedule. Whatever the reason, if it is something beyond your control or influence, go ahead and remove those sticky notes from the group.
Each group member will now read his/her sticky notes aloud to the group. If one is read that you also have, let the group know and put those sticky notes together in a stack. Follow this process until each team member has read all of his/her barriers.
Assessment-Goal Setting Action Sheet
Goal Setting Action Sheet
| Goal: | |
| Learning Needed: | |
| Who am I going to for that learning or where will I find the needed resources? | |
| What is the first thing I will do to get started? |
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.518510
|
Amanda Keller
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/77838/overview",
"title": "Current Reality and Barriers PD",
"author": "Activity/Lab"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/92545/overview
|
When I feel......I will.....
Overview
Expressing needs is linked to identifying and expressing feelings. The activity's objective is to enable children to express feelings first and foremost to be able to identify and express their needs.
Expressing needs and wants
Get an empty template of a wheel, show the child different feelings, and let him/her pick his/her top 3 to 5 feelings and stick them.
Then let them talk about each feeling, a moment he/she felt this way, and what he/she thinks he/she needed at that moment.
After the child mentions the need, discuss it with him/her and let him/her draw it beside the feeling to be able to link between his feelings and needs, and also realize the importance of saying this need out.
Activity Materials
| Depends on the no. of students | An empty wheel template |
| Depends on the no. of students | Small printed feelings |
| Depends on the no. of students | Markers/colors/Pencils |
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.532988
|
Activity/Lab
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/92545/overview",
"title": "When I feel......I will.....",
"author": "Special Education"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/97244/overview
|
Learning Centers Observation Tool
Overview
Use this document in your PLC, with your teaching partner, or alone to map out which WaKIDS Whole-child Assessment Objectives you might observe in each center.
This is a planning tool for WaKIDS Objecties for Development and Learning.
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:19.548947
|
09/15/2022
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/97244/overview",
"title": "Learning Centers Observation Tool",
"author": "Whitney White"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/94161/overview
|
The Magic Cup
Overview
ACTIVITY OBJECTIVE: This fun memory activity requires them to focus, and remember.
Memory - Attention
Make sure the child sees and identifies where the ball is.
Start with shuffling the cups slowly, and go up gradually each time.
ACTIVITY OBJECTIVE: This fun memory activity requires them to focus, and remember.
ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION:
Place three identical, plastic cups in a line on the table, rim down.
Place a small rubber ball under one cup, allowing your child to see which cup the ball is under.
Shuffle the cups around by sliding them across the table, switching their positions quickly back and forth and all around.
Once you have stopped moving the cups ask your child to identify which cup the ball is now under.Page Break
ACTIVITY MATERIALS
03 | Identical, non-transparent plastic cups |
01 | rubber ball |
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.562766
|
Activity/Lab
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/94161/overview",
"title": "The Magic Cup",
"author": "Special Education"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/15430/overview
|
Common Sense: From Monarchy to an American Republic
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Compare and contrast monarchy and republican government
- Describe the tenets of republicanism
While monarchies dominated eighteenth-century Europe, American revolutionaries were determined to find an alternative to this method of government. Radical pamphleteer Thomas Paine, whose enormously popular essay Common Sense was first published in January 1776, advocated a republic: a state without a king. Six months later, Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence affirmed the break with England but did not suggest what form of government should replace monarchy, the only system most English colonists had ever known. In the late eighteenth century, republics were few and far between. Genoa, Venice, and the Dutch Republic provided examples of states without monarchs, but many European Enlightenment thinkers questioned the stability of a republic. Nonetheless, after their break from Great Britain, Americans turned to republicanism for their new government.
REPUBLICANISM AS A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Monarchy rests on the practice of dynastic succession, in which the monarch’s child or other relative inherits the throne. Contested dynastic succession produced chronic conflict and warfare in Europe. In the eighteenth century, well-established monarchs ruled most of Europe and, according to tradition, were obligated to protect and guide their subjects. However, by the mid-1770s, many American colonists believed that George III, the king of Great Britain, had failed to do so. Patriots believed the British monarchy under George III had been corrupted and the king turned into a tyrant who cared nothing for the traditional liberties afforded to members of the British Empire. The disaffection from monarchy explains why a republic appeared a better alternative to the revolutionaries.
American revolutionaries looked to the past for inspiration for their break with the British monarchy and their adoption of a republican form of government. The Roman Republic provided guidance. Much like the Americans in their struggle against Britain, Romans had thrown off monarchy and created a republic in which Roman citizens would appoint or select the leaders who would represent them.
Visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see a Roman-style bust of George Washington, complete with toga. In 1791, Italian sculptor Giuseppe Ceracchi visited Philadelphia, hoping the government might commission a monument of his creation. He did not succeed, but the bust of Washington, one of the ones he produced to demonstrate his skill, illustrates the connection between the American and Roman republics that revolutionaries made.
While republicanism offered an alternative to monarchy, it was also an alternative to democracy, a system of government characterized by majority rule, where the majority of citizens have the power to make decisions binding upon the whole. To many revolutionaries, especially wealthy landowners, merchants, and planters, democracy did not offer a good replacement for monarchy. Indeed, conservative Whigs defined themselves in opposition to democracy, which they equated with anarchy. In the tenth in a series of essays later known as The Federalist Papers, Virginian James Madison wrote: “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” Many shared this perspective and worked hard to keep democratic tendencies in check. It is easy to understand why democracy seemed threatening: majority rule can easily overpower minority rights, and the wealthy few had reason to fear that a hostile and envious majority could seize and redistribute their wealth.
While many now assume the United States was founded as a democracy, history, as always, is more complicated. Conservative Whigs believed in government by a patrician class, a ruling group composed of a small number of privileged families. Radical Whigs favored broadening the popular participation in political life and pushed for democracy. The great debate after independence was secured centered on this question: Who should rule in the new American republic?
REPUBLICANISM AS A SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY
According to political theory, a republic requires its citizens to cultivate virtuous behavior; if the people are virtuous, the republic will survive. If the people become corrupt, the republic will fall. Whether republicanism succeeded or failed in the United States would depend on civic virtue and an educated citizenry. Revolutionary leaders agreed that the ownership of property provided one way to measure an individual’s virtue, arguing that property holders had the greatest stake in society and therefore could be trusted to make decisions for it. By the same token, non-property holders, they believed, should have very little to do with government. In other words, unlike a democracy, in which the mass of non-property holders could exercise the political right to vote, a republic would limit political rights to property holders. In this way, republicanism exhibited a bias toward the elite, a preference that is understandable given the colonial legacy. During colonial times, wealthy planters and merchants in the American colonies had looked to the British ruling class, whose social order demanded deference from those of lower rank, as a model of behavior. Old habits died hard.
Benjamin Franklin’s Thirteen Virtues for Character Development
In the 1780s, Benjamin Franklin carefully defined thirteen virtues to help guide his countrymen in maintaining a virtuous republic. His choice of thirteen is telling since he wrote for the citizens of the thirteen new American republics. These virtues were:
1. Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
6. Industry. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
11. Tranquillity. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
13. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
Franklin’s thirteen virtues suggest that hard work and good behavior will bring success. What factors does Franklin ignore? How would he likely address a situation in which children inherit great wealth rather than working for it? How do Franklin’s values help to define the notion of republican virtue?
Check how well you are demonstrating all thirteen of Franklin’s virtues on thirteenvirtues.com, where you can register to track your progress.
George Washington served as a role model par excellence for the new republic, embodying the exceptional talent and public virtue prized under the political and social philosophy of republicanism. He did not seek to become the new king of America; instead he retired as commander in chief of the Continental Army and returned to his Virginia estate at Mount Vernon to resume his life among the planter elite. Washington modeled his behavior on that of the Roman aristocrat Cincinnatus, a representative of the patrician or ruling class, who had also retired from public service in the Roman Republic and returned to his estate to pursue agricultural life.
The aristocratic side of republicanism—and the belief that the true custodians of public virtue were those who had served in the military—found expression in the Society of the Cincinnati, of which Washington was the first president general (Figure). Founded in 1783, the society admitted only officers of the Continental Army and the French forces, not militia members or minutemen. Following the rule of primogeniture, the eldest sons of members inherited their fathers’ memberships. The society still exists today and retains the motto Omnia relinquit servare rempublicam (“He relinquished everything to save the Republic”).
Section Summary
The guiding principle of republicanism was that the people themselves would appoint or select the leaders who would represent them. The debate over how much democracy (majority rule) to incorporate in the governing of the new United States raised questions about who was best qualified to participate in government and have the right to vote. Revolutionary leaders argued that property holders had the greatest stake in society and favored a republic that would limit political rights to property holders. In this way, republicanism exhibited a bias toward the elite. George Washington served as a role model for the new republic, embodying the exceptional talent and public virtue prized in its political and social philosophy.
Review Questions
To what form of government did the American revolutionaries turn after the war for independence?
- republicanism
- monarchy
- democracy
- oligarchy
Hint:
A
Which of the following was not one of Franklin’s thirteen virtues?
- sincerity
- temperance
- mercy
- tranquility
Hint:
C
What defined republicanism as a social philosophy?
Hint:
Citizenship within a republic meant accepting certain rights and responsibilities as well as cultivating virtuous behavior. This philosophy was based on the notion that the success or failure of the republic depended upon the virtue or corruption of its citizens.
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.587097
|
07/10/2017
|
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"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/15430/overview",
"title": "U.S. History, Creating Republican Governments, 1776–1790, Common Sense: From Monarchy to an American Republic",
"author": null
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/15419/overview
|
Confronting the National Debt: The Aftermath of the French and Indian War
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Discuss the status of Great Britain’s North American colonies in the years directly following the French and Indian War
- Describe the size and scope of the British debt at the end of the French and Indian War
- Explain how the British Parliament responded to the debt crisis
- Outline the purpose of the Proclamation Line, the Sugar Act, and the Currency Act
Great Britain had much to celebrate in 1763. The long and costly war with France had finally ended, and Great Britain had emerged victorious. British subjects on both sides of the Atlantic celebrated the strength of the British Empire. Colonial pride ran high; to live under the British Constitution and to have defeated the hated French Catholic menace brought great joy to British Protestants everywhere in the Empire. From Maine to Georgia, British colonists joyously celebrated the victory and sang the refrain of “Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves! Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!”
Despite the celebratory mood, the victory over France also produced major problems within the British Empire, problems that would have serious consequences for British colonists in the Americas. During the war, many Indian tribes had sided with the French, who supplied them with guns. After the 1763 Treaty of Paris that ended the French and Indian War (or the Seven Years’ War), British colonists had to defend the frontier, where French colonists and their tribal allies remained a powerful force. The most organized resistance, Pontiac’s Rebellion, highlighted tensions the settlers increasingly interpreted in racial terms.
The massive debt the war generated at home, however, proved to be the most serious issue facing Great Britain. The frontier had to be secure in order to prevent another costly war. Greater enforcement of imperial trade laws had to be put into place. Parliament had to find ways to raise revenue to pay off the crippling debt from the war. Everyone would have to contribute their expected share, including the British subjects across the Atlantic.
PROBLEMS ON THE AMERICAN FRONTIER
With the end of the French and Indian War, Great Britain claimed a vast new expanse of territory, at least on paper. Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, the French territory known as New France had ceased to exist. British territorial holdings now extended from Canada to Florida, and British military focus shifted to maintaining peace in the king’s newly enlarged lands. However, much of the land in the American British Empire remained under the control of powerful native confederacies, which made any claims of British mastery beyond the Atlantic coastal settlements hollow. Great Britain maintained ten thousand troops in North America after the war ended in 1763 to defend the borders and repel any attack by their imperial rivals.
British colonists, eager for fresh land, poured over the Appalachian Mountains to stake claims. The western frontier had long been a “middle ground” where different imperial powers (British, French, Spanish) had interacted and compromised with native peoples. That era of accommodation in the “middle ground” came to an end after the French and Indian War. Virginians (including George Washington) and other land-hungry colonists had already raised tensions in the 1740s with their quest for land. Virginia landowners in particular eagerly looked to diversify their holdings beyond tobacco, which had stagnated in price and exhausted the fertility of the lands along the Chesapeake Bay. They invested heavily in the newly available land. This westward movement brought the settlers into conflict as never before with Indian tribes, such as the Shawnee, Seneca-Cayuga, Wyandot, and Delaware, who increasingly held their ground against any further intrusion by white settlers.
The treaty that ended the war between France and Great Britain proved to be a significant blow to native peoples, who had viewed the conflict as an opportunity to gain additional trade goods from both sides. With the French defeat, many Indians who had sided with France lost a valued trading partner as well as bargaining power over the British. Settlers’ encroachment on their land, as well as the increased British military presence, changed the situation on the frontier dramatically. After the war, British troops took over the former French forts but failed to court favor with the local tribes by distributing ample gifts, as the French had done. They also significantly reduced the amount of gunpowder and ammunition they sold to the Indians, worsening relationships further.
Indians’ resistance to colonists drew upon the teachings of Delaware (Lenni Lenape) prophet Neolin and the leadership of Ottawa war chief Pontiac. Neolin was a spiritual leader who preached a doctrine of shunning European culture and expelling Europeans from native lands. Neolin’s beliefs united Indians from many villages. In a broad-based alliance that came to be known as Pontiac’s Rebellion, Pontiac led a loose coalition of these native tribes against the colonists and the British army.
Pontiac started bringing his coalition together as early as 1761, urging Indians to “drive [the Europeans] out and make war upon them.” The conflict began in earnest in 1763, when Pontiac and several hundred Ojibwas, Potawatomis, and Hurons laid siege to Fort Detroit. At the same time, Senecas, Shawnees, and Delawares laid siege to Fort Pitt. Over the next year, the war spread along the backcountry from Virginia to Pennsylvania. Pontiac’s Rebellion (also known as Pontiac’s War) triggered horrific violence on both sides. Firsthand reports of Indian attacks tell of murder, scalping, dismemberment, and burning at the stake. These stories incited a deep racial hatred among colonists against all Indians.
The actions of a group of Scots-Irish settlers from Paxton (or Paxtang), Pennsylvania, in December 1763, illustrates the deadly situation on the frontier. Forming a mob known as the Paxton Boys, these frontiersmen attacked a nearby group of Conestoga of the Susquehannock tribe. The Conestoga had lived peacefully with local settlers, but the Paxton Boys viewed all Indians as savages and they brutally murdered the six Conestoga they found at home and burned their houses. When Governor John Penn put the remaining fourteen Conestoga in protective custody in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the Paxton Boys broke into the building and killed and scalped the Conestoga they found there (Figure). Although Governor Penn offered a reward for the capture of any Paxton Boys involved in the murders, no one ever identified the attackers. Some colonists reacted to the incident with outrage. Benjamin Franklin described the Paxton Boys as “the barbarous Men who committed the atrocious act, in Defiance of Government, of all Laws human and divine, and to the eternal Disgrace of their Country and Colour,” stating that “the Wickedness cannot be covered, the Guilt will lie on the whole Land, till Justice is done on the Murderers. The blood of the innocent will cry to heaven for vengeance.” Yet, as the inability to bring the perpetrators to justice clearly indicates, the Paxton Boys had many more supporters than critics.
Visit Explore PAhistory.com to read the full text of Benjamin Franklin’s “Benjamin Franklin, An Account of the Paxton Boys’ Murder of the Conestoga Indians, 1764.”
Pontiac’s Rebellion and the Paxton Boys’ actions were examples of early American race wars, in which both sides saw themselves as inherently different from the other and believed the other needed to be eradicated. The prophet Neolin’s message, which he said he received in a vision from the Master of Life, was: “Wherefore do you suffer the whites to dwell upon your lands? Drive them away; wage war against them.” Pontiac echoed this idea in a meeting, exhorting tribes to join together against the British: “It is important for us, my brothers, that we exterminate from our lands this nation which seeks only to destroy us.” In his letter suggesting “gifts” to the natives of smallpox-infected blankets, Field Marshal Jeffrey Amherst said, “You will do well to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets, as well as every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race.” Pontiac’s Rebellion came to an end in 1766, when it became clear that the French, whom Pontiac had hoped would side with his forces, would not be returning. The repercussions, however, would last much longer. Race relations between Indians and whites remained poisoned on the frontier.
Well aware of the problems on the frontier, the British government took steps to try to prevent bloodshed and another costly war. At the beginning of Pontiac’s uprising, the British issued the Proclamation of 1763, which forbade white settlement west of the Proclamation Line, a borderline running along the spine of the Appalachian Mountains (Figure). The Proclamation Line aimed to forestall further conflict on the frontier, the clear flashpoint of tension in British North America. British colonists who had hoped to move west after the war chafed at this restriction, believing the war had been fought and won to ensure the right to settle west. The Proclamation Line therefore came as a setback to their vision of westward expansion.
THE BRITISH NATIONAL DEBT
Great Britain’s newly enlarged empire meant a greater financial burden, and the mushrooming debt from the war was a major cause of concern. The war nearly doubled the British national debt, from £75 million in 1756 to £133 million in 1763. Interest payments alone consumed over half the national budget, and the continuing military presence in North America was a constant drain. The Empire needed more revenue to replenish its dwindling coffers. Those in Great Britain believed that British subjects in North America, as the major beneficiaries of Great Britain’s war for global supremacy, should certainly shoulder their share of the financial burden.
The British government began increasing revenues by raising taxes at home, even as various interest groups lobbied to keep their taxes low. Powerful members of the aristocracy, well represented in Parliament, successfully convinced Prime Minister John Stuart, third earl of Bute, to refrain from raising taxes on land. The greater tax burden, therefore, fell on the lower classes in the form of increased import duties, which raised the prices of imported goods such as sugar and tobacco. George Grenville succeeded Bute as prime minister in 1763. Grenville determined to curtail government spending and make sure that, as subjects of the British Empire, the American colonists did their part to pay down the massive debt.
IMPERIAL REFORMS
The new era of greater British interest in the American colonies through imperial reforms picked up in pace in the mid-1760s. In 1764, Prime Minister Grenville introduced the Currency Act of 1764, prohibiting the colonies from printing additional paper money and requiring colonists to pay British merchants in gold and silver instead of the colonial paper money already in circulation. The Currency Act aimed to standardize the currency used in Atlantic trade, a logical reform designed to help stabilize the Empire’s economy. This rule brought American economic activity under greater British control. Colonists relied on their own paper currency to conduct trade and, with gold and silver in short supply, they found their finances tight. Not surprisingly, they grumbled about the new imperial currency regulations.
Grenville also pushed Parliament to pass the Sugar Act of 1764, which actually lowered duties on British molasses by half, from six pence per gallon to three. Grenville designed this measure to address the problem of rampant colonial smuggling with the French sugar islands in the West Indies. The act attempted to make it easier for colonial traders, especially New England mariners who routinely engaged in illegal trade, to comply with the imperial law.
To give teeth to the 1764 Sugar Act, the law intensified enforcement provisions. Prior to the 1764 act, colonial violations of the Navigation Acts had been tried in local courts, where sympathetic colonial juries refused to convict merchants on trial. However, the Sugar Act required violators to be tried in vice-admiralty courts. These crown-sanctioned tribunals, which settled disputes that occurred at sea, operated without juries. Some colonists saw this feature of the 1764 act as dangerous. They argued that trial by jury had long been honored as a basic right of Englishmen under the British Constitution. To deprive defendants of a jury, they contended, meant reducing liberty-loving British subjects to political slavery. In the British Atlantic world, some colonists perceived this loss of liberty as parallel to the enslavement of Africans.
As loyal British subjects, colonists in America cherished their Constitution, an unwritten system of government that they celebrated as the best political system in the world. The British Constitution prescribed the roles of the King, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. Each entity provided a check and balance against the worst tendencies of the others. If the King had too much power, the result would be tyranny. If the Lords had too much power, the result would be oligarchy. If the Commons had the balance of power, democracy or mob rule would prevail. The British Constitution promised representation of the will of British subjects, and without such representation, even the indirect tax of the Sugar Act was considered a threat to the settlers’ rights as British subjects. Furthermore, some American colonists felt the colonies were on equal political footing with Great Britain. The Sugar Act meant they were secondary, mere adjuncts to the Empire. All subjects of the British crown knew they had liberties under the constitution. The Sugar Act suggested that some in Parliament labored to deprive them of what made them uniquely British.
Section Summary
The British Empire had gained supremacy in North America with its victory over the French in 1763. Almost all of the North American territory east of the Mississippi fell under Great Britain’s control, and British leaders took this opportunity to try to create a more coherent and unified empire after decades of lax oversight. Victory over the French had proved very costly, and the British government attempted to better regulate their expanded empire in North America. The initial steps the British took in 1763 and 1764 raised suspicions among some colonists about the intent of the home government. These suspicions would grow and swell over the coming years.
Review Questions
Which of the following was a cause of the British National Debt in 1763?
- drought in Great Britain
- the French and Indian War
- the continued British military presence in the American colonies
- both B and C
Hint:
D
What was the main purpose of the Sugar Act of 1764?
- It raised taxes on sugar.
- It raised taxes on molasses.
- It strengthened enforcement of molasses smuggling laws.
- It required colonists to purchase only sugar distilled in Great Britain.
Hint:
C
What did British colonists find so onerous about the acts that Prime Minister Grenville passed?
Hint:
The Currency Act required colonists to pay British merchants in gold and silver instead of colonial paper money. With gold and silver in short supply, this put a strain on colonists’ finances. The Sugar Act curtailed smuggling, angering merchants, and imposed stricter enforcement. Many colonists feared the loss of liberty with trials without juries as mandated by the Sugar Act.
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:19.614486
|
07/10/2017
|
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/15419/overview",
"title": "U.S. History, Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774, Confronting the National Debt: The Aftermath of the French and Indian War",
"author": null
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/15415/overview
|
An Empire of Slavery and the Consumer Revolution
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Analyze the role slavery played in the history and economy of the British Empire
- Explain the effects of the 1739 Stono Rebellion and the 1741 New York Conspiracy Trials
- Describe the consumer revolution and its effect on the life of the colonial gentry and other settlers
Slavery formed a cornerstone of the British Empire in the eighteenth century. Every colony had slaves, from the southern rice plantations in Charles Town, South Carolina, to the northern wharves of Boston. Slavery was more than a labor system; it also influenced every aspect of colonial thought and culture. The uneven relationship it engendered gave white colonists an exaggerated sense of their own status. English liberty gained greater meaning and coherence for whites when they contrasted their status to that of the unfree class of black slaves in British America. African slavery provided whites in the colonies with a shared racial bond and identity.
SLAVERY AND THE STONO REBELLION
The transport of slaves to the American colonies accelerated in the second half of the seventeenth century. In 1660, Charles II created the Royal African Company (Figure) to trade in slaves and African goods. His brother, James II, led the company before ascending the throne. Under both these kings, the Royal African Company enjoyed a monopoly to transport slaves to the English colonies. Between 1672 and 1713, the company bought 125,000 captives on the African coast, losing 20 percent of them to death on the Middle Passage, the journey from the African coast to the Americas.
The Royal African Company’s monopoly ended in 1689 as a result of the Glorious Revolution. After that date, many more English merchants engaged in the slave trade, greatly increasing the number of slaves being transported. Africans who survived the brutal Middle Passage usually arrived in the West Indies, often in Barbados. From there, they were transported to the mainland English colonies on company ships. While merchants in London, Bristol, and Liverpool lined their pockets, Africans trafficked by the company endured a nightmare of misery, privation, and dislocation.
Slaves strove to adapt to their new lives by forming new communities among themselves, often adhering to traditional African customs and healing techniques. Indeed, the development of families and communities formed the most important response to the trauma of being enslaved. Other slaves dealt with the trauma of their situation by actively resisting their condition, whether by defying their masters or running away. Runaway slaves formed what were called “maroon” communities, groups that successfully resisted recapture and formed their own autonomous groups. The most prominent of these communities lived in the interior of Jamaica, controlling the area and keeping the British away.
Slaves everywhere resisted their exploitation and attempted to gain freedom. They fully understood that rebellions would bring about massive retaliation from whites and therefore had little chance of success. Even so, rebellions occurred frequently. One notable uprising that became known as the Stono Rebellion took place in South Carolina in September 1739. A literate slave named Jemmy led a large group of slaves in an armed insurrection against white colonists, killing several before militia stopped them. The militia suppressed the rebellion after a battle in which both slaves and militiamen were killed, and the remaining slaves were executed or sold to the West Indies.
Jemmy is believed to have been taken from the Kingdom of Kongo, an area where the Portuguese had introduced Catholicism. Other slaves in South Carolina may have had a similar background: Africa-born and familiar with whites. If so, this common background may have made it easier for Jemmy to communicate with the other slaves, enabling them to work together to resist their enslavement even though slaveholders labored to keep slaves from forging such communities.
In the wake of the Stono Rebellion, South Carolina passed a new slave code in 1740 called An Act for the Better Ordering and Governing of Negroes and Other Slaves in the Province, also known as the Negro Act of 1740. This law imposed new limits on slaves’ behavior, prohibiting slaves from assembling, growing their own food, learning to write, and traveling freely.
THE NEW YORK CONSPIRACY TRIALS OF 1741
Eighteenth-century New York City contained many different ethnic groups, and conflicts among them created strain. In addition, one in five New Yorkers was a slave, and tensions ran high between slaves and the free population, especially in the aftermath of the Stono Rebellion. These tensions burst forth in 1741.
That year, thirteen fires broke out in the city, one of which reduced the colony’s Fort George to ashes. Ever fearful of an uprising among enslaved New Yorkers, the city’s whites spread rumors that the fires were part of a massive slave revolt in which slaves would murder whites, burn the city, and take over the colony. The Stono Rebellion was only a few years in the past, and throughout British America, fears of similar incidents were still fresh. Searching for solutions, and convinced slaves were the principal danger, nervous British authorities interrogated almost two hundred slaves and accused them of conspiracy. Rumors that Roman Catholics had joined the suspected conspiracy and planned to murder Protestant inhabitants of the city only added to the general hysteria. Very quickly, two hundred people were arrested, including a large number of the city’s slave population.
After a quick series of trials at City Hall, known as the New York Conspiracy Trials of 1741, the government executed seventeen New Yorkers. Thirteen black men were publicly burned at the stake, while the others (including four whites) were hanged (Figure). Seventy slaves were sold to the West Indies. Little evidence exists to prove that an elaborate conspiracy, like the one white New Yorkers imagined, actually existed.
The events of 1741 in New York City illustrate the racial divide in British America, where panic among whites spurred great violence against and repression of the feared slave population. In the end, the Conspiracy Trials furthered white dominance and power over enslaved New Yorkers.
View the map of New York in the 1740s at the New York Public Library’s digital gallery, which allows you to zoom in and see specific events. Look closely at numbers 55 and 56 just north of the city limits to see illustrations depicting the executions.
COLONIAL GENTRY AND THE CONSUMER REVOLUTION
British Americans’ reliance on indentured servitude and slavery to meet the demand for colonial labor helped give rise to a wealthy colonial class—the gentry—in the Chesapeake tobacco colonies and elsewhere. To be “genteel,” that is, a member of the gentry, meant to be refined, free of all rudeness. The British American gentry modeled themselves on the English aristocracy, who embodied the ideal of refinement and gentility. They built elaborate mansions to advertise their status and power. William Byrd II of Westover, Virginia, exemplifies the colonial gentry; a wealthy planter and slaveholder, he is known for founding Richmond and for his diaries documenting the life of a gentleman planter (Figure).
William Byrd’s Secret Diary
The diary of William Byrd, a Virginia planter, provides a unique way to better understand colonial life on a plantation (Figure). What does it show about daily life for a gentleman planter? What does it show about slavery?
August 27, 1709
I rose at 5 o’clock and read two chapters in Hebrew and some Greek in Josephus. I said my prayers and ate milk for breakfast. I danced my dance. I had like to have whipped my maid Anaka for her laziness but I forgave her. I read a little geometry. I denied my man G-r-l to go to a horse race because there was nothing but swearing and drinking there. I ate roast mutton for dinner. In the afternoon I played at piquet with my own wife and made her out of humor by cheating her. I read some Greek in Homer. Then I walked about the plantation. I lent John H-ch £7 [7 English pounds] in his distress. I said my prayers and had good health, good thoughts, and good humor, thanks be to God Almighty.
September 6, 1709
About one o’clock this morning my wife was happily delivered of a son, thanks be to God Almighty. I was awake in a blink and rose and my cousin Harrison met me on the stairs and told me it was a boy. We drank some French wine and went to bed again and rose at 7 o’clock. I read a chapter in Hebrew and then drank chocolate with the women for breakfast. I returned God humble thanks for so great a blessing and recommended my young son to His divine protection. . . .
September 15, 1710
I rose at 5 o’clock and read two chapters in Hebrew and some Greek in Thucydides. I said my prayers and ate milk and pears for breakfast. About 7 o’clock the negro boy [or Betty] that ran away was brought home. My wife against my will caused little Jenny to be burned with a hot iron, for which I quarreled with her. . . .
One of the ways in which the gentry set themselves apart from others was through their purchase, consumption, and display of goods. An increased supply of consumer goods from England that became available in the eighteenth century led to a phenomenon called the consumer revolution. These products linked the colonies to Great Britain in real and tangible ways. Indeed, along with the colonial gentry, ordinary settlers in the colonies also participated in the frenzy of consumer spending on goods from Great Britain. Tea, for example, came to be regarded as the drink of the Empire, with or without fashionable tea sets.
The consumer revolution also made printed materials more widely available. Before 1680, for instance, no newspapers had been printed in colonial America. In the eighteenth century, however, a flood of journals, books, pamphlets, and other publications became available to readers on both sides of the Atlantic. This shared trove of printed matter linked members of the Empire by creating a community of shared tastes and ideas.
Cato’s Letters, by Englishmen John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, was one popular series of 144 pamphlets. These Whig circulars were published between 1720 and 1723 and emphasized the glory of England, especially its commitment to liberty. However, the pamphlets cautioned readers to be ever vigilant and on the lookout for attacks upon that liberty. Indeed, Cato’s Letters suggested that there were constant efforts to undermine and destroy it.
Another very popular publication was the English gentlemen’s magazine the Spectator, published between 1711 and 1714. In each issue, “Mr. Spectator” observed and commented on the world around him. What made the Spectator so wildly popular was its style; the essays were meant to persuade, and to cultivate among readers a refined set of behaviors, rejecting deceit and intolerance and focusing instead on the polishing of genteel taste and manners.
Novels, a new type of literature, made their first appearance in the eighteenth century and proved very popular in the British Atlantic. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Samuel Richardson’s Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded found large and receptive audiences. Reading also allowed female readers the opportunity to interpret what they read without depending on a male authority to tell them what to think. Few women beyond the colonial gentry, however, had access to novels.
Section Summary
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the expansion of slavery in the American colonies from South Carolina to Boston. The institution of slavery created a false sense of superiority in whites, while simultaneously fueling fears of slave revolt. White response to such revolts, or even the threat of them, led to gross overreactions and further constraints on slaves’ activities. The development of the Atlantic economy also allowed colonists access to more British goods than ever before. The buying habits of both commoners and the rising colonial gentry fueled the consumer revolution, creating even stronger ties with Great Britain by means of a shared community of taste and ideas.
Review Questions
The Negro Act of 1740 was a reaction to ________.
- fears of a slave conspiracy in the setting of thirteen fires in New York City
- the Stono Rebellion
- the Royal African Company’s monopoly
- the growing power of maroon communities
Hint:
B
What was the “conspiracy” of the New York Conspiracy Trials of 1741?
- American patriots conspiring to overthrow the royal government
- indentured servants conspiring to overthrow their masters
- slaves conspiring to burn down the city and take control
- Protestants conspiring to murder Catholics
Hint:
C
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Early Mobilization and War
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Assess the strengths and weaknesses of the Confederacy and the Union
- Explain the strategic importance of the Battle of Bull Run and the Battle of Shiloh
In 1861, enthusiasm for war ran high on both sides. The North fought to restore the Union, which Lincoln declared could never be broken. The Confederacy, which by the summer of 1861 consisted of eleven states, fought for its independence from the United States. The continuation of slavery was a central issue in the war, of course, although abolitionism and western expansion also played roles, and Northerners and Southerners alike flocked eagerly to the conflict. Both sides thought it would be over quickly. Militarily, however, the North and South were more equally matched than Lincoln had realized, and it soon became clear that the war effort would be neither brief nor painless. In 1861, Americans in both the North and South romanticized war as noble and positive. Soon the carnage and slaughter would awaken them to the horrors of war.
THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN
After the fall of Fort Sumter on April 15, 1861, Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand volunteers from state militias to join federal forces. His goal was a ninety-day campaign to put down the Southern rebellion. The response from state militias was overwhelming, and the number of Northern troops exceeded the requisition. Also in April, Lincoln put in place a naval blockade of the South, a move that gave tacit recognition of the Confederacy while providing a legal excuse for the British and the French to trade with Southerners. The Confederacy responded to the blockade by declaring that a state of war existed with the United States. This official pronouncement confirmed the beginning of the Civil War. Men rushed to enlist, and the Confederacy turned away tens of thousands who hoped to defend the new nation.
Many believed that a single, heroic battle would decide the contest. Some questioned how committed Southerners really were to their cause. Northerners hoped that most Southerners would not actually fire on the American flag. Meanwhile, Lincoln and military leaders in the North hoped a quick blow to the South, especially if they could capture the Confederacy’s new capital of Richmond, Virginia, would end the rebellion before it went any further. On July 21, 1861, the two armies met near Manassas, Virginia, along Bull Run Creek, only thirty miles from Washington, DC. So great was the belief that this would be a climactic Union victory that many Washington socialites and politicians brought picnic lunches to a nearby area, hoping to witness history unfolding before them. At the First Battle of Bull Run, also known as First Manassas, some sixty thousand troops assembled, most of whom had never seen combat, and each side sent eighteen thousand into the fray. The Union forces attacked first, only to be pushed back. The Confederate forces then carried the day, sending the Union soldiers and Washington, DC, onlookers scrambling back from Virginia and destroying Union hopes of a quick, decisive victory. Instead, the war would drag on for four long, deadly years (Figure).
BALANCE SHEET: THE UNION AND THE CONFEDERACY
As it became clearer that the Union would not be dealing with an easily quashed rebellion, the two sides assessed their strengths and weaknesses. At the onset on the war, in 1861 and 1862, they stood as relatively equal combatants.
The Confederates had the advantage of being able to wage a defensive war, rather than an offensive one. They had to protect and preserve their new boundaries, but they did not have to be the aggressors against the Union. The war would be fought primarily in the South, which gave the Confederates the advantages of the knowledge of the terrain and the support of the civilian population. Further, the vast coastline from Texas to Virginia offered ample opportunities to evade the Union blockade. And with the addition of the Upper South states, especially Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, the Confederacy gained a much larger share of natural resources and industrial might than the Deep South states could muster.
Still, the Confederacy had disadvantages. The South’s economy depended heavily on the export of cotton, but with the naval blockade, the flow of cotton to England, the region’s primary importer, came to an end. The blockade also made it difficult to import manufactured goods. Although the secession of the Upper South added some industrial assets to the Confederacy, overall, the South lacked substantive industry or an extensive railroad infrastructure to move men and supplies. To deal with the lack of commerce and the resulting lack of funds, the Confederate government began printing paper money, leading to runaway inflation (Figure). The advantage that came from fighting on home territory quickly turned to a disadvantage when Confederate armies were defeated and Union forces destroyed Southern farms and towns, and forced Southern civilians to take to the road as refugees. Finally, the population of the South stood at fewer than nine million people, of whom nearly four million were black slaves, compared to over twenty million residents in the North. These limited numbers became a major factor as the war dragged on and the death toll rose.
The Union side held many advantages as well. Its larger population, bolstered by continued immigration from Europe throughout the 1860s, gave it greater manpower reserves to draw upon. The North’s greater industrial capabilities and extensive railroad grid made it far better able to mobilize men and supplies for the war effort. The Industrial Revolution and the transportation revolution, beginning in the 1820s and continuing over the next several decades, had transformed the North. Throughout the war, the North was able to produce more war materials and move goods more quickly than the South. Furthermore, the farms of New England, the Mid-Atlantic, the Old Northwest, and the prairie states supplied Northern civilians and Union troops with abundant food throughout the war. Food shortages and hungry civilians were common in the South, where the best land was devoted to raising cotton, but not in the North.
Unlike the South, however, which could hunker down to defend itself and needed to maintain relatively short supply lines, the North had to go forth and conquer. Union armies had to establish long supply lines, and Union soldiers had to fight on unfamiliar ground and contend with a hostile civilian population off the battlefield. Furthermore, to restore the Union—Lincoln’s overriding goal, in 1861—the United States, after defeating the Southern forces, would then need to pacify a conquered Confederacy, an area of over half a million square miles with nearly nine million residents. In short, although it had better resources and a larger population, the Union faced a daunting task against the well-positioned Confederacy.
MILITARY STALEMATE
The military forces of the Confederacy and the Union battled in 1861 and early 1862 without either side gaining the upper hand. The majority of military leaders on both sides had received the same military education and often knew one another personally, either from their time as students at West Point or as commanding officers in the Mexican-American War. This familiarity allowed them to anticipate each other’s strategies. Both sides believed in the use of concentrated armies charged with taking the capital city of the enemy. For the Union, this meant the capture of the Confederate capital in Richmond, Virginia, whereas Washington, DC, stood as the prize for Confederate forces. After hopes of a quick victory faded at Bull Run, the months dragged on without any major movement on either side (Figure).
General George B. McClellan, the general in chief of the army, responsible for overall control of Union land forces, proved especially reluctant to engage in battle with the Confederates. In direct command of the Army of the Potomac, the Union fighting force operating outside Washington, DC, McClellan believed, incorrectly, that Confederate forces were too strong to defeat and was reluctant to risk his troops in battle. His cautious nature made him popular with his men but not with the president or Congress. By 1862, however, both President Lincoln and the new Secretary of War Edwin Stanton had tired of waiting. The Union put forward a new effort to bolster troop strength, enlisting one million men to serve for three-year stints in the Army of the Potomac. In January 1862, Lincoln and Stanton ordered McClellan to invade the Confederacy with the goal of capturing Richmond.
To that end, General McClellan slowly moved 100,000 soldiers of the Army of the Potomac toward Richmond but stopped a few miles outside the city. As he did so, a Confederate force led by Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson moved north to take Washington, DC. To fend off Jackson’s attack, somewhere between one-quarter and one-third of McClellan’s soldiers, led by Major General Irvin McDowell, returned to defend the nation’s capital, a move that Jackson hoped would leave the remaining troops near Richmond more vulnerable. Having succeeding in drawing off a sizable portion of the Union force, he joined General Lee to launch an attack on McClellan’s remaining soldiers near Richmond. From June 25 to July 1, 1862, the two sides engaged in the brutal Seven Days Battles that killed or wounded almost twenty thousand Confederate and ten thousand Union soldiers. McClellan’s army finally returned north, having failed to take Richmond.
General Lee, flush from his success at keeping McClellan out of Richmond, tried to capitalize on the Union’s failure by taking the fighting northward. He moved his forces into northern Virginia, where, at the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Confederates again defeated the Union forces. Lee then pressed into Maryland, where his troops met the much larger Union forces near Sharpsburg, at Antietam Creek. The ensuing one-day battle on September 17, 1862, led to a tremendous loss of life. Although there are varying opinions about the total number of deaths, eight thousand soldiers were killed or wounded, more than on any other single day of combat. Once again, McClellan, mistakenly believing that the Confederate troops outnumbered his own, held back a significant portion of his forces. Lee withdrew from the field first, but McClellan, fearing he was outnumbered, refused to pursue him.
The Union army’s inability to destroy Lee’s army at Antietam made it clear to Lincoln that McClellan would never win the war, and the president was forced to seek a replacement. Lincoln wanted someone who could deliver a decisive Union victory. He also personally disliked McClellan, who referred to the president as a “baboon” and a “gorilla,” and constantly criticized his decisions. Lincoln chose General Ambrose E. Burnside to replace McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac, but Burnside’s efforts to push into Virginia failed in December 1862, as Confederates held their position at Fredericksburg and devastated Burnside’s forces with heavy artillery fire. The Union’s defeat at Fredericksburg harmed morale in the North but bolstered Confederate spirits. By the end of 1862, the Confederates were still holding their ground in Virginia. Burnside’s failure led Lincoln to make another change in leadership, and Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker took over command of the Army of the Potomac in January 1863.
General Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the West, operating in Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Mississippi River Valley, had been more successful. In the western campaign, the goal of both the Union and the Confederacy was to gain control of the major rivers in the west, especially the Mississippi. If the Union could control the Mississippi, the Confederacy would be split in two. The fighting in this campaign initially centered in Tennessee, where Union forces commanded by Grant pushed Confederate troops back and gained control of the state. The major battle in the western theater took place at Pittsburgh Landing, Tennessee, on April 6 and 7, 1862. Grant’s army was camped on the west side of the Tennessee River near a small log church called Shiloh, which gave the battle its name. On Sunday morning, April 6, Confederate forces under General Albert Sidney Johnston attacked Grant’s encampment with the goal of separating them from their supply line on the Tennessee River and driving them into the swamps on the river’s western side, where they could be destroyed. Union general William Tecumseh Sherman tried to rally the Union forces as Grant, who had been convalescing from an injured leg when the attack began and was unable to walk without crutches, called for reinforcements and tried to mount a defense. Many of Union troops fled in terror.
Unfortunately for the Confederates, Johnston was killed on the afternoon of the first day. Leadership of the Southern forces fell to General P. G. T. Beauregard, who ordered an assault at the end of that day. This assault was so desperate that one of the two attacking columns did not even have ammunition. Heavily reinforced Union forces counterattacked the next day, and the Confederate forces were routed. Grant had maintained the Union foothold in the western part of the Confederacy. The North could now concentrate on its efforts to gain control of the Mississippi River, splitting the Confederacy in two and depriving it of its most important water route.
Read a first-hand account from a Confederate soldier at the Battle at Shiloh, followed by the perspective of a Union soldier at the same battle.
In the spring and summer of 1862, the Union was successful in gaining control of part of the Mississippi River. In April 1862, the Union navy under Admiral David Farragut fought its way past the forts that guarded New Orleans and fired naval guns upon the below-sea-level city. When it became obvious that New Orleans could no longer be defended, Confederate major general Marshall Lovell sent his artillery upriver to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Armed civilians in New Orleans fought the Union forces that entered the city. They also destroyed ships and military supplies that might be used by the Union. Upriver, Union naval forces also bombarded Fort Pillow, forty miles from Memphis, Tennessee, a Southern industrial center and one of the largest cities in the Confederacy. On June 4, 1862, the Confederate defenders abandoned the fort. On June 6, Memphis fell to the Union after the ships defending it were destroyed.
Section Summary
Many in both the North and the South believed that a short, decisive confrontation in 1861 would settle the question of the Confederacy. These expectations did not match reality, however, and the war dragged on into a second year. Both sides mobilized, with advantages and disadvantages on each side that led to a rough equilibrium. The losses of battles at Manassas and Fredericksburg, Virginia, kept the North from achieving the speedy victory its generals had hoped for, but the Union did make gains and continued to press forward. While they could not capture the Southern capital of Richmond, they were victorious in the Battle of Shiloh and captured New Orleans and Memphis. Thus, the Confederates lost major ground on the western front.
Review Questions
All the following were strengths of the Union except ________.
- a large population
- substantial industry
- an extensive railroad
- the ability to fight defensively, rather than offensively
Hint:
D
All the following were strengths of the Confederacy except ________.
- the ability to wage a defensive war
- shorter supply lines
- the resources of the Upper South states
- a strong navy
Hint:
D
What military successes and defeats did the Union experience in 1862?
Hint:
In the eastern part of the Confederacy, the Army of the Potomac met with mixed success. The Union army failed to capture Richmond and won at Antietam only because the Confederates withdrew from the field first. In the western part of the Confederacy, the Army of the West won the Battle of Shiloh, and the Union navy captured New Orleans and Memphis.
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Restoring the Union
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Describe Lincoln’s plan to restore the Union at the end of the Civil War
- Discuss the tenets of Radical Republicanism
- Analyze the success or failure of the Thirteenth Amendment
The end of the Civil War saw the beginning of the Reconstruction era, when former rebel Southern states were integrated back into the Union. President Lincoln moved quickly to achieve the war’s ultimate goal: reunification of the country. He proposed a generous and non-punitive plan to return the former Confederate states speedily to the United States, but some Republicans in Congress protested, considering the president’s plan too lenient to the rebel states that had torn the country apart. The greatest flaw of Lincoln’s plan, according to this view, was that it appeared to forgive traitors instead of guaranteeing civil rights to former slaves. President Lincoln oversaw the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, but he did not live to see its ratification.
THE PRESIDENT’S PLAN
From the outset of the rebellion in 1861, Lincoln’s overriding goal had been to bring the Southern states quickly back into the fold in order to restore the Union (Figure). In early December 1863, the president began the process of reunification by unveiling a three-part proposal known as the ten percent plan that outlined how the states would return. The ten percent plan gave a general pardon to all Southerners except high-ranking Confederate government and military leaders; required 10 percent of the 1860 voting population in the former rebel states to take a binding oath of future allegiance to the United States and the emancipation of slaves; and declared that once those voters took those oaths, the restored Confederate states would draft new state constitutions.
Lincoln hoped that the leniency of the plan—90 percent of the 1860 voters did not have to swear allegiance to the Union or to emancipation—would bring about a quick and long-anticipated resolution and make emancipation more acceptable everywhere. This approach appealed to some in the moderate wing of the Republican Party, which wanted to put the nation on a speedy course toward reconciliation. However, the proposal instantly drew fire from a larger faction of Republicans in Congress who did not want to deal moderately with the South. These members of Congress, known as Radical Republicans, wanted to remake the South and punish the rebels. Radical Republicans insisted on harsh terms for the defeated Confederacy and protection for former slaves, going far beyond what the president proposed.
In February 1864, two of the Radical Republicans, Ohio senator Benjamin Wade and Maryland representative Henry Winter Davis, answered Lincoln with a proposal of their own. Among other stipulations, the Wade-Davis Bill called for a majority of voters and government officials in Confederate states to take an oath, called the Ironclad Oath, swearing that they had never supported the Confederacy or made war against the United States. Those who could not or would not take the oath would be unable to take part in the future political life of the South. Congress assented to the Wade-Davis Bill, and it went to Lincoln for his signature. The president refused to sign, using the pocket veto (that is, taking no action) to kill the bill. Lincoln understood that no Southern state would have met the criteria of the Wade-Davis Bill, and its passage would simply have delayed the reconstruction of the South.
THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT
Despite the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, the legal status of slaves and the institution of slavery remained unresolved. To deal with the remaining uncertainties, the Republican Party made the abolition of slavery a top priority by including the issue in its 1864 party platform. The platform read: “That as slavery was the cause, and now constitutes the strength of this Rebellion, and as it must be, always and everywhere, hostile to the principles of Republican Government, justice and the National safety demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic; and that, while we uphold and maintain the acts and proclamations by which the Government, in its own defense, has aimed a deathblow at this gigantic evil, we are in favor, furthermore, of such an amendment to the Constitution, to be made by the people in conformity with its provisions, as shall terminate and forever prohibit the existence of Slavery within the limits of the jurisdiction of the United States.” The platform left no doubt about the intention to abolish slavery.
The president, along with the Radical Republicans, made good on this campaign promise in 1864 and 1865. A proposed constitutional amendment passed the Senate in April 1864, and the House of Representatives concurred in January 1865. The amendment then made its way to the states, where it swiftly gained the necessary support, including in the South. In December 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was officially ratified and added to the Constitution. The first amendment added to the Constitution since 1804, it overturned a centuries-old practice by permanently abolishing slavery.
Explore a comprehensive collection of documents, images, and ephemera related to Abraham Lincoln on the Library of Congress website.
President Lincoln never saw the final ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment. On April 14, 1865, the Confederate supporter and well-known actor John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln while he was attending a play, Our American Cousin, at Ford’s Theater in Washington. The president died the next day (Figure). Booth had steadfastly defended the Confederacy and white supremacy, and his act was part of a larger conspiracy to eliminate the heads of the Union government and keep the Confederate fight going. One of Booth’s associates stabbed and wounded Secretary of State William Seward the night of the assassination. Another associate abandoned the planned assassination of Vice President Andrew Johnson at the last moment. Although Booth initially escaped capture, Union troops shot and killed him on April 26, 1865, in a Maryland barn. Eight other conspirators were convicted by a military tribunal for participating in the conspiracy, and four were hanged. Lincoln’s death earned him immediate martyrdom, and hysteria spread throughout the North. To many Northerners, the assassination suggested an even greater conspiracy than what was revealed, masterminded by the unrepentant leaders of the defeated Confederacy. Militant Republicans would use and exploit this fear relentlessly in the ensuing months.
ANDREW JOHNSON AND THE BATTLE OVER RECONSTRUCTION
Lincoln’s assassination elevated Vice President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, to the presidency. Johnson had come from very humble origins. Born into extreme poverty in North Carolina and having never attended school, Johnson was the picture of a self-made man. His wife had taught him how to read and he had worked as a tailor, a trade he had been apprenticed to as a child. In Tennessee, where he had moved as a young man, he gradually rose up the political ladder, earning a reputation for being a skillful stump speaker and a staunch defender of poor southerners. He was elected to serve in the House of Representatives in the 1840s, became governor of Tennessee the following decade, and then was elected a U.S. senator just a few years before the country descended into war. When Tennessee seceded, Johnson remained loyal to the Union and stayed in the Senate. As Union troops marched on his home state of North Carolina, Lincoln appointed him governor of the then-occupied state of Tennessee, where he served until being nominated by the Republicans to run for vice president on a Lincoln ticket. The nomination of Johnson, a Democrat and a slaveholding southerner, was a pragmatic decision made by concerned Republicans. It was important for them to show that the party supported all loyal men, regardless of their origin or political persuasion. Johnson appeared an ideal choice, because his nomination would bring with it the support of both pro-Southern elements and the War Democrats who rejected the conciliatory stance of the Copperheads, the northern Democrats who opposed the Civil War.
Unexpectedly elevated to the presidency in 1865, this formerly impoverished tailor’s apprentice and unwavering antagonist of the wealthy southern planter class now found himself tasked with administering the restoration of a destroyed South. Lincoln’s position as president had been that the secession of the Southern states was never legal; that is, they had not succeeded in leaving the Union, therefore they still had certain rights to self-government as states. In keeping with Lincoln’s plan, Johnson desired to quickly reincorporate the South back into the Union on lenient terms and heal the wounds of the nation. This position angered many in his own party. The northern Radical Republican plan for Reconstruction looked to overturn southern society and specifically aimed at ending the plantation system. President Johnson quickly disappointed Radical Republicans when he rejected their idea that the federal government could provide voting rights for freed slaves. The initial disagreements between the president and the Radical Republicans over how best to deal with the defeated South set the stage for further conflict.
In fact, President Johnson’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction in May 1865 provided sweeping “amnesty and pardon” to rebellious Southerners. It returned to them their property, with the notable exception of their former slaves, and it asked only that they affirm their support for the Constitution of the United States. Those Southerners excepted from this amnesty included the Confederate political leadership, high-ranking military officers, and persons with taxable property worth more than $20,000. The inclusion of this last category was specifically designed to make it clear to the southern planter class that they had a unique responsibility for the outbreak of hostilities. But it also satisfied Johnson’s desire to exact vengeance on a class of people he had fought politically for much of his life. For this class of wealthy Southerners to regain their rights, they would have to swallow their pride and request a personal pardon from Johnson himself.
For the Southern states, the requirements for readmission to the Union were also fairly straightforward. States were required to hold individual state conventions where they would repeal the ordinances of secession and ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. By the end of 1865, a number of former Confederate leaders were in the Union capital looking to claim their seats in Congress. Among them was Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the Confederacy, who had spent several months in a Boston jail after the war. Despite the outcries of Republicans in Congress, by early 1866 Johnson announced that all former Confederate states had satisfied the necessary requirements. According to him, nothing more needed to be done; the Union had been restored.
Understandably, Radical Republicans in Congress did not agree with Johnson’s position. They, and their northern constituents, greatly resented his lenient treatment of the former Confederate states, and especially the return of former Confederate leaders like Alexander Stephens to Congress. They refused to acknowledge the southern state governments he allowed. As a result, they would not permit senators and representatives from the former Confederate states to take their places in Congress.
Instead, the Radical Republicans created a joint committee of representatives and senators to oversee Reconstruction. In the 1866 congressional elections, they gained control of the House, and in the ensuing years they pushed for the dismantling of the old southern order and the complete reconstruction of the South. This effort put them squarely at odds with President Johnson, who remained unwilling to compromise with Congress, setting the stage for a series of clashes.
Section Summary
President Lincoln worked to reach his goal of reunifying the nation quickly and proposed a lenient plan to reintegrate the Confederate states. After his murder in 1865, Lincoln’s vice president, Andrew Johnson, sought to reconstitute the Union quickly, pardoning Southerners en masse and providing Southern states with a clear path back to readmission. By 1866, Johnson announced the end of Reconstruction. Radical Republicans in Congress disagreed, however, and in the years ahead would put forth their own plan of Reconstruction.
Review Questions
What was Lincoln’s primary goal immediately following the Civil War?
- punishing the rebel states
- improving the lives of former slaves
- reunifying the country
- paying off the debts of the war
Hint:
C
In 1864 and 1865, Radical Republicans were most concerned with ________.
- securing civil rights for freed slaves
- barring ex-Confederates from political office
- seeking restitution from Confederate states
- preventing Andrew Johnson’s ascent to the presidency
Hint:
B
What was the purpose of the Thirteenth Amendment? How was it different from the Emancipation Proclamation?
Hint:
The Thirteenth Amendment officially and permanently banned the institution of slavery in the United States. The Emancipation Proclamation had freed only those slaves in rebellious states, leaving many slaves—most notably, those in the border states—in bondage; furthermore, it did not alter or prohibit the institution of slavery in general.
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/15458/overview
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African Americans in the Antebellum United States
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Discuss the similarities and differences in the lives of slaves and free blacks
- Describe the independent culture and customs that slaves developed
In addition to cotton, the great commodity of the antebellum South was human chattel. Slavery was the cornerstone of the southern economy. By 1850, about 3.2 million slaves labored in the United States, 1.8 million of whom worked in the cotton fields. Slaves faced arbitrary power abuses from whites; they coped by creating family and community networks. Storytelling, song, and Christianity also provided solace and allowed slaves to develop their own interpretations of their condition.
LIFE AS A SLAVE
Southern whites frequently relied upon the idea of paternalism—the premise that white slaveholders acted in the best interests of slaves, taking responsibility for their care, feeding, discipline, and even their Christian morality—to justify the existence of slavery. This grossly misrepresented the reality of slavery, which was, by any measure, a dehumanizing, traumatizing, and horrifying human disaster and crime against humanity. Nevertheless, slaves were hardly passive victims of their conditions; they sought and found myriad ways to resist their shackles and develop their own communities and cultures.
Slaves often used the notion of paternalism to their advantage, finding opportunities within this system to engage in acts of resistance and win a degree of freedom and autonomy. For example, some slaves played into their masters’ racism by hiding their intelligence and feigning childishness and ignorance. The slaves could then slow down the workday and sabotage the system in small ways by “accidentally” breaking tools, for example; the master, seeing his slaves as unsophisticated and childlike, would believe these incidents were accidents rather than rebellions. Some slaves engaged in more dramatic forms of resistance, such as poisoning their masters slowly. Other slaves reported rebellious slaves to their masters, hoping to gain preferential treatment. Slaves who informed their masters about planned slave rebellions could often expect the slaveholder’s gratitude and, perhaps, more lenient treatment. Such expectations were always tempered by the individual personality and caprice of the master.
Slaveholders used both psychological coercion and physical violence to prevent slaves from disobeying their wishes. Often, the most efficient way to discipline slaves was to threaten to sell them. The lash, while the most common form of punishment, was effective but not efficient; whippings sometimes left slaves incapacitated or even dead. Slave masters also used punishment gear like neck braces, balls and chains, leg irons, and paddles with holes to produce blood blisters. Slaves lived in constant terror of both physical violence and separation from family and friends (Figure).
Under southern law, slaves could not marry. Nonetheless, some slaveholders allowed marriages to promote the birth of children and to foster harmony on plantations. Some masters even forced certain slaves to form unions, anticipating the birth of more children (and consequently greater profits) from them. Masters sometimes allowed slaves to choose their own partners, but they could also veto a match. Slave couples always faced the prospect of being sold away from each other, and, once they had children, the horrifying reality that their children could be sold and sent away at any time.
Browse a collection of first-hand narratives of slaves and former slaves at the National Humanities Center to learn more about the experience of slavery.
Slave parents had to show their children the best way to survive under slavery. This meant teaching them to be discreet, submissive, and guarded around whites. Parents also taught their children through the stories they told. Popular stories among slaves included tales of tricksters, sly slaves, or animals like Brer Rabbit, who outwitted their antagonists (Figure). Such stories provided comfort in humor and conveyed the slaves’ sense of the wrongs of slavery. Slaves’ work songs commented on the harshness of their life and often had double meanings—a literal meaning that whites would not find offensive and a deeper meaning for slaves.
African beliefs, including ideas about the spiritual world and the importance of African healers, survived in the South as well. Whites who became aware of non-Christian rituals among slaves labeled such practices as witchcraft. Among Africans, however, the rituals and use of various plants by respected slave healers created connections between the African past and the American South while also providing a sense of community and identity for slaves. Other African customs, including traditional naming patterns, the making of baskets, and the cultivation of certain native African plants that had been brought to the New World, also endured.
African Americans and Christian Spirituals
Many slaves embraced Christianity. Their masters emphasized a scriptural message of obedience to whites and a better day awaiting slaves in heaven, but slaves focused on the uplifting message of being freed from bondage.
The styles of worship in the Methodist and Baptist churches, which emphasized emotional responses to scripture, attracted slaves to those traditions and inspired some to become preachers. Spiritual songs that referenced the Exodus (the biblical account of the Hebrews’ escape from slavery in Egypt), such as “Roll, Jordan, Roll,” allowed slaves to freely express messages of hope, struggle, and overcoming adversity (Figure).
What imagery might the Jordan River suggest to slaves working in the Deep South? What lyrics in this song suggest redemption and a better world ahead?
Listen to a rendition of “Roll, Jordan, Roll” from the movie based on Solomon Northup’s memoir and life.
THE FREE BLACK POPULATION
Complicating the picture of the antebellum South was the existence of a large free black population. In fact, more free blacks lived in the South than in the North; roughly 261,000 lived in slave states, while 226,000 lived in northern states without slavery. Most free blacks did not live in the Lower, or Deep South: the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas. Instead, the largest number lived in the upper southern states of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and later Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and the District of Columbia.
Part of the reason for the large number of free blacks living in slave states were the many instances of manumission—the formal granting of freedom to slaves—that occurred as a result of the Revolution, when many slaveholders put into action the ideal that “all men are created equal” and freed their slaves. The transition in the Upper South to the staple crop of wheat, which did not require large numbers of slaves to produce, also spurred manumissions. Another large group of free blacks in the South had been free residents of Louisiana before the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, while still other free blacks came from Cuba and Haiti.
Most free blacks in the South lived in cities, and a majority of free blacks were lighter-skinned women, a reflection of the interracial unions that formed between white men and black women. Everywhere in the United States blackness had come to be associated with slavery, the station at the bottom of the social ladder. Both whites and those with African ancestry tended to delineate varying degrees of lightness in skin color in a social hierarchy. In the slaveholding South, different names described one’s distance from blackness or whiteness: mulattos (those with one black and one white parent), quadroons (those with one black grandparent), and octoroons (those with one black great-grandparent) (Figure). Lighter-skinned blacks often looked down on their darker counterparts, an indication of the ways in which both whites and blacks internalized the racism of the age.
Some free blacks in the South owned slaves of their own. Andrew Durnford, for example, was born in New Orleans in 1800, three years before the Louisiana Purchase. His father was white, and his mother was a free black. Durnford became an American citizen after the Louisiana Purchase, rising to prominence as a Louisiana sugar planter and slaveholder. William Ellison, another free black who amassed great wealth and power in the South, was born a slave in 1790 in South Carolina. After buying his freedom and that of his wife and daughter, he proceeded to purchase his own slaves, whom he then put to work manufacturing cotton gins. By the eve of the Civil War, Ellison had become one of the richest and largest slaveholders in the entire state.
The phenomenon of free blacks amassing large fortunes within a slave society predicated on racial difference, however, was exceedingly rare. Most free blacks in the South lived under the specter of slavery and faced many obstacles. Beginning in the early nineteenth century, southern states increasingly made manumission of slaves illegal. They also devised laws that divested free blacks of their rights, such as the right to testify against whites in court or the right to seek employment where they pleased. Interestingly, it was in the upper southern states that such laws were the harshest. In Virginia, for example, legislators made efforts to require free blacks to leave the state. In parts of the Deep South, free blacks were able to maintain their rights more easily. The difference in treatment between free blacks in the Deep South and those in the Upper South, historians have surmised, came down to economics. In the Deep South, slavery as an institution was strong and profitable. In the Upper South, the opposite was true. The anxiety of this economic uncertainty manifested in the form of harsh laws that targeted free blacks.
SLAVE REVOLTS
Slaves resisted their enslavement in small ways every day, but this resistance did not usually translate into mass uprisings. Slaves understood that the chances of ending slavery through rebellion were slim and would likely result in massive retaliation; many also feared the risk that participating in such actions would pose to themselves and their families. White slaveholders, however, constantly feared uprisings and took drastic steps, including torture and mutilation, whenever they believed that rebellions might be simmering. Gripped by the fear of insurrection, whites often imagined revolts to be in the works even when no uprising actually happened.
At least two major slave uprisings did occur in the antebellum South. In 1811, a major rebellion broke out in the sugar parishes of the booming territory of Louisiana. Inspired by the successful overthrow of the white planter class in Haiti, Louisiana slaves took up arms against planters. Perhaps as many five hundred slaves joined the rebellion, led by Charles Deslondes, a mixed-race slave driver on a sugar plantation owned by Manuel Andry.
The revolt began in January 1811 on Andry’s plantation. Deslondes and other slaves attacked the Andry household, where they killed the slave master’s son (although Andry himself escaped). The rebels then began traveling toward New Orleans, armed with weapons gathered at Andry’s plantation. Whites mobilized to stop the rebellion, but not before Deslondes and the other rebelling slaves set fire to three plantations and killed numerous whites. A small white force led by Andry ultimately captured Deslondes, whose body was mutilated and burned following his execution. Other slave rebels were beheaded, and their heads placed on pikes along the Mississippi River.
The second rebellion, led by the slave Nat Turner, occurred in 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia. Turner had suffered not only from personal enslavement, but also from the additional trauma of having his wife sold away from him. Bolstered by Christianity, Turner became convinced that like Christ, he should lay down his life to end slavery. Mustering his relatives and friends, he began the rebellion August 22, killing scores of whites in the county. Whites mobilized quickly and within forty-eight hours had brought the rebellion to an end. Shocked by Nat Turner’s Rebellion, Virginia’s state legislature considered ending slavery in the state in order to provide greater security. In the end, legislators decided slavery would remain and that their state would continue to play a key role in the domestic slave trade.
SLAVE MARKETS
As discussed above, after centuries of slave trade with West Africa, Congress banned the further importation of slaves beginning in 1808. The domestic slave trade then expanded rapidly. As the cotton trade grew in size and importance, so did the domestic slave trade; the cultivation of cotton gave new life and importance to slavery, increasing the value of slaves. To meet the South’s fierce demand for labor, American smugglers illegally transferred slaves through Florida and later through Texas. Many more slaves arrived illegally from Cuba; indeed, Cubans relied on the smuggling of slaves to prop up their finances. The largest number of slaves after 1808, however, came from the massive, legal internal slave market in which slave states in the Upper South sold enslaved men, women, and children to states in the Lower South. For slaves, the domestic trade presented the full horrors of slavery as children were ripped from their mothers and fathers and families destroyed, creating heartbreak and alienation.
Some slaveholders sought to increase the number of slave children by placing male slaves with fertile female slaves, and slave masters routinely raped their female slaves. The resulting births played an important role in slavery’s expansion in the first half of the nineteenth century, as many slave children were born as a result of rape. One account written by a slave named William J. Anderson captures the horror of sexual exploitation in the antebellum South. Anderson wrote about how a Mississippi slaveholder
divested a poor female slave of all wearing apparel, tied her down to stakes, and whipped her with a handsaw until he broke it over her naked body. In process of time he ravished [raped] her person, and became the father of a child by her. Besides, he always kept a colored Miss in the house with him. This is another curse of Slavery—concubinage and illegitimate connections—which is carried on to an alarming extent in the far South. A poor slave man who lives close by his wife, is permitted to visit her but very seldom, and other men, both white and colored, cohabit with her. It is undoubtedly the worst place of incest and bigamy in the world. A white man thinks nothing of putting a colored man out to carry the fore row [front row in field work], and carry on the same sport with the colored man’s wife at the same time.
Anderson, a devout Christian, recognized and explains in his narrative that one of the evils of slavery is the way it undermines the family. Anderson was not the only critic of slavery to emphasize this point. Frederick Douglass, a Maryland slave who escaped to the North in 1838, elaborated on this dimension of slavery in his 1845 narrative. He recounted how slave masters had to sell their own children whom they had with slave women to appease the white wives who despised their offspring.
The selling of slaves was a major business enterprise in the antebellum South, representing a key part of the economy. White men invested substantial sums in slaves, carefully calculating the annual returns they could expect from a slave as well as the possibility of greater profits through natural increase. The domestic slave trade was highly visible, and like the infamous Middle Passage that brought captive Africans to the Americas, it constituted an equally disruptive and horrifying journey now called the second middle passage. Between 1820 and 1860, white American traders sold a million or more slaves in the domestic slave market. Groups of slaves were transported by ship from places like Virginia, a state that specialized in raising slaves for sale, to New Orleans, where they were sold to planters in the Mississippi Valley. Other slaves made the overland trek from older states like North Carolina to new and booming Deep South states like Alabama.
New Orleans had the largest slave market in the United States (Figure). Slaveholders brought their slaves there from the East (Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas) and the West (Tennessee and Kentucky) to be sold for work in the Mississippi Valley. The slave trade benefited whites in the Chesapeake and Carolinas, providing them with extra income: A healthy young male slave in the 1850s could be sold for $1,000 (approximately $30,000 in 2014 dollars), and a planter who could sell ten such slaves collected a windfall.
In fact, by the 1850s, the demand for slaves reached an all-time high, and prices therefore doubled. A slave who would have sold for $400 in the 1820s could command a price of $800 in the 1850s. The high price of slaves in the 1850s and the inability of natural increase to satisfy demands led some southerners to demand the reopening of the international slave trade, a movement that caused a rift between the Upper South and the Lower South. Whites in the Upper South who sold slaves to their counterparts in the Lower South worried that reopening the trade would lower prices and therefore hurt their profits.
John Brown on Slave Life in Georgia
A slave named John Brown lived in Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia before he escaped and moved to England. While there, he dictated his autobiography to someone at the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, who published it in 1855.
I really thought my mother would have died of grief at being obliged to leave her two children, her mother, and her relations behind. But it was of no use lamenting, the few things we had were put together that night, and we completed our preparations for being parted for life by kissing one another over and over again, and saying good bye till some of us little ones fell asleep. . . . And here I may as well tell what kind of man our new master was. He was of small stature, and thin, but very strong. He had sandy hair, a very red face, and chewed tobacco. His countenance had a very cruel expression, and his disposition was a match for it. He was, indeed, a very bad man, and used to flog us dreadfully. He would make his slaves work on one meal a day, until quite night, and after supper, set them to burn brush or spin cotton. We worked from four in the morning till twelve before we broke our fast, and from that time till eleven or twelve at night . . . we labored eighteen hours a day.
—John Brown, Slave Life in Georgia: A Narrative of the Life, Sufferings, and Escape of John Brown, A Fugitive Slave, Now in England, 1855
What features of the domestic slave trade does Brown’s narrative illuminate? Why do you think he brought his story to an antislavery society? How do you think people responded to this narrative?
Read through several narratives at “Born in Slavery,” part of the American Memory collection at the Library of Congress. Do these narratives have anything in common? What differences can you find between them?
Section Summary
Slave labor in the antebellum South generated great wealth for plantation owners. Slaves, in contrast, endured daily traumas as the human property of masters. Slaves resisted their condition in a variety of ways, and many found some solace in Christianity and the communities they created in the slave quarters. While some free blacks achieved economic prosperity and even became slaveholders themselves, the vast majority found themselves restricted by the same white-supremacist assumptions upon which the institution of slavery was based.
Review Questions
Under the law in the antebellum South, slaves were ________.
- servants
- animals
- property
- indentures
Hint:
C
How did both slaveholders and slaves use the concept of paternalism to their advantage?
Hint:
Southern whites often used paternalism to justify the institution of slavery, arguing that slaves, like children, needed the care, feeding, discipline, and moral and religious education that they could provide. Slaves often used this misguided notion to their advantage: By feigning ignorance and playing into slaveholders’ paternalistic perceptions of them, slaves found opportunities to resist their condition and gain a degree of freedom and autonomy.
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:19.726185
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07/10/2017
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/15465/overview
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Addressing Slavery
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Identify the different approaches to reforming the institution of slavery
- Describe the abolitionist movement in the early to mid-nineteenth century
The issue of slavery proved especially combustible in the reform-minded antebellum United States. Those who hoped to end slavery had different ideas about how to do it. Some could not envision a biracial society and advocated sending blacks to Africa or the Caribbean. Others promoted the use of violence as the best method to bring American slavery to an end. Abolitionists, by contrast, worked to end slavery and to create a multiracial society of equals using moral arguments—moral suasion—to highlight the immorality of slavery. In keeping with the religious fervor of the era, abolitionists hoped to bring about a mass conversion in public opinion to end slavery.
“REFORMS” TO SLAVERY
An early and popular “reform” to slavery was colonization, or a movement advocating the displacement of African Americans out of the country, usually to Africa. In 1816, the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America (also called the American Colonization Society or ACS) was founded with this goal. Leading statesmen including Thomas Jefferson endorsed the idea of colonization.
Members of the ACS did not believe that blacks and whites could live as equals, so they targeted the roughly 200,000 free blacks in the United States for relocation to Africa. For several years after the ACS’s founding, they raised money and pushed Congress for funds. In 1819, they succeeded in getting $100,000 from the federal government to further the colonization project. The ACS played a major role in the creation of the colony of Liberia, on the west coast of Africa. The country’s capital, Monrovia, was named in honor of President James Monroe. The ACS stands as an example of how white reformers, especially men of property and standing, addressed the issue of slavery. Their efforts stand in stark contrast with other reformers’ efforts to deal with slavery in the United States.
Although rebellion stretches the definition of reform, another potential solution to slavery was its violent overthrow. Nat Turner’s Rebellion, one of the largest slave uprisings in American history, took place in 1831, in Southampton County, Virginia. Like many slaves, Nat Turner was inspired by the evangelical Protestant fervor sweeping the republic. He preached to fellow slaves in Southampton County, gaining a reputation among them as a prophet. He organized them for rebellion, awaiting a sign to begin, until an eclipse in August signaled that the appointed time had come.
Turner and as many as seventy other slaves killed their masters and their masters’ families, murdering a total of around sixty-five people (Figure). Turner eluded capture until late October, when he was tried, hanged, and then beheaded and quartered. Virginia put to death fifty-six other slaves whom they believed to have taken part in the rebellion. White vigilantes killed two hundred more as panic swept through Virginia and the rest of the South.
Nat Turner on His Battle against Slavery
Thomas R. Gray was a lawyer in Southampton, Virginia, where he visited Nat Turner in jail. He published The Confessions of Nat Turner, the leader of the late insurrection in Southampton, Va., as fully and voluntarily made to Thomas R. Gray in November 1831, after Turner had been executed.
For as the blood of Christ had been shed on this earth, and had ascended to heaven for the salvation of sinners, and was now returning to earth again in the form of dew . . . it was plain to me that the Saviour was about to lay down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and the great day of judgment was at hand. . . . And on the 12th of May, 1828, I heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, . . . Ques. Do you not find yourself mistaken now? Ans. Was not Christ crucified. And by signs in the heavens that it would make known to me when I should commence the great work—and on the appearance of the sign, (the eclipse of the sun last February) I should arise and prepare myself, and slay my enemies with their own weapons.
How did Turner interpret his fight against slavery? What did he mean by the “serpent?”
Nat Turner’s Rebellion provoked a heated discussion in Virginia over slavery. The Virginia legislature was already in the process of revising the state constitution, and some delegates advocated for an easier manumission process. The rebellion, however, rendered that reform impossible. Virginia and other slave states recommitted themselves to the institution of slavery, and defenders of slavery in the South increasingly blamed northerners for provoking their slaves to rebel.
Literate, educated blacks, including David Walker, also favored rebellion. Walker was born a free black man in North Carolina in 1796. He moved to Boston in the 1820s, lectured on slavery, and promoted the first African American newspaper, Freedom’s Journal. He called for blacks to actively resist slavery and to use violence if needed. He published An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World in 1829, denouncing the scheme of colonization and urging blacks to fight for equality in the United States, to take action against racism. Walker died months after the publication of his Appeal, and debate continues to this day over the cause of his death. Many believe he was murdered. Walker became a symbol of hope to free people in the North and a symbol of the terrors of literate, educated blacks to the slaveholders of the South.
ABOLITIONISM
Abolitionists took a far more radical approach to the issue of the slavery by using moral arguments to advocate its immediate elimination. They publicized the atrocities committed under slavery and aimed to create a society characterized by equality of blacks and whites. In a world of intense religious fervor, they hoped to bring about a mass awakening in the United States of the sin of slavery, confident that they could transform the national conscience against the South’s peculiar institution.
William Lloyd Garrison and Antislavery Societies
William Lloyd Garrison of Massachusetts distinguished himself as the leader of the abolitionist movement. Although he had once been in favor of colonization, he came to believe that such a scheme only deepened racism and perpetuated the sinful practices of his fellow Americans. In 1831, he founded the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, whose first edition declared:
I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen;—but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD.
White Virginians blamed Garrison for stirring up slaves and instigating slave rebellions like Nat Turner’s.
Garrison founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1831, and the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) in 1833. By 1838, the AASS had 250,000 members, sometimes called Garrisonians. They rejected colonization as a racist scheme and opposed the use of violence to end slavery. Influenced by evangelical Protestantism, Garrison and other abolitionists believed in moral suasion, a technique of appealing to the conscience of the public, especially slaveholders. Moral suasion relied on dramatic narratives, often from former slaves, about the horrors of slavery, arguing that slavery destroyed families, as children were sold and taken away from their mothers and fathers (Figure). Moral suasion resonated with many women, who condemned the sexual violence against slave women and the victimization of southern white women by adulterous husbands.
Read the full text of John Greenleaf Whittier’s antislavery poem “Our Countrymen in Chains.”
What imagery and rhetoric does Whittier use to advance the cause of abolitionism?
Garrison also preached immediatism: the moral demand to take immediate action to end slavery. He wrote of equal rights and demanded that blacks be treated as equal to whites. He appealed to women and men, black and white, to join the fight. The abolition press, which produced hundreds of tracts, helped to circulate moral suasion. Garrison and other abolitionists also used the power of petitions, sending hundreds of petitions to Congress in the early 1830s, demanding an end to slavery. Since most newspapers published congressional proceedings, the debate over abolition petitions reached readers throughout the nation.
Although Garrison rejected the U.S. political system as a tool of slaveholders, other abolitionists believed mainstream politics could bring about their goal, and they helped create the Liberty Party in 1840. Its first candidate was James G. Birney, who ran for president that year. Birney epitomized the ideal and goals of the abolitionist movement. Born in Kentucky in 1792, Birney owned slaves and, searching for a solution to what he eventually condemned as the immorality of slavery, initially endorsed colonization. In the 1830s, however, he rejected colonization, freed his slaves, and began to advocate the immediate end of slavery. The Liberty Party did not generate much support and remained a fringe third party. Many of its supporters turned to the Free-Soil Party in the aftermath of the Mexican Cession.
The vast majority of northerners rejected abolition entirely. Indeed, abolition generated a fierce backlash in the United States, especially during the Age of Jackson, when racism saturated American culture. Anti-abolitionists in the North saw Garrison and other abolitionists as the worst of the worst, a threat to the republic that might destroy all decency and order by upending time-honored distinctions between blacks and whites, and between women and men. Northern anti-abolitionists feared that if slavery ended, the North would be flooded with blacks who would take jobs from whites.
Opponents made clear their resistance to Garrison and others of his ilk; Garrison nearly lost his life in 1835, when a Boston anti-abolitionist mob dragged him through the city streets. Anti-abolitionists tried to pass federal laws that made the distribution of abolitionist literature a criminal offense, fearing that such literature, with its engravings and simple language, could spark rebellious blacks to action. Their sympathizers in Congress passed a “gag rule” that forbade the consideration of the many hundreds of petitions sent to Washington by abolitionists. A mob in Illinois killed an abolitionist named Elijah Lovejoy in 1837, and the following year, ten thousand protestors destroyed the abolitionists’ newly built Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia, burning it to the ground.
Frederick Douglass
Many escaped slaves joined the abolitionist movement, including Frederick Douglass. Douglass was born in Maryland in 1818, escaping to New York in 1838. He later moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, with his wife. Douglass’s commanding presence and powerful speaking skills electrified his listeners when he began to provide public lectures on slavery. He came to the attention of Garrison and others, who encouraged him to publish his story. In 1845, Douglass published Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave Written by Himself, in which he told about his life of slavery in Maryland (Figure). He identified by name the whites who had brutalized him, and for that reason, along with the mere act of publishing his story, Douglass had to flee the United States to avoid being murdered.
British abolitionist friends bought his freedom from his Maryland owner, and Douglass returned to the United States. He began to publish his own abolitionist newspaper, North Star, in Rochester, New York. During the 1840s and 1850s, Douglass labored to bring about the end of slavery by telling the story of his life and highlighting how slavery destroyed families, both black and white.
Frederick Douglass on Slavery
Most white slaveholders frequently raped female slaves. In this excerpt, Douglass explains the consequences for the children fathered by white masters and slave women.
Slaveholders have ordained, and by law established, that the children of slave women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mothers . . . this is done too obviously to administer to their own lusts, and make a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well as pleasurable . . . the slaveholder, in cases not a few, sustains to his slaves the double relation of master and father. . . .
Such slaves [born of white masters] invariably suffer greater hardships . . . They are . . . a constant offence to their mistress . . . she is never better pleased than when she sees them under the lash, . . . The master is frequently compelled to sell this class of his slaves, out of deference to the feelings of his white wife; and, cruel as the deed may strike any one to be, for a man to sell his own children to human flesh-mongers, . . . for, unless he does this, he must not only whip them himself, but must stand by and see one white son tie up his brother, of but few shades darker . . . and ply the gory lash to his naked back.
—Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave Written by Himself (1845)
What moral complications did slavery unleash upon white slaveholders in the South, according to Douglass? What imagery does he use?
Section Summary
Contrasting proposals were put forth to deal with slavery. Reformers in the antebellum United States addressed the thorny issue of slavery through contrasting proposals that offered profoundly different solutions to the dilemma of the institution. Many leading American statesmen, including slaveholders, favored colonization, relocating American blacks to Africa, which abolitionists scorned. Slave rebellions sought the end of the institution through its violent overthrow, a tactic that horrified many in the North and the South. Abolitionists, especially those who followed William Lloyd Garrison, provoked equally strong reactions by envisioning a new United States without slavery, where blacks and whites stood on equal footing. Opponents saw abolition as the worst possible reform, a threat to all order and decency. Slaveholders, in particular, saw slavery as a positive aspect of American society, one that reformed the lives of slaves by exposing them to civilization and religion.
Review Questions
In the context of the antebellum era, what does colonization refer to?
- Great Britain’s colonization of North America
- the relocation of African Americans to Africa
- American colonization of the Caribbean
- American colonization of Africa
Hint:
B
Which of the following did William Lloyd Garrison not employ in his abolitionist efforts?
- moral suasion
- immediatism
- political involvement
- pamphleteering
Hint:
C
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:19.755443
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07/10/2017
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/15461/overview
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Introduction
Overview
- An Awakening of Religion and Individualism
- Antebellum Communal Experiments
- Reforms to Human Health
- Addressing Slavery
- Women’s Rights
This masthead for the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator shows two Americas (Figure). On the left is the southern version where slaves are being sold; on the right, free blacks enjoy the blessing of liberty. Reflecting the role of evangelical Protestantism in reforms such as abolition, the image features Jesus as the central figure. The caption reads, “I come to break the bonds of the oppressor,” and below the masthead, “Our country is the World, our Countrymen are all Mankind.”
The reform efforts of the antebellum years, including abolitionism, aimed to perfect the national destiny and redeem the souls of individual Americans. A great deal of optimism, fueled by evangelical Protestantism revivalism, underwrote the moral crusades of the first half of the nineteenth century. Some reformers targeted what they perceived as the shallow, materialistic, and democratic market culture of the United States and advocated a stronger sense of individualism and self-reliance. Others dreamed of a more equal society and established their own idealistic communities. Still others, who viewed slavery as the most serious flaw in American life, labored to end the institution. Women’s rights, temperance, health reforms, and a host of other efforts also came to the forefront during the heyday of reform in the 1830s and 1840s.
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:19.771620
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07/10/2017
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28847/overview
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The Federal Reserve Banking System and Central Banks
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Explain the structure and organization of the U.S. Federal Reserve
- Discuss how central banks impact monetary policy, promote financial stability, and provide banking services
In making decisions about the money supply, a central bank decides whether to raise or lower interest rates and, in this way, to influence macroeconomic policy, whose goal is low unemployment and low inflation. The central bank is also responsible for regulating all or part of the nation’s banking system to protect bank depositors and insure the health of the bank’s balance sheet.
We call the organization responsible for conducting monetary policy and ensuring that a nation’s financial system operates smoothly the central bank. Most nations have central banks or currency boards. Some prominent central banks around the world include the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, and the Bank of England. In the United States, we call the central bank the Federal Reserve—often abbreviated as just “the Fed.” This section explains the U.S. Federal Reserve's organization and identifies the major central bank's responsibilities.
Structure/Organization of the Federal Reserve
Unlike most central banks, the Federal Reserve is semi-decentralized, mixing government appointees with representation from private-sector banks. At the national level, it is run by a Board of Governors, consisting of seven members appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate. Appointments are for 14-year terms and they are arranged so that one term expires January 31 of every even-numbered year. The purpose of the long and staggered terms is to insulate the Board of Governors as much as possible from political pressure so that governors can make policy decisions based only on their economic merits. Additionally, except when filling an unfinished term, each member only serves one term, further insulating decision-making from politics. The Fed's policy decisions do not require congressional approval, and the President cannot ask for a Federal Reserve Governor to resign as the President can with cabinet positions.
One member of the Board of Governors is designated as the Chair. For example, from 1987 until early 2006, the Chair was Alan Greenspan. From 2006 until 2014, Ben Bernanke held the post. The current Chair, Janet Yellen, has made many headlines already. Why? See the following Clear It Up feature to find out.
Who has the most immediate economic power in the world?
What individual can make financial market crash or soar just by making a public statement? It is not Bill Gates or Warren Buffett. It is not even the President of the United States. The answer is the Chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. In early 2014, Janet L. Yellen, (Figure) became the first woman to hold this post. The media had described Yellen as “perhaps the most qualified Fed chair in history.” With a Ph.D. in economics from Yale University, Yellen has taught macroeconomics at Harvard, the London School of Economics, and most recently at the University of California at Berkeley. From 2004–2010, Yellen was President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Not an ivory tower economist, Yellen became one of the few economists who warned about a possible bubble in the housing market, more than two years before the financial crisis occurred. Yellen served on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve twice, most recently as Vice Chair. She also spent two years as Chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors. If experience and credentials mean anything, Yellen is likely to be an effective Fed chair.
The Fed Chair is first among equals on the Board of Governors. While he or she has only one vote, the Chair controls the agenda, and is the Fed's public voice, so he or she has more power and influence than one might expect.
Visit this website to see who the current members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors are. You can follow the links provided for each board member to learn more about their backgrounds, experiences, and when their terms on the board will end.
The Federal Reserve is more than the Board of Governors. The Fed also includes 12 regional Federal Reserve banks, each of which is responsible for supporting the commercial banks and economy generally in its district. Figure shows the Federal Reserve districts and the cities where their regional headquarters are located. The commercial banks in each district elect a Board of Directors for each regional Federal Reserve bank, and that board chooses a president for each regional Federal Reserve district. Thus, the Federal Reserve System includes both federally and private-sector appointed leaders.
What Does a Central Bank Do?
The Federal Reserve, like most central banks, is designed to perform three important functions:
- To conduct monetary policy
- To promote stability of the financial system
- To provide banking services to commercial banks and other depository institutions, and to provide banking services to the federal government.
The first two functions are sufficiently important that we will discuss them in their own modules. The third function we will discuss here.
The Federal Reserve provides many of the same services to banks as banks provide to their customers. For example, all commercial banks have an account at the Fed where they deposit reserves. Similarly, banks can obtain loans from the Fed through the “discount window” facility, which we will discuss in more detail later. The Fed is also responsible for check processing. When you write a check, for example, to buy groceries, the grocery store deposits the check in its bank account. Then, the grocery store's bank returns the physical check (or an image of that actual check) to your bank, after which it transfers funds from your bank account to the grocery store's account. The Fed is responsible for each of these actions.
On a more mundane level, the Federal Reserve ensures that enough currency and coins are circulating through the financial system to meet public demands. For example, each year the Fed increases the amount of currency available in banks around the Christmas shopping season and reduces it again in January.
Finally, the Fed is responsible for assuring that banks are in compliance with a wide variety of consumer protection laws. For example, banks are forbidden from discriminating on the basis of age, race, sex, or marital status. Banks are also required to disclose publicly information about the loans they make for buying houses and how they distribute the loans geographically, as well as by sex and race of the loan applicants.
Key Concepts and Summary
The most prominent task of a central bank is to conduct monetary policy, which involves changes to interest rates and credit conditions, affecting the amount of borrowing and spending in an economy. Some prominent central banks around the world include the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, and the Bank of England.
Self-Check Question
Why is it important for the members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve to have longer terms in office than elected officials, like the President?
Hint:
Longer terms insulate the Board from political forces. Since the presidency can potentially change every four years, the Federal Reserve’s independence prevents drastic swings in monetary policy with every new administration and allows policy decisions to be made only on economic grounds.
Review Questions
How is a central bank different from a typical commercial bank?
List the three traditional tools that a central bank has for controlling the money supply.
Critical Thinking Questions
Why do presidents typically reappoint Chairs of the Federal Reserve Board even when they were originally appointed by a president of a different political party?
In what ways might monetary policy be superior to fiscal policy? In what ways might it be inferior?
References
Matthews, Dylan. “Nine amazing facts about Janet Yellen, our next Fed chair.” Wonkblog. The Washington Post. Posted October 09, 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/09/nine-amazing-facts-about-janet-yellen-our-next-fed-chair/.
Appelbaum, Binyamin. “Divining the Regulatory Goals of Fed Rivals.” The New York Times. Posted August 14, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/business/economy/careers-of-2-fed-contenders-reveal-little-on-regulatory-approach.html?pagewanted=3.
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:19.795138
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09/20/2018
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28853/overview
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How the Foreign Exchange Market Works
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Define "foreign exchange market"
- Describe different types of investments like foreign direct investments (FDI), portfolio investments, and hedging
- Explain how appreciating or depreciating currency affects exchange rates
- Identify who benefits from a stronger currency and benefits from a weaker currency
Most countries have different currencies, but not all. Sometimes small economies use an economically larger neighbor's currency. For example, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Panama have decided to dollarize—that is, to use the U.S. dollar as their currency. Sometimes nations share a common currency. A large-scale example of a common currency is the decision by 17 European nations—including some very large economies such as France, Germany, and Italy—to replace their former currencies with the euro. With these exceptions, most of the international economy takes place in a situation of multiple national currencies in which both people and firms need to convert from one currency to another when selling, buying, hiring, borrowing, traveling, or investing across national borders. We call the market in which people or firms use one currency to purchase another currency the foreign exchange market.
You have encountered the basic concept of exchange rates in earlier chapters. In The International Trade and Capital Flows, for example, we discussed how economists use exchange rates to compare GDP statistics from countries where they measure GDP in different currencies. These earlier examples, however, took the actual exchange rate as given, as if it were a fact of nature. In reality, the exchange rate is a price—the price of one currency expressed in terms of units of another currency. The key framework for analyzing prices, whether in this course, any other economics course, in public policy, or business examples, is the operation of supply and demand in markets.
Visit this website for an exchange rate calculator.
The Extraordinary Size of the Foreign Exchange Markets
The quantities traded in foreign exchange markets are breathtaking. A 2013 Bank of International Settlements survey found that $5.3 trillion per day was traded on foreign exchange markets, which makes the foreign exchange market the largest market in the world economy. In contrast, 2013 U.S. real GDP was $15.8 trillion per year.
Table shows the currencies most commonly traded on foreign exchange markets. The U.S. dollar dominates the foreign exchange market, followed by the euro, the British pound, the Australian dollar, and the Japanese yen.
| Currency | % Daily Share |
|---|---|
| U.S. dollar | 87.6% |
| Euro | 31.3% |
| Japanese yen | 21.6% |
| British pound | 12.8% |
| Australian dollar | 6.9% |
| Canadian dollar | 5.1% |
| Swiss franc | 4.8% |
| Chinese yuan | 2.6% |
Demanders and Suppliers of Currency in Foreign Exchange Markets
In foreign exchange markets, demand and supply become closely interrelated, because a person or firm who demands one currency must at the same time supply another currency—and vice versa. To get a sense of this, it is useful to consider four groups of people or firms who participate in the market: (1) firms that are involved in international trade of goods and services; (2) tourists visiting other countries; (3) international investors buying ownership (or part-ownership) of a foreign firm; (4) international investors making financial investments that do not involve ownership. Let’s consider these categories in turn.
Firms that buy and sell on international markets find that their costs for workers, suppliers, and investors are measured in the currency of the nation where their production occurs, but their revenues from sales are measured in the currency of the different nation where their sales happened. Thus, a Chinese firm exporting abroad will earn some other currency—say, U.S. dollars—but will need Chinese yuan to pay the workers, suppliers, and investors who are based in China. In the foreign exchange markets, this firm will be a supplier of U.S. dollars and a demander of Chinese yuan.
International tourists will supply their home currency to receive the currency of the country they are visiting. For example, an American tourist who is visiting China will supply U.S. dollars into the foreign exchange market and demand Chinese yuan.
We often divide financial investments that cross international boundaries, and require exchanging currency into two categories. Foreign direct investment (FDI) refers to purchasing a firm (at least ten percent) in another country or starting up a new enterprise in a foreign country For example, in 2008 the Belgian beer-brewing company InBev bought the U.S. beer-maker Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion. To make this purchase, InBev would have to supply euros (the currency of Belgium) to the foreign exchange market and demand U.S. dollars.
The other kind of international financial investment, portfolio investment, involves a purely financial investment that does not entail any management responsibility. An example would be a U.S. financial investor who purchased U.K. government bonds, or deposited money in a British bank. To make such investments, the American investor would supply U.S. dollars in the foreign exchange market and demand British pounds.
Business people often link portfolio investment to expectations about how exchange rates will shift. Look at a U.S. financial investor who is considering purchasing U.K. issued bonds. For simplicity, ignore any bond interest payment (which will be small in the short run anyway) and focus on exchange rates. Say that a British pound is currently worth $1.50 in U.S. currency. However, the investor believes that in a month, the British pound will be worth $1.60 in U.S. currency. Thus, as Figure (a) shows, this investor would change $24,000 for 16,000 British pounds. In a month, if the pound is worth $1.60, then the portfolio investor can trade back to U.S. dollars at the new exchange rate, and have $25,600—a nice profit. A portfolio investor who believes that the foreign exchange rate for the pound will work in the opposite direction can also invest accordingly. Say that an investor expects that the pound, now worth $1.50 in U.S. currency, will decline to $1.40. Then, as Figure (b) shows, that investor could start off with £20,000 in British currency (borrowing the money if necessary), convert it to $30,000 in U.S. currency, wait a month, and then convert back to approximately £21,429 in British currency—again making a nice profit. Of course, this kind of investing comes without guarantees, and an investor will suffer losses if the exchange rates do not move as predicted.
Many portfolio investment decisions are not as simple as betting that the currency's value will change in one direction or the other. Instead, they involve firms trying to protect themselves from movements in exchange rates. Imagine you are running a U.S. firm that is exporting to France. You have signed a contract to deliver certain products and will receive 1 million euros a year from now. However, you do not know how much this contract will be worth in U.S. dollars, because the dollar/euro exchange rate can fluctuate in the next year. Let’s say you want to know for sure what the contract will be worth, and not take a risk that the euro will be worth less in U.S. dollars than it currently is. You can hedge, which means using a financial transaction to protect yourself against a risk from one of your investments (in this case, currency risk from the contract). Specifically, you can sign a financial contract and pay a fee that guarantees you a certain exchange rate one year from now—regardless of what the market exchange rate is at that time. Now, it is possible that the euro will be worth more in dollars a year from now, so your hedging contract will be unnecessary, and you will have paid a fee for nothing. However, if the value of the euro in dollars declines, then you are protected by the hedge. When parties wish to enter financial contracts like hedging, they normally rely on a financial institution or brokerage company to handle the hedging. These companies either take a fee or create a spread in the exchange rate in order to earn money through the service they provide.
Both foreign direct investment and portfolio investment involve an investor who supplies domestic currency and demands a foreign currency. With portfolio investment, the client purchases less than ten percent of a company. As such, business players often get involved with portfolio investment with a short term focus. With foreign direct investment the investor purchases more than ten percent of a company and the investor typically assumes some managerial responsibility. Thus, foreign direct investment tends to have a more long-run focus. As a practical matter, an investor can withdraw portfolio investments from a country much more quickly than foreign direct investments. A U.S. portfolio investor who wants to buy or sell U.K. government bonds can do so with a phone call or a few computer keyboard clicks. However, a U.S. firm that wants to buy or sell a company, such as one that manufactures automobile parts in the United Kingdom, will find that planning and carrying out the transaction takes a few weeks, even months. Table summarizes the main categories of currency demanders and suppliers.
| Demand for the U.S. Dollar Comes from… | Supply of the U.S. Dollar Comes from… |
|---|---|
| A U.S. exporting firm that earned foreign currency and is trying to pay U.S.-based expenses | A foreign firm that has sold imported goods in the United States, earned U.S. dollars, and is trying to pay expenses incurred in its home country |
| Foreign tourists visiting the United States | U.S. tourists leaving to visit other countries |
| Foreign investors who wish to make direct investments in the U.S. economy | U.S. investors who want to make foreign direct investments in other countries |
| Foreign investors who wish to make portfolio investments in the U.S. economy | U.S. investors who want to make portfolio investments in other countries |
Participants in the Exchange Rate Market
The foreign exchange market does not involve the ultimate suppliers and demanders of foreign exchange literally seeking each other. If Martina decides to leave her home in Venezuela and take a trip in the United States, she does not need to find a U.S. citizen who is planning to take a vacation in Venezuela and arrange a person-to-person currency trade. Instead, the foreign exchange market works through financial institutions, and it operates on several levels.
Most people and firms who are exchanging a substantial quantity of currency go to a bank, and most banks provide foreign exchange as a service to customers. These banks (and a few other firms), known as dealers, then trade the foreign exchange. This is called the interbank market.
In the world economy, roughly 2,000 firms are foreign exchange dealers. The U.S. economy has less than 100 foreign exchange dealers, but the largest 12 or so dealers carry out more than half the total transactions. The foreign exchange market has no central location, but the major dealers keep a close watch on each other at all times.
The foreign exchange market is huge not because of the demands of tourists, firms, or even foreign direct investment, but instead because of portfolio investment and the actions of interlocking foreign exchange dealers. International tourism is a very large industry, involving about $1 trillion per year. Global exports are about 23% of global GDP; which is about $18 trillion per year. Foreign direct investment totaled about $1.5 trillion in the end of 2013. These quantities are dwarfed, however, by the $5.3 trillion per day traded in foreign exchange markets. Most transactions in the foreign exchange market are for portfolio investment—relatively short-term movements of financial capital between currencies—and because of the large foreign exchange dealers' actions as they constantly buy and sell with each other.
Strengthening and Weakening Currency
When the prices of most goods and services change, the price "rises or "falls". For exchange rates, the terminology is different. When the exchange rate for a currency rises, so that the currency exchanges for more of other currencies, we refer to it as appreciating or “strengthening.” When the exchange rate for a currency falls, so that a currency trades for less of other currencies, we refer to it as depreciating or “weakening.”
To illustrate the use of these terms, consider the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the Canadian dollar since 1980, in Figure (a). The vertical axis in Figure (a) shows the price of $1 in U.S. currency, measured in terms of Canadian currency. Clearly, exchange rates can move up and down substantially. A U.S. dollar traded for $1.17 Canadian in 1980. The U.S. dollar appreciated or strengthened to $1.39 Canadian in 1986, depreciated or weakened to $1.15 Canadian in 1991, and then appreciated or strengthened to $1.60 Canadian by early in 2002, fell to roughly $1.20 Canadian in 2009, and then had a sharp spike up and decline in 2009 and 2010. In May of 2017, the U.S. dollar stood at $1.36 Canadian. The units in which we measure exchange rates can be confusing, because we measure the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar exchange using a different currency—the Canadian dollar. However, exchange rates always measure the price of one unit of currency by using a different currency.
In looking at the exchange rate between two currencies, the appreciation or strengthening of one currency must mean the depreciation or weakening of the other. Figure (b) shows the exchange rate for the Canadian dollar, measured in terms of U.S. dollars. The exchange rate of the U.S. dollar measured in Canadian dollars, in Figure (a), is a perfect mirror image with the Canadian dollar exchange rate measured in U.S. dollars, in Figure (b). A fall in the Canada $/U.S. $ ratio means a rise in the U.S. $/Canada $ ratio, and vice versa.
With the price of a typical good or service, it is clear that higher prices benefit sellers and hurt buyers, while lower prices benefit buyers and hurt sellers. In the case of exchange rates, where the buyers and sellers are not always intuitively obvious, it is useful to trace how a stronger or weaker currency will affect different market participants. Consider, for example, the impact of a stronger U.S. dollar on six different groups of economic actors, as Figure shows: (1) U.S. exporters selling abroad; (2) foreign exporters (that is, firms selling imports in the U.S. economy); (3) U.S. tourists abroad; (4) foreign tourists visiting the United States; (5) U.S. investors (either foreign direct investment or portfolio investment) considering opportunities in other countries; (6) and foreign investors considering opportunities in the U.S. economy.
For a U.S. firm selling abroad, a stronger U.S. dollar is a curse. A strong U.S. dollar means that foreign currencies are correspondingly weak. When this exporting firm earns foreign currencies through its export sales, and then converts them back to U.S. dollars to pay workers, suppliers, and investors, the stronger dollar means that the foreign currency buys fewer U.S. dollars than if the currency had not strengthened, and that the firm’s profits (as measured in dollars) fall. As a result, the firm may choose to reduce its exports, or it may raise its selling price, which will also tend to reduce its exports. In this way, a stronger currency reduces a country’s exports.
Conversely, for a foreign firm selling in the U.S. economy, a stronger dollar is a blessing. Each dollar earned through export sales, when traded back into the exporting firm's home currency, will now buy more home currency than expected before the dollar had strengthened. As a result, the stronger dollar means that the importing firm will earn higher profits than expected. The firm will seek to expand its sales in the U.S. economy, or it may reduce prices, which will also lead to expanded sales. In this way, a stronger U.S. dollar means that consumers will purchase more from foreign producers, expanding the country’s level of imports.
For a U.S. tourist abroad, who is exchanging U.S. dollars for foreign currency as necessary, a stronger U.S. dollar is a benefit. The tourist receives more foreign currency for each U.S. dollar, and consequently the cost of the trip in U.S. dollars is lower. When a country’s currency is strong, it is a good time for citizens of that country to tour abroad. Imagine a U.S. tourist who has saved up $5,000 for a trip to South Africa. In 2010, $1 bought 7.3 South African rand, so the tourist had 36,500 rand to spend. In 2012, $1 bought 8.2 rand, so the tourist had 41,000 rand to spend. By 2015, $1 bought nearly 13 rand. Clearly, more recent years have been better for U.S. tourists to visit South Africa. For foreign visitors to the United States, the opposite pattern holds true. A relatively stronger U.S. dollar means that their own currencies are relatively weaker, so that as they shift from their own currency to U.S. dollars, they have fewer U.S. dollars than previously. When a country’s currency is strong, it is not an especially good time for foreign tourists to visit.
A stronger dollar injures the prospects of a U.S. financial investor who has already invested money in another country. A U.S. financial investor abroad must first convert U.S. dollars to a foreign currency, invest in a foreign country, and then later convert that foreign currency back to U.S. dollars. If in the meantime the U.S. dollar becomes stronger and the foreign currency becomes weaker, then when the investor converts back to U.S. dollars, the rate of return on that investment will be less than originally expected at the time it was made.
However, a stronger U.S. dollar boosts the returns of a foreign investor putting money into a U.S. investment. That foreign investor converts from the home currency to U.S. dollars and seeks a U.S. investment, while later planning to switch back to the home currency. If, in the meantime, the dollar grows stronger, then when the time comes to convert from U.S. dollars back to the foreign currency, the investor will receive more foreign currency than expected at the time the original investment was made.
The preceding paragraphs all focus on the case where the U.S. dollar becomes stronger. The first column in Figure illustrates the corresponding happy or unhappy economic reactions. The following Work It Out feature centers the analysis on the opposite: a weaker dollar.
Effects of a Weaker Dollar
Let’s work through the effects of a weaker dollar on a U.S. exporter, a foreign exporter into the United States, a U.S. tourist going abroad, a foreign tourist coming to the United States, a U.S. investor abroad, and a foreign investor in the United States.
Step 1. Note that the demand for U.S. exports is a function of the price of those exports, which depends on the dollar price of those goods and the exchange rate of the dollar in terms of foreign currency. For example, a Ford pickup truck costs $25,000 in the United States. When it is sold in the United Kingdom, the price is $25,000 / $1.30 per British pound, or £19,231. The dollar affects the price foreigners face who may purchase U.S. exports.
Step 2. Consider that, if the dollar weakens, the pound rises in value. If the pound rises to $2.00 per pound, then the price of a Ford pickup is now $25,000 / $2.00 = £12,500. A weaker dollar means the foreign currency buys more dollars, which means that U.S. exports appear less expensive.
Step 3. Summarize that a weaker U.S. dollar leads to an increase in U.S. exports. For a foreign exporter, the outcome is just the opposite.
Step 4. Suppose a brewery in England is interested in selling its Bass Ale to a grocery store in the United States. If the price of a six pack of Bass Ale is £6.00 and the exchange rate is $1.30 per British pound, the price for the grocery store is 6.00 × $1.30 = $7.80 per six pack. If the dollar weakens to $2.00 per pound, the price of Bass Ale is now 6.00 × $2.00 = $12.
Step 5. Summarize that, from the perspective of U.S. purchasers, a weaker dollar means that foreign currency is more expensive, which means that foreign goods are more expensive also. This leads to a decrease in U.S. imports, which is bad for the foreign exporter.
Step 6. Consider U.S. tourists going abroad. They face the same situation as a U.S. importer—they are purchasing a foreign trip. A weaker dollar means that their trip will cost more, since a given expenditure of foreign currency (e.g., hotel bill) will take more dollars. The result is that the tourist may not stay as long abroad, and some may choose not to travel at all.
Step 7. Consider that, for the foreign tourist to the United States, a weaker dollar is a boon. It means their currency goes further, so the cost of a trip to the United States will be less. Foreigners may choose to take longer trips to the United States, and more foreign tourists may decide to take U.S. trips.
Step 8. Note that a U.S. investor abroad faces the same situation as a U.S. importer—they are purchasing a foreign asset. A U.S. investor will see a weaker dollar as an increase in the “price” of investment, since the same number of dollars will buy less foreign currency and thus less foreign assets. This should decrease the amount of U.S. investment abroad.
Step 9. Note also that foreign investors in the Unites States will have the opposite experience. Since foreign currency buys more dollars, they will likely invest in more U.S. assets.
At this point, you should have a good sense of the major players in the foreign exchange market: firms involved in international trade, tourists, international financial investors, banks, and foreign exchange dealers. The next module shows how players can use the tools of demand and supply in foreign exchange markets to explain the underlying causes of stronger and weaker currencies (we address “stronger” and “weaker” more in the following Clear It Up feature).
Why is a stronger currency not necessarily better?
One common misunderstanding about exchange rates is that a “stronger” or “appreciating” currency must be better than a “weaker” or “depreciating” currency. After all, is it not obvious that “strong” is better than “weak”? Do not let the terminology confuse you. When a currency becomes stronger, so that it purchases more of other currencies, it benefits some in the economy and injures others. Stronger currency is not necessarily better, it is just different.
Key Concepts and Summary
In the foreign exchange market, people and firms exchange one currency to purchase another currency. The demand for dollars comes from those U.S. export firms seeking to convert their earnings in foreign currency back into U.S. dollars; foreign tourists converting their earnings in a foreign currency back into U.S. dollars; and foreign investors seeking to make financial investments in the U.S. economy. On the supply side of the foreign exchange market for the trading of U.S. dollars are foreign firms that have sold imports in the U.S. economy and are seeking to convert their earnings back to their home currency; U.S. tourists abroad; and U.S. investors seeking to make financial investments in foreign economies. When currency A can buy more of currency B, then currency A has strengthened or appreciated relative to B. When currency A can buy less of currency B, then currency A has weakened or depreciated relative to B. If currency A strengthens or appreciates relative to currency B, then currency B must necessarily weaken or depreciate with regard to currency A. A stronger currency benefits those who are buying with that currency and injures those who are selling. A weaker currency injures those, like importers, who are buying with that currency and benefits those who are selling with it, like exporters.
Self-Check Questions
How will a stronger euro affect the following economic agents?
- A British exporter to Germany.
- A Dutch tourist visiting Chile.
- A Greek bank investing in a Canadian government bond.
- A French exporter to Germany.
Hint:
- The British use the pound sterling, while Germans use the euro, so a British exporter will receive euros from export sales, which will need to be exchanged for pounds. A stronger euro will mean more pounds per euro, so the exporter will be better off. In addition, the lower price for German imports will stimulate demand for British exports. For both these reasons, a stronger euro benefits the British exporter.
- The Dutch use euros while the Chileans use pesos, so the Dutch tourist needs to turn euros into Chilean pesos. An increase in the euro means that the tourist will get more pesos per euro. As a consequence, the Dutch tourist will have a less expensive vacation than he planned, so the tourist will be better off.
- The Greek use euros while the Canadians use dollars. An increase in the euro means it will buy more Canadian dollars. As a result, the Greek bank will see a decrease in the cost of the Canadian bonds, so it may purchase more bonds. Either way, the Greek bank benefits.
- Since both the French and Germans use the euro, an increase in the euro, in terms of other currencies, should have no impact on the French exporter.
Review Questions
What is the foreign exchange market?
Describe some buyers and some sellers in the market for U.S. dollars.
What is the difference between foreign direct investment and portfolio investment?
What does it mean to hedge a financial transaction?
What does it mean to say that a currency appreciates? Depreciates? Becomes stronger? Becomes weaker?
Critical Thinking Question
Why would a nation “dollarize”—that is, adopt another country’s currency instead of having its own?
Can you think of any major disadvantages to dollarization? How would a central bank work in a country that has dollarized?
Problems
A British pound cost $2.00 in U.S. dollars in 2008, but $1.27 in U.S. dollars in 2017. Was the pound weaker or stronger against the dollar? Did the dollar appreciate or depreciate versus the pound?
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Pitfalls for Monetary Policy
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Analyze whether monetary policy decisions should be made more democratically
- Calculate the velocity of money
- Evaluate the central bank’s influence on inflation, unemployment, asset bubbles, and leverage cycles
- Calculate the effects of monetary stimulus
In the real world, effective monetary policy faces a number of significant hurdles. Monetary policy affects the economy only after a time lag that is typically long and of variable length. Remember, monetary policy involves a chain of events: the central bank must perceive a situation in the economy, hold a meeting, and make a decision to react by tightening or loosening monetary policy. The change in monetary policy must percolate through the banking system, changing the quantity of loans and affecting interest rates. When interest rates change, businesses must change their investment levels and consumers must change their borrowing patterns when purchasing homes or cars. Then it takes time for these changes to filter through the rest of the economy.
As a result of this chain of events, monetary policy has little effect in the immediate future. Instead, its primary effects are felt perhaps one to three years in the future. The reality of long and variable time lags does not mean that a central bank should refuse to make decisions. It does mean that central banks should be humble about taking action, because of the risk that their actions can create as much or more economic instability as they resolve.
Excess Reserves
Banks are legally required to hold a minimum level of reserves, but no rule prohibits them from holding additional excess reserves above the legally mandated limit. For example, during a recession banks may be hesitant to lend, because they fear that when the economy is contracting, a high proportion of loan applicants become less likely to repay their loans.
When many banks are choosing to hold excess reserves, expansionary monetary policy may not work well. This may occur because the banks are concerned about a deteriorating economy, while the central bank is trying to expand the money supply. If the banks prefer to hold excess reserves above the legally required level, the central bank cannot force individual banks to make loans. Similarly, sensible businesses and consumers may be reluctant to borrow substantial amounts of money in a recession, because they recognize that firms’ sales and employees’ jobs are more insecure in a recession, and they do not want to face the need to make interest payments. The result is that during an especially deep recession, an expansionary monetary policy may have little effect on either the price level or the real GDP.
Japan experienced this situation in the 1990s and early 2000s. Japan’s economy entered a period of very slow growth, dipping in and out of recession, in the early 1990s. By February 1999, the Bank of Japan had lowered the equivalent of its federal funds rate to 0%. It kept it there most of the time through 2003. Moreover, in the two years from March 2001 to March 2003, the Bank of Japan also expanded the country's money supply by about 50%—an enormous increase. Even this highly expansionary monetary policy, however, had no substantial effect on stimulating aggregate demand. Japan’s economy continued to experience extremely slow growth into the mid-2000s.
Should monetary policy decisions be made more democratically?
Should a nation’s Congress or legislature comprised of elected representatives conduct monetary policy or should a politically appointed central bank that is more independent of voters take charge? Here are some of the arguments.
The Case for Greater Democratic Control of Monetary Policy
Elected representatives pass taxes and spending bills to conduct fiscal policy by passing tax and spending bills. They could handle monetary policy in the same way. They will sometimes make mistakes, but in a democracy, it is better to have elected officials who are accountable to voters make mistakes instead of political appointees. After all, the people appointed to the top governing positions at the Federal Reserve—and to most central banks around the world—are typically bankers and economists. They are not representatives of borrowers like small businesses or farmers nor are they representatives of labor unions. Central banks might not be so quick to raise interest rates if they had to pay more attention to firms and people in the real economy.
The Case for an Independent Central Bank
Because the central bank has some insulation from day-to-day politics, its members can take a nonpartisan look at specific economic situations and make tough, immediate decisions when necessary. The idea of giving a legislature the ability to create money and hand out loans is likely to end up badly, sooner or later. It is simply too tempting for lawmakers to expand the money supply to fund their projects. The long term result will be rampant inflation. Also, a central bank, acting according to the laws passed by elected officials, can respond far more quickly than a legislature. For example, the U.S. budget takes months to debate, pass, and sign into law, but monetary policy decisions happen much more rapidly. Day-to-day democratic control of monetary policy is impractical and seems likely to lead to an overly expansionary monetary policy and higher inflation.
The problem of excess reserves does not affect contractionary policy. Central bankers have an old saying that monetary policy can be like pulling and pushing on a string: when the central bank pulls on the string and uses contractionary monetary policy, it can definitely raise interest rates and reduce aggregate demand. However, when the central bank tries to push on the string of expansionary monetary policy, the string may sometimes just fold up limp and have little effect, because banks decide not to loan out their excess reserves. Do not take this analogy too literally—expansionary monetary policy usually does have real effects, after that inconveniently long and variable lag. There are also times, like Japan’s economy in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when expansionary monetary policy has been insufficient to lift a recession-prone economy.
Unpredictable Movements of Velocity
Velocity is a term that economists use to describe how quickly money circulates through the economy. We define the velocity of money in a year as:
Specific measurements of velocity depend on the definition of the money supply used. Consider the velocity of M1, the total amount of currency in circulation and checking account balances. In 2009, for example, M1 was $1.7 trillion and nominal GDP was $14.3 trillion, so the velocity of M1 was 8.4 ($14.3 trillion/$1.7 trillion). A higher velocity of money means that the average dollar circulates more times in a year. A lower velocity means that the average dollar circulates fewer times in a year.
See the following Clear It Up feature for a discussion of how deflation could affect monetary policy.
What happens during episodes of deflation?
Deflation occurs when the rate of inflation is negative; that is, instead of money having less purchasing power over time, as occurs with inflation, money is worth more. Deflation can make it very difficult for monetary policy to address a recession.
Remember that the real interest rate is the nominal interest rate minus the rate of inflation. If the nominal interest rate is 7% and the rate of inflation is 3%, then the borrower is effectively paying a 4% real interest rate. If the nominal interest rate is 7% and there is deflation of 2%, then the real interest rate is actually 9%. In this way, an unexpected deflation raises the real interest payments for borrowers. It can lead to a situation where borrowers do not repay an unexpectedly high number of loans, and banks find that their net worth is decreasing or negative. When banks are suffering losses, they become less able and eager to make new loans. Aggregate demand declines, which can lead to recession.
Then the double-whammy: After causing a recession, deflation can make it difficult for monetary policy to work. Say that the central bank uses expansionary monetary policy to reduce the nominal interest rate all the way to zero—but the economy has 5% deflation. As a result, the real interest rate is 5%, and because a central bank cannot make the nominal interest rate negative, expansionary policy cannot reduce the real interest rate further.
In the U.S. economy during the early 1930s, deflation was 6.7% per year from 1930–1933, which caused many borrowers to default on their loans and many banks to end up bankrupt, which in turn contributed substantially to the Great Depression. Not all episodes of deflation, however, end in economic depression. Japan, for example, experienced deflation of slightly less than 1% per year from 1999–2002, which hurt the Japanese economy, but it still grew by about 0.9% per year over this period. There is at least one historical example of deflation coexisting with rapid growth. The U.S. economy experienced deflation of about 1.1% per year over the quarter-century from 1876–1900, but real GDP also expanded at a rapid clip of 4% per year over this time, despite some occasional severe recessions.
The central bank should be on guard against deflation and, if necessary, use expansionary monetary policy to prevent any long-lasting or extreme deflation from occurring. Except in severe cases like the Great Depression, deflation does not guarantee economic disaster.
Changes in velocity can cause problems for monetary policy. To understand why, rewrite the definition of velocity so that the money supply is on the left-hand side of the equation. That is:
Recall from The Macroeconomic Perspective that
Therefore,
We sometimes call this equation the basic quantity equation of money but, as you can see, it is just the definition of velocity written in a different form. This equation must hold true, by definition.
If velocity is constant over time, then a certain percentage rise in the money supply on the left-hand side of the basic quantity equation of money will inevitably lead to the same percentage rise in nominal GDP—although this change could happen through an increase in inflation, or an increase in real GDP, or some combination of the two. If velocity is changing over time but in a constant and predictable way, then changes in the money supply will continue to have a predictable effect on nominal GDP. If velocity changes unpredictably over time, however, then the effect of changes in the money supply on nominal GDP becomes unpredictable.
Figure illustrates the actual velocity of money in the U.S. economy as measured by using M1, the most common definition of the money supply. From 1960 up to about 1980, velocity appears fairly predictable; that is, it is increasing at a fairly constant rate. In the early 1980s, however, velocity as calculated with M1 becomes more variable. The reasons for these sharp changes in velocity remain a puzzle. Economists suspect that the changes in velocity are related to innovations in banking and finance which have changed how we are using money in making economic transactions: for example, the growth of electronic payments; a rise in personal borrowing and credit card usage; and accounts that make it easier for people to hold money in savings accounts, where it is counted as M2, right up to the moment that they want to write a check on the money and transfer it to M1. So far at least, it has proven difficult to draw clear links between these kinds of factors and the specific up-and-down fluctuations in M1. Given many changes in banking and the prevalence of electronic banking, economists now favor M2 as a measure of money rather than the narrower M1.
In the 1970s, when velocity as measured by M1 seemed predictable, a number of economists, led by Nobel laureate Milton Friedman (1912–2006), argued that the best monetary policy was for the central bank to increase the money supply at a constant growth rate. These economists argued that with the long and variable lags of monetary policy, and the political pressures on central bankers, central bank monetary policies were as likely to have undesirable as to have desirable effects. Thus, these economists believed that the monetary policy should seek steady growth in the money supply of 3% per year. They argued that a steady monetary growth rate would be correct over longer time periods, since it would roughly match the growth of the real economy. In addition, they argued that giving the central bank less discretion to conduct monetary policy would prevent an overly activist central bank from becoming a source of economic instability and uncertainty. In this spirit, Friedman wrote in 1967: “The first and most important lesson that history teaches about what monetary policy can do—and it is a lesson of the most profound importance—is that monetary policy can prevent money itself from being a major source of economic disturbance.”
As the velocity of M1 began to fluctuate in the 1980s, having the money supply grow at a predetermined and unchanging rate seemed less desirable, because as the quantity theory of money shows, the combination of constant growth in the money supply and fluctuating velocity would cause nominal GDP to rise and fall in unpredictable ways. The jumpiness of velocity in the 1980s caused many central banks to focus less on the rate at which the quantity of money in the economy was increasing, and instead to set monetary policy by reacting to whether the economy was experiencing or in danger of higher inflation or unemployment.
Unemployment and Inflation
If you were to survey central bankers around the world and ask them what they believe should be the primary task of monetary policy, the most popular answer by far would be fighting inflation. Most central bankers believe that the neoclassical model of economics accurately represents the economy over the medium to long term. Remember that in the neoclassical model of the economy, we draw the aggregate supply curve as a vertical line at the level of potential GDP, as Figure shows. In the neoclassical model, economists determine the level of potential GDP (and the natural rate of unemployment that exists when the economy is producing at potential GDP) by real economic factors. If the original level of aggregate demand is AD0, then an expansionary monetary policy that shifts aggregate demand to AD1 only creates an inflationary increase in the price level, but it does not alter GDP or unemployment. From this perspective, all that monetary policy can do is to lead to low inflation or high inflation—and low inflation provides a better climate for a healthy and growing economy. After all, low inflation means that businesses making investments can focus on real economic issues, not on figuring out ways to protect themselves from the costs and risks of inflation. In this way, a consistent pattern of low inflation can contribute to long-term growth.
This vision of focusing monetary policy on a low rate of inflation is so attractive that many countries have rewritten their central banking laws since in the 1990s to have their bank practice inflation targeting, which means that the central bank is legally required to focus primarily on keeping inflation low. By 2014, central banks in 28 countries, including Austria, Brazil, Canada, Israel, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, and the United Kingdom faced a legal requirement to target the inflation rate. A notable exception is the Federal Reserve in the United States, which does not practice inflation-targeting. Instead, the law governing the Federal Reserve requires it to take both unemployment and inflation into account.
Economists have no final consensus on whether a central bank should be required to focus only on inflation or should have greater discretion. For those who subscribe to the inflation targeting philosophy, the fear is that politicians who are worried about slow economic growth and unemployment will constantly pressure the central bank to conduct a loose monetary policy—even if the economy is already producing at potential GDP. In some countries, the central bank may lack the political power to resist such pressures, with the result of higher inflation, but no long-term reduction in unemployment. The U.S. Federal Reserve has a tradition of independence, but central banks in other countries may be under greater political pressure. For all of these reasons—long and variable lags, excess reserves, unstable velocity, and controversy over economic goals—monetary policy in the real world is often difficult. The basic message remains, however, that central banks can affect aggregate demand through the conduct of monetary policy and in that way influence macroeconomic outcomes.
Asset Bubbles and Leverage Cycles
One long-standing concern about having the central bank focus on inflation and unemployment is that it may be overlooking certain other economic problems that are coming in the future. For example, from 1994 to 2000 during what was known as the “dot-com” boom, the U.S. stock market, which the Dow Jones Industrial Index measures (which includes 30 very large companies from across the U.S. economy), nearly tripled in value. The Nasdaq index, which includes many smaller technology companies, increased in value by a multiple of five from 1994 to 2000. These rates of increase were clearly not sustainable. Stock values as measured by the Dow Jones were almost 20% lower in 2009 than they had been in 2000. Stock values in the Nasdaq index were 50% lower in 2009 than they had been in 2000. The drop-off in stock market values contributed to the 2001 recession and the higher unemployment that followed.
We can tell a similar story about housing prices in the mid-2000s. During the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, housing prices increased at about 6% per year on average. During what came to be known as the “housing bubble” from 2003 to 2005, housing prices increased at almost double this annual rate. These rates of increase were clearly not sustainable. When housing prices fell in 2007 and 2008, many banks and households found that their assets were worth less than they expected, which contributed to the recession that started in 2007.
At a broader level, some economists worry about a leverage cycle, where “leverage” is a term financial economists use to mean “borrowing.” When economic times are good, banks and the financial sector are eager to lend, and people and firms are eager to borrow. Remember that a money multiplier determines the amount of money and credit in an economy —a process of loans made, money deposited, and more loans made. In good economic times, this surge of lending exaggerates the episode of economic growth. It can even be part of what lead prices of certain assets—like stock prices or housing prices—to rise at unsustainably high annual rates. At some point, when economic times turn bad, banks and the financial sector become much less willing to lend, and credit becomes expensive or unavailable to many potential borrowers. The sharp reduction in credit, perhaps combined with the deflating prices of a dot-com stock price bubble or a housing bubble, makes the economic downturn worse than it would otherwise be.
Thus, some economists have suggested that the central bank should not just look at economic growth, inflation, and unemployment rates, but should also keep an eye on asset prices and leverage cycles. Such proposals are quite controversial. If a central bank had announced in 1997 that stock prices were rising “too fast” or in 2004 that housing prices were rising “too fast,” and then taken action to hold down price increases, many people and their elected political representatives would have been outraged. Neither the Federal Reserve nor any other central banks want to take the responsibility of deciding when stock prices and housing prices are too high, too low, or just right. As further research explores how asset price bubbles and leverage cycles can affect an economy, central banks may need to think about whether they should conduct monetary policy in a way that would seek to moderate these effects.
Let’s end this chapter with a Work it Out exercise in how the Fed—or any central bank—would stir up the economy by increasing the money supply.
Calculating the Effects of Monetary Stimulus
Suppose that the central bank wants to stimulate the economy by increasing the money supply. The bankers estimate that the velocity of money is 3, and that the price level will increase from 100 to 110 due to the stimulus. Using the quantity equation of money, what will be the impact of an $800 billion dollar increase in the money supply on the quantity of goods and services in the economy given an initial money supply of $4 trillion?
Step 1. We begin by writing the quantity equation of money: MV = PQ. We know that initially V = 3, M = 4,000 (billion) and P = 100. Substituting these numbers in, we can solve for Q:
Step 2. Now we want to find the effect of the addition $800 billion in the money supply, together with the increase in the price level. The new equation is:
Step 3. If we take the difference between the two quantities, we find that the monetary stimulus increased the quantity of goods and services in the economy by 10.9 billion.
The discussion in this chapter has focused on domestic monetary policy; that is, the view of monetary policy within an economy. Exchange Rates and International Capital Flows explores the international dimension of monetary policy, and how monetary policy becomes involved with exchange rates and international flows of financial capital.
The Problem of the Zero Percent Interest Rate Lower Bound
In 2008, the U.S. Federal Reserve found itself in a difficult position. The federal funds rate was on its way to near zero, which meant that traditional open market operations, by which the Fed purchases U.S. Treasury Bills to lower short term interest rates, was no longer viable. This so called “zero bound problem,” prompted the Fed, under then Chair Ben Bernanke, to attempt some unconventional policies, collectively called quantitative easing. By early 2014, quantitative easing nearly quintupled the amount of bank reserves. This likely contributed to the U.S. economy’s recovery, but the impact was muted, probably due to some of the hurdles mentioned in the last section of this module. The unprecedented increase in bank reserves also led to fears of inflation. As of early 2015, however, there have been no serious signs of a boom, with core inflation around a stable 1.7%.
Key Concepts and Summary
Monetary policy is inevitably imprecise, for a number of reasons: (a) the effects occur only after long and variable lags; (b) if banks decide to hold excess reserves, monetary policy cannot force them to lend; and (c) velocity may shift in unpredictable ways. The basic quantity equation of money is MV = PQ, where M is the money supply, V is the velocity of money, P is the price level, and Q is the real output of the economy. Some central banks, like the European Central Bank, practice inflation targeting, which means that the only goal of the central bank is to keep inflation within a low target range. Other central banks, such as the U.S. Federal Reserve, are free to focus on either reducing inflation or stimulating an economy that is in recession, whichever goal seems most important at the time.
Self-Check Questions
Why might banks want to hold excess reserves in time of recession?
Hint:
In times of economic uncertainty, banks may worry that borrowers will lose the ability to repay their loans. They may also fear that a panic is more likely and they will need the excess reserves to meet their obligations.
Why might the velocity of money change unexpectedly?
Hint:
If consumer optimism changes, spending can speed up or slow down. This could also happen in a case where consumers need to buy a large number of items quickly, such as in a situation of national emergency.
Review Questions
Which kind of monetary policy would you expect in response to recession: expansionary or contractionary? Why?
How might each of the following factors complicate the implementation of monetary policy: long and variable lags, excess reserves, and movements in velocity?
Define the velocity of the money supply.
What is the basic quantity equation of money?
How does a monetary policy of inflation target work?
Critical Thinking Questions
How does rule-based monetary policy differ from discretionary monetary policy (that is, monetary policy not based on a rule)? What are some of the arguments for each?
Is it preferable for central banks to primarily target inflation or unemployment? Why?
Problems
All other things being equal, by how much will nominal GDP expand if the central bank increases the money supply by $100 billion, and the velocity of money is 3? (Use this information as necessary to answer the following 4 questions.)
Suppose now that economists expect the velocity of money to increase by 50% as a result of the monetary stimulus. What will be the total increase in nominal GDP?
If GDP is 1,500 and the money supply is 400, what is velocity?
If GDP now rises to 1,600, but the money supply does not change, how has velocity changed?
If GDP now falls back to 1,500 and the money supply falls to 350, what is velocity?
References
Tobin, James. “The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics: Monetary Policy.” Library of Economics and Liberty. Accessed November 2013. http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/MonetaryPolicy.html.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “The Founding of the Fed.” Accessed November 2013. http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/history_article.html.
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:19.871064
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Introduction to Government Budgets and Fiscal Policy
No Yellowstone Park?
You had trekked all the way to see Yellowstone National Park in the beautiful month of October 2013, only to find it… closed. Closed! Why?
For two weeks in October 2013, the U.S. federal government shut down. Many federal services, like the national parks, closed and 800,000 federal employees were furloughed. Tourists were shocked and so was the rest of the world: Congress and the President could not agree on a budget. Inside the Capitol, Republicans and Democrats argued about spending priorities and whether to increase the national debt limit. Each year's budget, which is over $3 trillion of spending, must be approved by Congress and signed by the President. Two thirds of the budget are entitlements and other mandatory spending which occur without congressional or presidential action once the programs are established. Tied to the budget debate was the issue of increasing the debt ceiling—how high the U.S. government's national debt can be. The House of Representatives refused to sign on to the bills to fund the government unless they included provisions to stop or change the Affordable Health Care Act (more colloquially known as Obamacare). As the days progressed, the United States came very close to defaulting on its debt.
Why does the federal budget create such intense debates? What would happen if the United States actually defaulted on its debt? In this chapter, we will examine the federal budget, taxation, and fiscal policy. We will also look at the annual federal budget deficits and the national debt.
Introduction to Government Budgets and Fiscal Policy
In this chapter, you will learn about:
- Government Spending
- Taxation
- Federal Deficits and the National Debt
- Using Fiscal Policy to Fight Recessions, Unemployment, and Inflation
- Automatic Stabilizers
- Practical Problems with Discretionary Fiscal Policy
- The Question of a Balanced Budget
All levels of government—federal, state, and local—have budgets that show how much revenue the government expects to receive in taxes and other income and how the government plans to spend it. Budgets, however, can shift dramatically within a few years, as policy decisions and unexpected events disrupt earlier tax and spending plans.
In this chapter, we revisit fiscal policy, which we first covered in Welcome to Economics! Fiscal policy is one of two policy tools for fine tuning the economy (the other is monetary policy). While policymakers at the Federal Reserve make monetary policy, Congress and the President make fiscal policy.
The discussion of fiscal policy focuses on how federal government taxing and spending affects aggregate demand. All government spending and taxes affect the economy, but fiscal policy focuses strictly on federal government policies. We begin with an overview of U.S. government spending and taxes. We then discuss fiscal policy from a short-run perspective; that is, how government uses tax and spending policies to address recession, unemployment, and inflation; how periods of recession and growth affect government budgets; and the merits of balanced budget proposals.
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Using Fiscal Policy to Fight Recession, Unemployment, and Inflation
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Explain how expansionary fiscal policy can shift aggregate demand and influence the economy
- Explain how contractionary fiscal policy can shift aggregate demand and influence the economy
Fiscal policy is the use of government spending and tax policy to influence the path of the economy over time. Graphically, we see that fiscal policy, whether through changes in spending or taxes, shifts the aggregate demand outward in the case of expansionary fiscal policy and inward in the case of contractionary fiscal policy. We know from the chapter on economic growth that over time the quantity and quality of our resources grow as the population and thus the labor force get larger, as businesses invest in new capital, and as technology improves. The result of this is regular shifts to the right of the aggregate supply curves, as Figure illustrates.
The original equilibrium occurs at E0, the intersection of aggregate demand curve AD0 and aggregate supply curve SRAS0, at an output level of 200 and a price level of 90. One year later, aggregate supply has shifted to the right to SRAS1 in the process of long-term economic growth, and aggregate demand has also shifted to the right to AD1, keeping the economy operating at the new level of potential GDP. The new equilibrium (E1) is an output level of 206 and a price level of 92. One more year later, aggregate supply has again shifted to the right, now to SRAS2, and aggregate demand shifts right as well to AD2. Now the equilibrium is E2, with an output level of 212 and a price level of 94. In short, the figure shows an economy that is growing steadily year to year, producing at its potential GDP each year, with only small inflationary increases in the price level.
Aggregate demand and aggregate supply do not always move neatly together. Think about what causes shifts in aggregate demand over time. As aggregate supply increases, incomes tend to go up. This tends to increase consumer and investment spending, shifting the aggregate demand curve to the right, but in any given period it may not shift the same amount as aggregate supply. What happens to government spending and taxes? Government spends to pay for the ordinary business of government- items such as national defense, social security, and healthcare, as Figure shows. Tax revenues, in part, pay for these expenditures. The result may be an increase in aggregate demand more than or less than the increase in aggregate supply. Aggregate demand may fail to increase along with aggregate supply, or aggregate demand may even shift left, for a number of possible reasons: households become hesitant about consuming; firms decide against investing as much; or perhaps the demand from other countries for exports diminishes.
For example, investment by private firms in physical capital in the U.S. economy boomed during the late 1990s, rising from 14.1% of GDP in 1993 to 17.2% in 2000, before falling back to 15.2% by 2002. Conversely, if shifts in aggregate demand run ahead of increases in aggregate supply, inflationary increases in the price level will result. Business cycles of recession and recovery are the consequence of shifts in aggregate supply and aggregate demand. As these occur, the government may choose to use fiscal policy to address the difference.
Monetary Policy and Bank Regulation shows us that a central bank can use its powers over the banking system to engage in countercyclical—or “against the business cycle”—actions. If recession threatens, the central bank uses an expansionary monetary policy to increase the money supply, increase the quantity of loans, reduce interest rates, and shift aggregate demand to the right. If inflation threatens, the central bank uses contractionary monetary policy to reduce the money supply, reduce the quantity of loans, raise interest rates, and shift aggregate demand to the left. Fiscal policy is another macroeconomic policy tool for adjusting aggregate demand by using either government spending or taxation policy.
Expansionary Fiscal Policy
Expansionary fiscal policy increases the level of aggregate demand, through either increases in government spending or reductions in tax rates. Expansionary policy can do this by (1) increasing consumption by raising disposable income through cuts in personal income taxes or payroll taxes; (2) increasing investment spending by raising after-tax profits through cuts in business taxes; and (3) increasing government purchases through increased federal government spending on final goods and services and raising federal grants to state and local governments to increase their expenditures on final goods and services. Contractionary fiscal policy does the reverse: it decreases the level of aggregate demand by decreasing consumption, decreasing investment, and decreasing government spending, either through cuts in government spending or increases in taxes. The aggregate demand/aggregate supply model is useful in judging whether expansionary or contractionary fiscal policy is appropriate.
Consider first the situation in Figure, which is similar to the U.S. economy during the 2008-2009 recession. The intersection of aggregate demand (AD0) and aggregate supply (SRAS0) is occurring below the level of potential GDP as the LRAS curve indicates. At the equilibrium (E0), a recession occurs and unemployment rises. In this case, expansionary fiscal policy using tax cuts or increases in government spending can shift aggregate demand to AD1, closer to the full-employment level of output. In addition, the price level would rise back to the level P1 associated with potential GDP.
Should the government use tax cuts or spending increases, or a mix of the two, to carry out expansionary fiscal policy? During the 2008-2009 Great Recession (which started, actually, in late 2007), the U.S. economy suffered a 3.1% cumulative loss of GDP. That may not sound like much, but it’s more than one year’s average growth rate of GDP. Over that time frame, the unemployment rate doubled from 5% to 10%. The consensus view is that this was possibly the worst economic downturn in U.S. history since the 1930’s Great Depression. The choice between whether to use tax or spending tools often has a political tinge. As a general statement, conservatives and Republicans prefer to see expansionary fiscal policy carried out by tax cuts, while liberals and Democrats prefer that the government implement expansionary fiscal policy through spending increases. In a bipartisan effort to address the extreme situation, the Obama administration and Congress passed an $830 billion expansionary policy in early 2009 involving both tax cuts and increases in government spending. At the same time, however, the federal stimulus was partially offset when state and local governments, whose budgets were hard hit by the recession, began cutting their spending.
The conflict over which policy tool to use can be frustrating to those who want to categorize economics as “liberal” or “conservative,” or who want to use economic models to argue against their political opponents. However, advocates of smaller government, who seek to reduce taxes and government spending can use the AD AS model, as well as advocates of bigger government, who seek to raise taxes and government spending. Economic studies of specific taxing and spending programs can help inform decisions about whether the government should change taxes or spending, and in what ways. Ultimately, decisions about whether to use tax or spending mechanisms to implement macroeconomic policy is a political decision rather than a purely economic one.
Contractionary Fiscal Policy
Fiscal policy can also contribute to pushing aggregate demand beyond potential GDP in a way that leads to inflation. As Figure shows, a very large budget deficit pushes up aggregate demand, so that the intersection of aggregate demand (AD0) and aggregate supply (SRAS0) occurs at equilibrium E0, which is an output level above potential GDP. Economists sometimes call this an “overheating economy” where demand is so high that there is upward pressure on wages and prices, causing inflation. In this situation, contractionary fiscal policy involving federal spending cuts or tax increases can help to reduce the upward pressure on the price level by shifting aggregate demand to the left, to AD1, and causing the new equilibrium E1 to be at potential GDP, where aggregate demand intersects the LRAS curve.
Again, the AD–AS model does not dictate how the government should carry out this contractionary fiscal policy. Some may prefer spending cuts; others may prefer tax increases; still others may say that it depends on the specific situation. The model only argues that, in this situation, the government needs to reduce aggregate demand.
Key Concepts and Summary
Expansionary fiscal policy increases the level of aggregate demand, either through increases in government spending or through reductions in taxes. Expansionary fiscal policy is most appropriate when an economy is in recession and producing below its potential GDP. Contractionary fiscal policy decreases the level of aggregate demand, either through cuts in government spending or increases in taxes. Contractionary fiscal policy is most appropriate when an economy is producing above its potential GDP.
Self-Check Questions
What is the main reason for employing contractionary fiscal policy in a time of strong economic growth?
Hint:
To keep prices from rising too much or too rapidly.
What is the main reason for employing expansionary fiscal policy during a recession?
Hint:
To increase employment.
Review Questions
What is the difference between expansionary fiscal policy and contractionary fiscal policy?
Under what general macroeconomic circumstances might a government use expansionary fiscal policy? When might it use contractionary fiscal policy?
Critical Thinking Questions
How will cuts in state budget spending affect federal expansionary policy?
Is expansionary fiscal policy more attractive to politicians who believe in larger government or to politicians who believe in smaller government? Explain your answer.
Problems
Specify whether expansionary or contractionary fiscal policy would seem to be most appropriate in response to each of the situations below and sketch a diagram using aggregate demand and aggregate supply curves to illustrate your answer:
- A recession.
- A stock market collapse that hurts consumer and business confidence.
- Extremely rapid growth of exports.
- Rising inflation.
- A rise in the natural rate of unemployment.
- A rise in oil prices.
References
Alesina, Alberto, and Francesco Giavazzi. Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis (National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report). Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2013.
Martin, Fernando M. “Fiscal Policy in the Great Recession and Lessons from the Past.” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: Economic Synopses. no. 1 (2012). http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/es/12/ES_2012-01-06.pdf.
Bivens, Josh, Andrew Fieldhouse, and Heidi Shierholz. “From Free-fall to Stagnation: Five Years After the Start of the Great Recession, Extraordinary Policy Measures Are Still Needed, But Are Not Forthcoming.” Economic Policy Institute. Last modified February 14, 2013. http://www.epi.org/publication/bp355-five-years-after-start-of-great-recession/.
Lucking, Brian, and Dan Wilson. Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, “FRBSF Economic Letter—U.S. Fiscal Policy: Headwind or Tailwind?” Last modified July 2, 2012. http://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2012/july/us-fiscal-policy/.
Greenstone, Michael, and Adam Looney. Brookings. “The Role of Fiscal Stimulus in the Ongoing Recovery.” Last modified July 6, 2012. http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/jobs/posts/2012/07/06-jobs-greenstone-looney.
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oercommons
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09/20/2018
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28864/overview
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The Question of a Balanced Budget
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Understand the arguments for and against requiring the U.S. federal budget to be balanced
- Consider the long-run and short-run effects of a federal budget deficit
For many decades, going back to the 1930s, various legislators have put forward proposals to require that the U.S. government balance its budget every year. In 1995, a proposed constitutional amendment that would require a balanced budget passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a wide margin, and failed in the U.S. Senate by only a single vote. (For the balanced budget to have become an amendment to the Constitution would have required a two-thirds vote by Congress and passage by three-quarters of the state legislatures.)
Most economists view the proposals for a perpetually balanced budget with bemusement. After all, in the short term, economists would expect the budget deficits and surpluses to fluctuate up and down with the economy and the automatic stabilizers. Economic recessions should automatically lead to larger budget deficits or smaller budget surpluses, while economic booms lead to smaller deficits or larger surpluses. A requirement that the budget be balanced each and every year would prevent these automatic stabilizers from working and would worsen the severity of economic fluctuations.
Some supporters of the balanced budget amendment like to argue that, since households must balance their own budgets, the government should too. However, this analogy between household and government behavior is severely flawed. Most households do not balance their budgets every year. Some years households borrow to buy houses or cars or to pay for medical expenses or college tuition. Other years they repay loans and save funds in retirement accounts. After retirement, they withdraw and spend those savings. Also, the government is not a household for many reasons, one of which is that the government has macroeconomic responsibilities. The argument of Keynesian macroeconomic policy is that the government needs to lean against the wind, spending when times are hard and saving when times are good, for the sake of the overall economy.
There is also no particular reason to expect a government budget to be balanced in the medium term of a few years. For example, a government may decide that by running large budget deficits, it can make crucial long-term investments in human capital and physical infrastructure that will build the country's long-term productivity. These decisions may work out well or poorly, but they are not always irrational. Such policies of ongoing government budget deficits may persist for decades. As the U.S. experience from the end of World War II up to about 1980 shows, it is perfectly possible to run budget deficits almost every year for decades, but as long as the percentage increases in debt are smaller than the percentage growth of GDP, the debt/GDP ratio will decline at the same time.
Nothing in this argument is a claim that budget deficits are always a wise policy. In the short run, a government that runs a very large budget deficit can shift aggregate demand to the right and trigger severe inflation. Additionally, governments may borrow for foolish or impractical reasons. The Impacts of Government Borrowing will discuss how large budget deficits, by reducing national saving, can in certain cases reduce economic growth and even contribute to international financial crises. A requirement that the budget be balanced in each calendar year, however, is a misguided overreaction to the fear that in some cases, budget deficits can become too large.
No Yellowstone Park?
The 2013 federal budget shutdown illustrated the many sides to fiscal policy and the federal budget. In 2013, Republicans and Democrats could not agree on which spending policies to fund and how large the government debt should be. Due to the severity of the 2008-2009 recession, the fiscal stimulus, and previous policies, the federal budget deficit and debt was historically high. One way to try to cut federal spending and borrowing was to refuse to raise the legal federal debt limit, or tie on conditions to appropriation bills to stop the Affordable Health Care Act. This disagreement led to a two-week federal government shutdown and got close to the deadline where the federal government would default on its Treasury bonds. Finally, however, a compromise emerged and the government avoided default. This shows clearly how closely fiscal policies are tied to politics.
Key Concepts and Summary
Balanced budget amendments are a popular political idea, but the economic merits behind such proposals are questionable. Most economists accept that fiscal policy needs to be flexible enough to accommodate unforeseen expenditures, such as wars or recessions. While persistent, large budget deficits can indeed be a problem, a balanced budget amendment prevents even small, temporary deficits that might, in some cases, be necessary.
Self-Check Questions
How would a balanced budget amendment affect a decision by Congress to grant a tax cut during a recession?
Hint:
The government would have to make up the revenue either by raising taxes in a different area or cutting spending.
How would a balanced budget amendment change the effect of automatic stabilizer programs?
Hint:
Programs where the amount of spending is not fixed, but rather determined by macroeconomic conditions, such as food stamps, would lose a great deal of flexibility if spending increases had to be met by corresponding tax increases or spending cuts.
Review Questions
What are some of the arguments for and against a requirement that the federal government budget be balanced every year?
Critical Thinking Questions
Do you agree or disagree with this statement: “It is in the best interest of our economy for Congress and the President to run a balanced budget each year.” Explain your answer.
During the Great Recession of 2008–2009, what actions would have been required of Congress and the President had a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution been ratified? What impact would that have had on the unemployment rate?
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oercommons
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09/20/2018
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28862/overview
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Automatic Stabilizers
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Describe how the federal government can use discretionary fiscal policy to stabilize the economy
- Identify examples of automatic stabilizers
- Understand how a government can use standardized employment budget to identify automatic stabilizers
The millions of unemployed in 2008–2009 could collect unemployment insurance benefits to replace some of their salaries. Federal fiscal policies include discretionary fiscal policy, when the government passes a new law that explicitly changes tax or spending levels. The 2009 stimulus package is an example. Changes in tax and spending levels can also occur automatically, due to automatic stabilizers, such as unemployment insurance and food stamps, which are programs that are already laws that stimulate aggregate demand in a recession and hold down aggregate demand in a potentially inflationary boom.
Counterbalancing Recession and Boom
Consider first the situation where aggregate demand has risen sharply, causing the equilibrium to occur at a level of output above potential GDP. This situation will increase inflationary pressure in the economy. The policy prescription in this setting would be a dose of contractionary fiscal policy, implemented through some combination of higher taxes and lower spending. To some extent, both changes happen automatically. On the tax side, a rise in aggregate demand means that workers and firms throughout the economy earn more. Because taxes are based on personal income and corporate profits, a rise in aggregate demand automatically increases tax payments. On the spending side, stronger aggregate demand typically means lower unemployment and fewer layoffs, and so there is less need for government spending on unemployment benefits, welfare, Medicaid, and other programs in the social safety net.
The process works in reverse, too. If aggregate demand were to fall sharply so that a recession occurs, then the prescription would be for expansionary fiscal policy—some mix of tax cuts and spending increases. The lower level of aggregate demand and higher unemployment will tend to pull down personal incomes and corporate profits, an effect that will reduce the amount of taxes owed automatically. Higher unemployment and a weaker economy should lead to increased government spending on unemployment benefits, welfare, and other similar domestic programs. In 2009, the stimulus package included an extension in the time allowed to collect unemployment insurance. In addition, the automatic stabilizers react to a weakening of aggregate demand with expansionary fiscal policy and react to a strengthening of aggregate demand with contractionary fiscal policy, just as the AD/AS analysis suggests.
A combination of automatic stabilizers and discretionary fiscal policy produced the very large budget deficit in 2009. The Great Recession, starting in late 2007, meant less tax-generating economic activity, which triggered the automatic stabilizers that reduce taxes. Most economists, even those who are concerned about a possible pattern of persistently large budget deficits, are much less concerned or even quite supportive of larger budget deficits in the short run of a few years during and immediately after a severe recession.
A glance back at economic history provides a second illustration of the power of automatic stabilizers. Remember that the length of economic upswings between recessions has become longer in the U.S. economy in recent decades (as we discussed in Unemployment). The three longest economic booms of the twentieth century happened in the 1960s, the 1980s, and the 1991–2001 time period. One reason why the economy has tipped into recession less frequently in recent decades is that the size of government spending and taxes has increased in the second half of the twentieth century. Thus, the automatic stabilizing effects from spending and taxes are now larger than they were in the first half of the twentieth century. Around 1900, for example, federal spending was only about 2% of GDP. In 1929, just before the Great Depression hit, government spending was still just 4% of GDP. In those earlier times, the smaller size of government made automatic stabilizers far less powerful than in the last few decades, when government spending often hovers at 20% of GDP or more.
The Standardized Employment Deficit or Surplus
Each year, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) calculates the standardized employment budget—that is, what the budget deficit or surplus would be if the economy were producing at potential GDP, where people who look for work were finding jobs in a reasonable period of time and businesses were making normal profits, with the result that both workers and businesses would be earning more and paying more taxes. In effect, the standardized employment deficit eliminates the impact of the automatic stabilizers. Figure compares the actual budget deficits of recent decades with the CBO’s standardized deficit.
Visit this website to learn more from the Congressional Budget Office.
Notice that in recession years, like the early 1990s, 2001, or 2009, the standardized employment deficit is smaller than the actual deficit. During recessions, the automatic stabilizers tend to increase the budget deficit, so if the economy was instead at full employment, the deficit would be reduced. However, in the late 1990s the standardized employment budget surplus was lower than the actual budget surplus. The gap between the standardized budget deficit or surplus and the actual budget deficit or surplus shows the impact of the automatic stabilizers. More generally, the standardized budget figures allow you to see what the budget deficit would look like with the economy held constant—at its potential GDP level of output.
Automatic stabilizers occur quickly. Lower wages means that a lower amount of taxes is withheld from paychecks right away. Higher unemployment or poverty means that government spending in those areas rises as quickly as people apply for benefits. However, while the automatic stabilizers offset part of the shifts in aggregate demand, they do not offset all or even most of it. Historically, automatic stabilizers on the tax and spending side offset about 10% of any initial movement in the level of output. This offset may not seem enormous, but it is still useful. Automatic stabilizers, like shock absorbers in a car, can be useful if they reduce the impact of the worst bumps, even if they do not eliminate the bumps altogether.
Key Concepts and Summary
Fiscal policy is conducted both through discretionary fiscal policy, which occurs when the government enacts taxation or spending changes in response to economic events, or through automatic stabilizers, which are taxing and spending mechanisms that, by their design, shift in response to economic events without any further legislation. The standardized employment budget is the calculation of what the budget deficit or budget surplus would have been in a given year if the economy had been producing at its potential GDP in that year. Many economists and politicians criticize the use of fiscal policy for a variety of reasons, including concerns over time lags, the impact on interest rates, and the inherently political nature of fiscal policy. We cover the critique of fiscal policy in the next module.
Self-Check Questions
In a recession, does the actual budget surplus or deficit fall above or below the standardized employment budget?
Hint:
It falls below because less tax revenue than expected is collected.
What is the main advantage of automatic stabilizers over discretionary fiscal policy?
Hint:
Automatic stabilizers take effect very quickly, whereas discretionary policy can take a long time to implement.
Explain how automatic stabilizers work, both on the taxation side and on the spending side, first in a situation where the economy is producing less than potential GDP and then in a situation where the economy is producing more than potential GDP.
Hint:
In a recession, because of the decline in economic output, less income is earned, and so less in taxes is automatically collected. Many welfare and unemployment programs are designed so that those who fall into certain categories, like “unemployed” or “low income,” are eligible for benefits. During a recession, more people fall into these categories and become eligible for benefits automatically. The combination of reduced taxes and higher spending is just what is needed for an economy in recession producing below potential GDP. With an economic boom, average income levels rise in the economy, so more in taxes is automatically collected. Fewer people meet the criteria for receiving government assistance to the unemployed or the needy, so government spending on unemployment assistance and welfare falls automatically. This combination of higher taxes and lower spending is just what is needed if an economy is producing above its potential GDP.
Review Questions
What is the difference between discretionary fiscal policy and automatic stabilizers?
Why do automatic stabilizers function “automatically?”
What is the standardized employment budget?
Critical Thinking Questions
Is Medicaid (federal government aid to low-income families and individuals) an automatic stabilizer?
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09/20/2018
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Introduction to the Impacts of Government Borrowing
Financing Higher Education
On November 8, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed The Higher Education Act of 1965 into law. With a stroke of the pen, he implemented what we know as the financial aid, work study, and student loan programs to help Americans pay for a college education. In his remarks, the President said:
Here the seeds were planted from which grew my firm conviction that for the individual, education is the path to achievement and fulfillment; for the Nation, it is a path to a society that is not only free but civilized; and for the world, it is the path to peace—for it is education that places reason over force.
This Act, he said, "is responsible for funding higher education for millions of Americans. It is the embodiment of the United States’ investment in ‘human capital’." Since Johnson signed the Act into law, the government has renewed it several times.
The purpose of The Higher Education Act of 1965 was to build the country’s human capital by creating educational opportunity for millions of Americans. The three criteria that the government uses to judge eligibility are income, full-time or part-time attendance, and the cost of the institution. According to the 2011–2012 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:12), in the 2011–2012 school year, over 70% of all full-time college students received some form of federal financial aid; 47% received grants; and another 55% received federal government student loans. The budget to support financial aid has increased not only because of more enrollment, but also because of increased tuition and fees for higher education. The current Trump administration is currently questioning these increases and the entire notion of how the government should deal with higher education. The President and Congress are charged with balancing fiscal responsibility and important government-financed expenditures like investing in human capital.
Introduction to the Impacts of Government Borrowing
In this chapter, you will learn about:
- How Government Borrowing Affects Investment and the Trade Balance
- Fiscal Policy, Investment, and Economic Growth
- How Government Borrowing Affects Private Saving
- Fiscal Policy and the Trade Balance
Governments have many competing demands for financial support. Any spending should be tempered by fiscal responsibility and by looking carefully at the spending’s impact. When a government spends more than it collects in taxes, it runs a budget deficit. It then needs to borrow. When government borrowing becomes especially large and sustained, it can substantially reduce the financial capital available to private sector firms, as well as lead to trade imbalances and even financial crises.
The Government Budgets and Fiscal Policy chapter introduced the concepts of deficits and debt, as well as how a government could use fiscal policy to address recession or inflation. This chapter begins by building on the national savings and investment identity, which we first first introduced in The International Trade and Capital Flows chapter, to show how government borrowing affects firms’ physical capital investment levels and trade balances. A prolonged period of budget deficits may lead to lower economic growth, in part because the funds that the government borrows to fund its budget deficits are typically no longer available for private investment. Moreover, a sustained pattern of large budget deficits can lead to disruptive economic patterns of high inflation, substantial inflows of financial capital from abroad, plummeting exchange rates, and heavy strains on a country’s banking and financial system.
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2025-03-18T00:36:19.975450
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09/20/2018
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28869/overview
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Fiscal Policy, Investment, and Economic Growth
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Explain crowding out and its effect on physical capital investment
- Explain the relationship between budget deficits and interest rates
- Identify why economic growth is tied to investments in physical capital, human capital, and technology
The underpinnings of economic growth are investments in physical capital, human capital, and technology, all set in an economic environment where firms and individuals can react to the incentives provided by well-functioning markets and flexible prices. Government borrowing can reduce the financial capital available for private firms to invest in physical capital. However, government spending can also encourage certain elements of long-term growth, such as spending on roads or water systems, on education, or on research and development that creates new technology.
Crowding Out Physical Capital Investment
A larger budget deficit will increase demand for financial capital. If private saving and the trade balance remain the same, then less financial capital will be available for private investment in physical capital. When government borrowing soaks up available financial capital and leaves less for private investment in physical capital, economists call the result crowding out.
To understand the potential impact of crowding out, consider the U.S. economy's situation before the exceptional circumstances of the recession that started in late 2007. In 2005, for example, the budget deficit was roughly 4% of GDP. Private investment by firms in the U.S. economy has hovered in the range of 14% to 18% of GDP in recent decades. However, in any given year, roughly half of U.S. investment in physical capital just replaces machinery and equipment that has worn out or become technologically obsolete. Only about half represents an increase in the total quantity of physical capital in the economy. Investment in new physical capital in any year is about 7% to 9% of GDP. In this situation, even U.S. budget deficits in the range of 4% of GDP can potentially crowd out a substantial share of new investment spending. Conversely, a smaller budget deficit (or an increased budget surplus) increases the pool of financial capital available for private investment.
Visit this website to view the “U.S. Debt Clock.”
Figure shows the patterns of U.S. budget deficits and private investment since 1980. If greater government deficits lead to less private investment in physical capital, and reduced government deficits or budget surpluses lead to more investment in physical capital, these two lines should move up and down simultaneously. This pattern occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The U.S. federal budget went from a deficit of 2.2% of GDP in 1995 to a budget surplus of 2.4% of GDP in 2000—a swing of 4.6% of GDP. From 1995 to 2000, private investment in physical capital rose from 15% to 18% of GDP—a rise of 3% of GDP. Then, when the U.S. government again started running budget deficits in the early 2000s, less financial capital became available for private investment, and the rate of private investment fell back to about 15% of GDP by 2003.
This argument does not claim that a government's budget deficits will exactly shadow its national rate of private investment; after all, we must account for private saving and inflows of foreign financial investment. In the mid-1980s, for example, government budget deficits increased substantially without a corresponding drop off in private investment. In 2009, nonresidential private fixed investment dropped by $300 billion from its previous level of $1,941 billion in 2008, primarily because, during a recession, firms lack both the funds and the incentive to invest. Investment growth between 2009 and 2014 averaged approximately 5.9% to $2,210.5 billion—only slightly above its 2008 level, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. During that same period, interest rates dropped from 3.94% to less than a quarter percent as the Federal Reserve took dramatic action to prevent a depression by increasing the money supply through lowering short-term interest rates. The "crowding out" of private investment due to government borrowing to finance expenditures appears to have been suspended during the Great Recession. However, as the economy improves and interest rates rise, government borrowing may potentially create pressure on interest rates.
The Interest Rate Connection
Assume that government borrowing of substantial amounts will have an effect on the quantity of private investment. How will this affect interest rates in financial markets? In Figure, the original equilibrium (E0) where the demand curve (D0) for financial capital intersects with the supply curve (S0) occurs at an interest rate of 5% and an equilibrium quantity equal to 20% of GDP. However, as the government budget deficit increases, the demand curve for financial capital shifts from D0 to D1. The new equilibrium (E1) occurs at an interest rate of 6% and an equilibrium quantity of 21% of GDP.
A survey of economic studies on the connection between government borrowing and interest rates in the U.S. economy suggests that an increase of 1% in the budget deficit will lead to a rise in interest rates of between 0.5 and 1.0%, other factors held equal. In turn, a higher interest rate tends to discourage firms from making physical capital investments. One reason government budget deficits crowd out private investment, therefore, is the increase in interest rates. There are, however, economic studies that show a limited connection between the two (at least in the United States), but as the budget deficit grows, the dangers of rising interest rates become more real.
At this point, you may wonder about the Federal Reserve. After all, can the Federal Reserve not use expansionary monetary policy to reduce interest rates, or in this case, to prevent interest rates from rising? This useful question emphasizes the importance of considering how fiscal and monetary policies work in relation to each other. Imagine a central bank faced with a government that is running large budget deficits, causing a rise in interest rates and crowding out private investment. If the budget deficits are increasing aggregate demand when the economy is already producing near potential GDP, threatening an inflationary increase in price levels, the central bank may react with a contractionary monetary policy. In this situation, the higher interest rates from the government borrowing would be made even higher by contractionary monetary policy, and the government borrowing might crowd out a great deal of private investment.
Alternatively, if the budget deficits are increasing aggregate demand when the economy is producing substantially less than potential GDP, an inflationary increase in the price level is not much of a danger and the central bank might react with expansionary monetary policy. In this situation, higher interest rates from government borrowing would be largely offset by lower interest rates from expansionary monetary policy, and there would be little crowding out of private investment.
However, even a central bank cannot erase the overall message of the national savings and investment identity. If government borrowing rises, then private investment must fall, or private saving must rise, or the trade deficit must fall. By reacting with contractionary or expansionary monetary policy, the central bank can only help to determine which of these outcomes is likely.
Public Investment in Physical Capital
Government can invest in physical capital directly: roads and bridges; water supply and sewers; seaports and airports; schools and hospitals; plants that generate electricity, like hydroelectric dams or windmills; telecommunications facilities; and military weapons. In 2014, the U.S. federal government budget for Fiscal Year 2014 shows that the United States spent about $92 billion on transportation, including highways, mass transit, and airports. Table shows the federal government's total outlay for 2014 for major public physical capital investment in the United States. We have omitted physical capital related to the military or to residences where people live from this table, because the focus here is on public investments that have a direct effect on raising output in the private sector.
| Type of Public Physical Capital | Federal Outlays 2014 ($ millions) |
|---|---|
| Transportation | $91,915 |
| Community and regional development | $20,670 |
| Natural resources and the environment | $36,171 |
| Education, training, employment, and social services | $90,615 |
| Other | $37,282 |
| Total | $276,653 |
Public physical capital investment of this sort can increase the economy's output and productivity. An economy with reliable roads and electricity will be able to produce more. However, it is hard to quantify how much government investment in physical capital will benefit the economy, because government responds to political as well as economic incentives. When a firm makes an investment in physical capital, it is subject to the discipline of the market: If it does not receive a positive return on investment, the firm may lose money or even go out of business.
In some cases, lawmakers make investments in physical capital as a way of spending money in key politicians' districts. The result may be unnecessary roads or office buildings. Even if a project is useful and necessary, it might be done in a way that is excessively costly, because local contractors who make campaign contributions to politicians appreciate the extra business. Alternatively, governments sometimes do not make the investments they should because a decision to spend on infrastructure does not need to just make economic sense. It must be politically popular as well. Managing public investment cost-effectively can be difficult.
If a government decides to finance an investment in public physical capital with higher taxes or lower government spending in other areas, it need not worry that it is directly crowding out private investment. Indirectly however, higher household taxes could cut down on the level of private savings available and have a similar effect. If a government decides to finance an investment in public physical capital by borrowing, it may end up increasing the quantity of public physical capital at the cost of crowding out investment in private physical capital, which could be more beneficial to the economy.
Public Investment in Human Capital
In most countries, the government plays a large role in society's investment in human capital through the education system. A highly educated and skilled workforce contributes to a higher rate of economic growth. For the low-income nations of the world, additional investment in human capital seems likely to increase productivity and growth. For the United States, critics have raised tough questions about how much increases in government spending on education will improve the actual level of education.
Among economists, discussions of education reform often begin with some uncomfortable facts. As Figure shows, spending per student for kindergarten through grade 12 (K–12) increased substantially in real dollars through 2010. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that current spending per pupil for elementary and secondary education rose from $5,001 in 1998 to $10,608 in 2012. However, as measured by standardized tests like the SAT, the level of student academic achievement has barely budged in recent decades. On international tests, U.S. students lag behind students from many other countries. (Of course, test scores are an imperfect measure of education for a variety of reasons. It would be difficult, however, to argue that there are not real problems in the U.S. education system and that the tests are just inaccurate.)
The fact that increased financial resources have not brought greater measurable gains in student performance has led some education experts to question whether the problems may be due to structure, not just to the resources spent.
Other government programs seek to increase human capital either before or after the K–12 education system. Programs for early childhood education, like the federal Head Start program, are directed at families where the parents may have limited educational and financial resources. Government also offers substantial support for universities and colleges. For example, in the United States about 60% of students take at least a few college or university classes beyond the high school level. In Germany and Japan, about half of all students take classes beyond the comparable high school level. In the countries of Latin America, only about one student in four takes classes beyond the high school level, and in the nations of sub-Saharan Africa, only about one student in 20.
Not all spending on educational human capital needs to happen through the government: many college students in the United States pay a substantial share of the cost of their education. If low-income countries of the world are going to experience a widespread increase in their education levels for grade-school children, government spending seems likely to play a substantial role. For the U.S. economy, and for other high-income countries, the primary focus at this time is more on how to get a bigger return from existing spending on education and how to improve the performance of the average high school graduate, rather than dramatic increases in education spending.
How Fiscal Policy Can Improve Technology
Research and development (R&D) efforts are the lifeblood of new technology. According to the National Science Foundation, federal outlays for research, development, and physical plant improvements to various governmental agencies have remained at an average of 8.8% of GDP. About one-fifth of U.S. R&D spending goes to defense and space-oriented research. Although defense-oriented R&D spending may sometimes produce consumer-oriented spinoffs, R&D that is aimed at producing new weapons is less likely to benefit the civilian economy than direct civilian R&D spending.
Fiscal policy can encourage R&D using either direct spending or tax policy. Government could spend more on the R&D that it carries out in government laboratories, as well as expanding federal R&D grants to universities and colleges, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector. By 2014, the federal share of R&D outlays totaled $135.5 billion, or about 4% of the federal government's total budget outlays, according to data from the National Science Foundation. Fiscal policy can also support R&D through tax incentives, which allow firms to reduce their tax bill as they increase spending on research and development.
Summary of Fiscal Policy, Investment, and Economic Growth
Investment in physical capital, human capital, and new technology is essential for long-term economic growth, as Table summarizes. In a market-oriented economy, private firms will undertake most of the investment in physical capital, and fiscal policy should seek to avoid a long series of outsized budget deficits that might crowd out such investment. We will see the effects of many growth-oriented policies very gradually over time, as students are better educated, we make physical capital investments, and man invents and implements new technologies.
| Physical Capital | Human Capital | New Technology | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private Sector | New investment in property and equipment | On-the-job training | Research and development |
| Public Sector | Public infrastructure | Public education Job training | Research and development encouraged through private sector incentives and direct spending. |
Key Concepts and Summary
Economic growth comes from a combination of investment in physical capital, human capital, and technology. Government borrowing can crowd out private sector investment in physical capital, but fiscal policy can also increase investment in publicly owned physical capital, human capital (education), and research and development. Possible methods for improving education and society’s investment in human capital include spending more money on teachers and other educational resources, and reorganizing the education system to provide greater incentives for success. Methods for increasing research and development spending to generate new technology include direct government spending on R&D and tax incentives for businesses to conduct additional R&D.
Self-Check Questions
Why have many education experts recently placed an emphasis on altering the incentives that U.S. schools face rather than on increasing their budgets? Without endorsing any of these proposals as especially good or bad, list some of the ways in which incentives for schools might be altered.
Hint:
In the last few decades, spending per student has climbed substantially. However, test scores have fallen over this time. This experience has led a number of experts to argue that the problem is not resources—or is not just resources by itself—but is also a problem of how schools are organized and managed and what incentives they have for success. There are a number of proposals to alter the incentives that schools face, but relatively little hard evidence on what proposals work well. Without trying to evaluate whether these proposals are good or bad ideas, you can just list some of them: testing students regularly; rewarding teachers or schools that perform well on such tests; requiring additional teacher training; allowing students to choose between public schools; allowing teachers and parents to start new schools; giving student “vouchers” that they can use to pay tuition at either public or private schools.
What are some steps the government can take to encourage research and development?
Hint:
The government can direct government spending to R&D. It can also create tax incentives for business to invest in R&D.
Review Questions
What are some of the ways fiscal policy might encourage economic growth?
What are some fiscal policies for improving a society’s human capital?
What are some fiscal policies for improving the technologies that the economy will have to draw upon in the future?
Explain how cuts in funding for programs such as Head Start might affect the development of human capital in the United States.
Critical Thinking Questions
Explain why the government might prefer to provide incentives to private firms to do investment or research and development, rather than simply doing the spending itself?
Under what condition would crowding out not inhibit long-run economic growth? Under what condition would crowding out impede long-run economic growth?
What must take place for the government to run deficits without any crowding out?
Problems
During the most recent recession, some economists argued that the change in the interest rates that comes about due to deficit spending implied in the demand and supply of financial capital graph would not occur. A simple reason was that the government was stepping in to invest when private firms were not. Using a graph, explain how the use by government in investment offsets the deficit demand.
References
U.S. Department of Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis. “National Data: National Income and Product Accounts Tables.” Accessed December 1, 2013. http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=9&step=1#reqid=9&step=3&isuri=1&910=X&911=0&903=146&904=2008&905=2013&906=A.
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, “Selected Interest Rates (Daily) – H.15.” Accessed December 10, 2013. http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/data.htm.
The White House. “Fiscal Year 2013 Historical Tables: Budget of the U.S. Government.” Accessed December 12, 2013. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/hist.pdf.
The National Science Foundation. Accessed December 19, 2013. http://www.nsf.gov/.
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"title": "Principles of Macroeconomics 2e, The Impacts of Government Borrowing, Fiscal Policy, Investment, and Economic Growth",
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28866/overview
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How Government Borrowing Affects Investment and the Trade Balance
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Explain the national saving and investment identity in terms of demand and supply
- Evaluate the role of budget surpluses and trade surpluses in national saving and investment identity
When governments are borrowers in financial markets, there are three possible sources for the funds from a macroeconomic point of view: (1) households might save more; (2) private firms might borrow less; and (3) the additional funds for government borrowing might come from outside the country, from foreign financial investors. Let’s begin with a review of why one of these three options must occur, and then explore how interest rates and exchange rates adjust to these connections.
The National Saving and Investment Identity
The national saving and investment identity, which we first introduced in The International Trade and Capital Flows chapter, provides a framework for showing the relationships between the sources of demand and supply in financial capital markets. The identity begins with a statement that must always hold true: the quantity of financial capital supplied in the market must equal the quantity of financial capital demanded.
The U.S. economy has two main sources for financial capital: private savings from inside the U.S. economy and public savings.
These include the inflow of foreign financial capital from abroad. The inflow of savings from abroad is, by definition, equal to the trade deficit, as we explained in The International Trade and Capital Flows chapter. We can write this inflow of foreign investment capital as imports (M) minus exports (X). There are also two main sources of demand for financial capital: private sector investment (I) and government borrowing. Government borrowing in any given year is equal to the budget deficit, which we can write as the difference between government spending (G) and net taxes (T). Let’s call this equation 1.
Governments often spend more than they receive in taxes and, therefore, public savings (T – G) is negative. This causes a need to borrow money in the amount of (G – T) instead of adding to the nation’s savings. If this is the case, we can view governments as demanders of financial capital instead of suppliers. In algebraic terms, we can rewrite the national savings and investment identity like this:
Let’s call this equation 2. We must accompany a change in any part of the national saving and investment identity by offsetting changes in at least one other part of the equation because we assume that the equality of quantity supplied and quantity demanded always holds. If the government budget deficit changes, then either private saving or investment or the trade balance—or some combination of the three—must change as well. Figure shows the possible effects.
What about Budget Surpluses and Trade Surpluses?
The national saving and investment identity must always hold true because, by definition, the quantity supplied and quantity demanded in the financial capital market must always be equal. However, the formula will look somewhat different if the government budget is in deficit rather than surplus or if the balance of trade is in surplus rather than deficit. For example, in 1999 and 2000, the U.S. government had budget surpluses, although the economy was still experiencing trade deficits. When the government was running budget surpluses, it was acting as a saver rather than a borrower, and supplying rather than demanding financial capital. As a result, we would write the national saving and investment identity during this time as:
Let's call this equation 3. Notice that this expression is mathematically the same as equation 2 except the savings and investment sides of the identity have simply flipped sides.
During the 1960s, the U.S. government was often running a budget deficit, but the economy was typically running trade surpluses. Since a trade surplus means that an economy is experiencing a net outflow of financial capital, we would write the national saving and investment identity as:
Instead of the balance of trade representing part of the supply of financial capital, which occurs with a trade deficit, a trade surplus represents an outflow of financial capital leaving the domestic economy and invested elsewhere in the world.
We assume that the point to these equations is that the national saving and investment identity always hold. When you write these relationships, it is important to engage your brain and think about what is on the supply and demand side of the financial capital market before you start your calculations.
As you can see in Figure, the Office of Management and Budget shows that the United States has consistently run budget deficits since 1977, with the exception of 1999 and 2000. What is alarming is the dramatic increase in budget deficits that has occurred since 2008, which in part reflects declining tax revenues and increased safety net expenditures due to the Great Recession. (Recall that T is net taxes. When the government must transfer funds back to individuals for safety net expenditures like Social Security and unemployment benefits, budget deficits rise.) These deficits have implications for the future health of the U.S. economy.
A rising budget deficit may result in a fall in domestic investment, a rise in private savings, or a rise in the trade deficit. The following modules discuss each of these possible effects in more detail.
Key Concepts and Summary
A change in any part of the national saving and investment identity suggests that if the government budget deficit changes, then either private savings, private investment in physical capital, or the trade balance—or some combination of the three—must change as well.
Self-Check Questions
In a country, private savings equals 600, the government budget surplus equals 200, and the trade surplus equals 100. What is the level of private investment in this economy?
Hint:
We use the national savings and investment identity to solve this question. In this case, the government has a budget surplus, so the government surplus appears as part of the supply of financial capital. Then:
Assume an economy has a budget surplus of 1,000, private savings of 4,000, and investment of 5,000.
- Write out a national saving and investment identity for this economy.
- What will be the balance of trade in this economy?
- If the budget surplus changes to a budget deficit of 1000, with private saving and investment unchanged, what is the new balance of trade in this economy?
Hint:
- Since the government has a budget surplus, the government budget term appears with the supply of capital. The following shows the national savings and investment identity for this economy.
- Plugging the given values into the identity shown in part (a), we find that (X – M) = 0.
- Since the government has a budget deficit, the government budget term appears with the demand for capital. You do not know in advance whether the economy has a trade deficit or a trade surplus. But when you see that the quantity demanded of financial capital exceeds the quantity supplied, you know that there must be an additional quantity of financial capital supplied by foreign investors, which means a trade deficit of 2000. This example shows that in this case there is a higher budget deficit, and a higher trade deficit.
Review Questions
Based on the national saving and investment identity, what are the three ways the macroeconomy might react to greater government budget deficits?
How would you expect larger budget deficits to affect private sector investment in physical capital? Why?
Critical Thinking Questions
Assume there is no discretionary increase in government spending. Explain how an improving economy will affect the budget balance and, in turn, investment and the trade balance.
Explain how decreased domestic investments that occur due to a budget deficit will affect future economic growth.
The U.S. government has shut down a number of times in recent history. Explain how a government shutdown will affect the variables in the national investment and savings identity. Could the shutdown affect the government budget deficit?
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:20.036276
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09/20/2018
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28838/overview
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The Building Blocks of Neoclassical Analysis
Overview
- Explain the importance of potential GDP in the long run
- Analyze the role of flexible prices
- Interpret a neoclassical model of aggregate demand and aggregate supply
- Evaluate different ways for measuring the speed of macroeconomic adjustment
The neoclassical perspective on macroeconomics holds that, in the long run, the economy will fluctuate around its potential GDP and its natural rate of unemployment. This chapter begins with two building blocks of neoclassical economics: (1) potential GDP determines the economy's size and (2) wages and prices will adjust in a flexible manner so that the economy will adjust back to its potential GDP level of output. The key policy implication is this: The government should focus more on long-term growth and on controlling inflation than on worrying about recession or cyclical unemployment. This focus on long-run growth rather than the short-run fluctuations in the business cycle means that neoclassical economics is more useful for long-run macroeconomic analysis and Keynesian economics is more useful for analyzing the macroeconomic short run. Let's consider the two neoclassical building blocks in turn, and how we can embody them in the aggregate demand/aggregate supply model.
The Importance of Potential GDP in the Long Run
Over the long run, the level of potential GDP determines the size of real GDP. When economists refer to “potential GDP” they are referring to that level of output that an economy can achieve when all resources (land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurial ability) are fully employed. While the unemployment rate in labor markets will never be zero, full employment in the labor market refers to zero cyclical unemployment. There will still be some level of unemployment due to frictional or structural unemployment, but when the economy is operating with zero cyclical unemployment, economists say that the economy is at the natural rate of unemployment or at full employment.
Economists benchmark actual or real GDP against the potential GDP to determine how well the economy is performing. As explained in Economic Growth, we can explain GDP growth by increases and investment in physical capital and human capital per person as well as advances in technology. Physical capital per person refers to the amount and kind of machinery and equipment available to help people get work done. Compare, for example, your productivity in typing a term paper on a typewriter to working on your laptop with word processing software. Clearly, you will be able to be more productive using word processing software. The technology and level of capital of your laptop and software has increased your productivity. More broadly, the development of GPS technology and Universal Product Codes (those barcodes on every product we buy) has made it much easier for firms to track shipments, tabulate inventories, and sell and distribute products. These two technological innovations, and many others, have increased a nation's ability to produce goods and services for a given population. Likewise, increasing human capital involves increasing levels of knowledge, education, and skill sets per person through vocational or higher education. Physical and human capital improvements with technological advances will increase overall productivity and, thus, GDP.
To see how these improvements have increased productivity and output at the national level, we should examine evidence from the United States. The United States experienced significant growth in the twentieth century due to phenomenal changes in infrastructure, equipment, and technological improvements in physical capital and human capital. The population more than tripled in the twentieth century, from 76 million in 1900 to over 300 million in 2016. The human capital of modern workers is far higher today because the education and skills of workers have risen dramatically. In 1900, only about one-eighth of the U.S. population had completed high school and just one person in 40 had completed a four-year college degree. By 2010, more than 87% of Americans had a high school degree and over 29% had a four-year college degree as well. In 2014, 40% of working-age Americans had a four-year college degree. The average amount of physical capital per worker has grown dramatically. The technology available to modern workers is extraordinarily better than a century ago: cars, airplanes, electrical machinery, smartphones, computers, chemical and biological advances, materials science, health care—the list of technological advances could run on and on. More workers, higher skill levels, larger amounts of physical capital per worker, and amazingly better technology, and potential GDP for the U.S. economy has clearly increased a great deal since 1900.
This growth has fallen below its potential GDP and, at times, has exceeded its potential. For example from 2008 to 2009, the U.S. economy tumbled into recession and remains below its potential. At other times, like in the late 1990s, the economy ran at potential GDP—or even slightly ahead. Figure shows the actual data for the increase in real GDP since 1960. The slightly smoother line shows the potential GDP since 1960 as estimated by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Most economic recessions and upswings are times when the economy is 1–3% below or above potential GDP in a given year. Clearly, short-run fluctuations around potential GDP do exist, but over the long run, the upward trend of potential GDP determines the size of the economy.
In the aggregate demand/aggregate supply model, we show potential GDP as a vertical line. Neoclassical economists who focus on potential GDP as the primary determinant of real GDP argue that the long-run aggregate supply curve is located at potential GDP—that is, we draw the long-run aggregate supply curve as a vertical line at the level of potential GDP, as Figure shows. A vertical LRAS curve means that the level of aggregate supply (or potential GDP) will determine the economy's real GDP, regardless of the level of aggregate demand. Over time, increases in the quantity and quality of physical capital, increases in human capital, and technological advancements shift potential GDP and the vertical LRAS curve gradually to the right. Economists often describe this gradual increase in an economy's potential GDP as a nation's long-term economic growth.
The Role of Flexible Prices
How does the macroeconomy adjust back to its level of potential GDP in the long run? What if aggregate demand increases or decreases? Economists base the neoclassical view of how the macroeconomy adjusts on the insight that even if wages and prices are “sticky”, or slow to change, in the short run, they are flexible over time. To understand this better, let's follow the connections from the short-run to the long-run macroeconomic equilibrium.
The aggregate demand and aggregate supply diagram in Figure shows two aggregate supply curves. We draw the original upward sloping aggregate supply curve (SRAS0) is a short-run or Keynesian AS curve. The vertical aggregate supply curve (LRASn) is the long-run or neoclassical AS curve, which is located at potential GDP. The original aggregate demand curve, labeled AD0, so that the original equilibrium occurs at point E0, at which point the economy is producing at its potential GDP.
Now, imagine that some economic event boosts aggregate demand: perhaps a surge of export sales or a rise in business confidence that leads to more investment, perhaps a policy decision like higher government spending, or perhaps a tax cut that leads to additional aggregate demand. The short-run Keynesian analysis is that the rise in aggregate demand will shift the aggregate demand curve out to the right, from AD0 to AD1, leading to a new equilibrium at point E1 with higher output, lower unemployment, and pressure for an inflationary rise in the price level.
In the long-run neoclassical analysis, however, the chain of economic events is just beginning. As economic output rises above potential GDP, the level of unemployment falls. The economy is now above full employment and there is a labor shortage. Eager employers are trying to bid workers away from other companies and to encourage their current workers to exert more effort and to work longer hours. This high demand for labor will drive up wages. Most employers review their workers salaries only once or twice a year, and so it will take time before the higher wages filter through the economy. As wages do rise, it will mean a leftward shift in the short-run Keynesian aggregate supply curve back to SRAS1, because the price of a major input to production has increased. The economy moves to a new equilibrium (E2). The new equilibrium has the same level of real GDP as did the original equilibrium (E0), but there has been an inflationary increase in the price level.
This description of the short-run shift from E0 to E1 and the long-run shift from E1 to E2 is a step-by-step way of making a simple point: the economy cannot sustain production above its potential GDP in the long run. An economy may produce above its level of potential GDP in the short run, under pressure from a surge in aggregate demand. Over the long run, however, that surge in aggregate demand ends up as an increase in the price level, not as a rise in output.
The rebound of the economy back to potential GDP also works in response to a shift to the left in aggregate demand. Figure again starts with two aggregate supply curves, with SRAS0 showing the original upward sloping short-run Keynesian AS curve and LRASn showing the vertical long-run neoclassical aggregate supply curve. A decrease in aggregate demand—for example, because of a decline in consumer confidence that leads to less consumption and more saving—causes the original aggregate demand curve AD0 to shift back to AD1. The shift from the original equilibrium (E0) to the new equilibrium (E1) results in a decline in output. The economy is now below full employment and there is a surplus of labor. As output falls below potential GDP, unemployment rises. While a lower price level (i.e., deflation) is rare in the United States, it does happen occasionally during very weak periods of economic activity. For practical purposes, we might consider a lower price level in the AD–AS model as indicative of disinflation, which is a decline in the inflation rate. Thus, the long-run aggregate supply curve LRASn, which is vertical at the level of potential GDP, ultimately determines this economy's real GDP.
Again, from the neoclassical perspective, this short-run scenario is only the beginning of the chain of events. The higher level of unemployment means more workers looking for jobs. As a result, employers can hold down on pay increases—or perhaps even replace some of their higher-paid workers with unemployed people willing to accept a lower wage. As wages stagnate or fall, this decline in the price of a key input means that the short-run Keynesian aggregate supply curve shifts to the right from its original (SRAS0 to SRAS1). The overall impact in the long run, as the macroeconomic equilibrium shifts from E0 to E1 to E2, is that the level of output returns to potential GDP, where it started. There is, however, downward pressure on the price level. Thus, in the neoclassical view, changes in aggregate demand can have a short-run impact on output and on unemployment—but only a short-run impact. In the long run, when wages and prices are flexible, potential GDP and aggregate supply determine real GDP's size.
How Fast Is the Speed of Macroeconomic Adjustment?
How long does it take for wages and prices to adjust, and for the economy to rebound to its potential GDP? This subject is highly contentious. Keynesian economists argue that if the adjustment from recession to potential GDP takes a very long time, then neoclassical theory may be more hypothetical than practical. In response to John Maynard Keynes' immortal words, “In the long run we are all dead,” neoclassical economists respond that even if the adjustment takes as long as, say, ten years the neoclassical perspective remains of central importance in understanding the economy.
One subset of neoclassical economists holds that wage and price adjustment in the macroeconomy might be quite rapid. The theory of rational expectations holds that people form the most accurate possible expectations about the future that they can, using all information available to them. In an economy where most people have rational expectations, economic adjustments may happen very quickly.
To understand how rational expectations may affect the speed of price adjustments, think about a situation in the real estate market. Imagine that several events seem likely to push up home values in the neighborhood. Perhaps a local employer announces that it plans to hire many more people or the city announces that it will build a local park or a library in that neighborhood. The theory of rational expectations points out that even though none of the changes will happen immediately, home prices in the neighborhood will rise immediately, because the expectation that homes will be worth more in the future will lead buyers to be willing to pay more in the present. The amount of the immediate increase in home prices will depend on how likely it seems that the announcements about the future will actually happen and on how distant the local jobs and neighborhood improvements are in the future. The key point is that, because of rational expectations, prices do not wait on events, but adjust immediately.
At a macroeconomic level, the theory of rational expectations points out that if the aggregate supply curve is vertical over time, then people should rationally expect this pattern. When a shift in aggregate demand occurs, people and businesses with rational expectations will know that its impact on output and employment will be temporary, while its impact on the price level will be permanent. If firms and workers perceive the outcome of the process in advance, and if all firms and workers know that everyone else is perceiving the process in the same way, then they have no incentive to go through an extended series of short-run scenarios, like a firm first hiring more people when aggregate demand shifts out and then firing those same people when aggregate supply shifts back. Instead, everyone will recognize where this process is heading—toward a change in the price level—and then will act on that expectation. In this scenario, the expected long-run change in the price level may happen very quickly, without a drawn-out zigzag of output and employment first moving one way and then the other.
The theory that people and firms have rational expectations can be a useful simplification, but as a statement about how people and businesses actually behave, the assumption seems too strong. After all, many people and firms are not especially well informed, either about what is happening in the economy or about how the economy works. An alternate assumption is that people and firms act with adaptive expectations: they look at past experience and gradually adapt their beliefs and behavior as circumstances change, but are not perfect synthesizers of information and accurate predictors of the future in the sense of rational expectations theory. If most people and businesses have some form of adaptive expectations, then the adjustment from the short run and long run will be traced out in incremental steps that occur over time.
The empirical evidence on the speed of macroeconomic adjustment of prices and wages is not clear-cut. The speed of macroeconomic adjustment probably varies among different countries and time periods. A reasonable guess is that the initial short-run effect of a shift in aggregate demand might last two to five years, before the adjustments in wages and prices cause the economy to adjust back to potential GDP. Thus, one might think of the short run for applying Keynesian analysis as time periods less than two to five years, and the long run for applying neoclassical analysis as longer than five years. For practical purposes, this guideline is frustratingly imprecise, but when analyzing a complex social mechanism like an economy as it evolves over time, some imprecision seems unavoidable.
Key Concepts and Summary
The neoclassical perspective argues that, in the long run, the economy will adjust back to its potential GDP level of output through flexible price levels. Thus, the neoclassical perspective views the long-run AS curve as vertical. A rational expectations perspective argues that people have excellent information about economic events and how the economy works and that, as a result, price and other economic adjustments will happen very quickly. In adaptive expectations theory, people have limited information about economic information and how the economy works, and so price and other economic adjustments can be slow.
Self-Check Question
Do rational expectations tend to look back at past experience while adaptive expectations look ahead to the future? Explain your answer.
Hint:
No, this statement is false. It would be more accurate to say that rational expectations seek to predict the future as accurately as possible, using all of past experience as a guide. Adaptive expectations are largely backward looking; that is, they adapt as experience accumulates, but without attempting to look forward.
Review Questions
Does neoclassical economics focus on the long term or the short term? Explain your answer.
Does neoclassical economics view prices and wages as sticky or flexible? Why?
What shape is the long-run aggregate supply curve? Why does it have this shape?
What is the difference between rational expectations and adaptive expectations?
A neoclassical economist and a Keynesian economist are studying the economy of Vineland. It appears that Vineland is beginning to experience a mild recession with a decrease in aggregate demand. Which of these two economists would likely advocate that the government of Vineland take active measures to reverse this decline in aggregate demand? Why?
Critical Thinking Questions
If most people have rational expectations, how long will recessions last?
Explain why the neoclassical economists believe that the government does not need to do much about unemployment. Do you agree or disagree? Explain.
Problems
Use Table to answer the following questions.
| Price Level | Aggregate Supply | Aggregate Demand |
|---|---|---|
| 90 | 3,000 | 3,500 |
| 95 | 3,000 | 3,000 |
| 100 | 3,000 | 2,500 |
| 105 | 3,000 | 2,200 |
| 110 | 3,000 | 2,100 |
- Sketch an aggregate supply and aggregate demand diagram.
- What is the equilibrium output and price level?
- If aggregate demand shifts right, what is equilibrium output?
- If aggregate demand shifts left, what is equilibrium output?
- In this scenario, would you suggest using aggregate demand to alter the level of output or to control any inflationary increases in the price level?
References
Lumina Foundation. 2014. "A Stronger Nation Through Higher Education." Accessed March 4, 2015. http://www.luminafoundation.org/publications/A_stronger_nation_through_higher_education-2014.pdf.
The National Bureau of Economic Research. http://www.nber.org/.
U.S. Department of Commerce: United States Census Bureau. “The 2012 Statistical Abstract.” http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/education.html.
U.S. Department of the Treasury. “TARP Programs.” Last modified December 12, 2013. http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/TARP-Programs/Pages/default.aspx.
United States Government. “Recovery.gov: Track the Money.” Last modified October 30, 2013. http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/default.aspx.
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oercommons
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09/20/2018
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"title": "Principles of Macroeconomics 2e, The Neoclassical Perspective, The Building Blocks of Neoclassical Analysis",
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28843/overview
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Measuring Money: Currency, M1, and M2
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Contrast M1 money supply and M2 money supply
- Classify monies as M1 money supply or M2 money supply
Cash in your pocket certainly serves as money; however, what about checks or credit cards? Are they money, too? Rather than trying to state a single way of measuring money, economists offer broader definitions of money based on liquidity. Liquidity refers to how quickly you can use a financial asset to buy a good or service. For example, cash is very liquid. You can use your $10 bill easily to buy a hamburger at lunchtime. However, $10 that you have in your savings account is not so easy to use. You must go to the bank or ATM machine and withdraw that cash to buy your lunch. Thus, $10 in your savings account is less liquid.
The Federal Reserve Bank, which is the central bank of the United States, is a bank regulator and is responsible for monetary policy and defines money according to its liquidity. There are two definitions of money: M1 and M2 money supply. M1 money supply includes those monies that are very liquid such as cash, checkable (demand) deposits, and traveler’s checks M2 money supply is less liquid in nature and includes M1 plus savings and time deposits, certificates of deposits, and money market funds.
M1 money supply includes coins and currency in circulation—the coins and bills that circulate in an economy that the U.S. Treasury does not hold at the Federal Reserve Bank, or in bank vaults. Closely related to currency are checkable deposits, also known as demand deposits. These are the amounts held in checking accounts. They are called demand deposits or checkable deposits because the banking institution must give the deposit holder his money “on demand” when the customer writes a check or uses a debit card. These items together—currency, and checking accounts in banks—comprise the definition of money known as M1, which the Federal Reserve System measures daily.
A broader definition of money, M2 includes everything in M1 but also adds other types of deposits. For example, M2 includes savings deposits in banks, which are bank accounts on which you cannot write a check directly, but from which you can easily withdraw the money at an automatic teller machine or bank. Many banks and other financial institutions also offer a chance to invest in money market funds, where they pool together the deposits of many individual investors and invest them in a safe way, such as short-term government bonds. Another ingredient of M2 are the relatively small (that is, less than about $100,000) certificates of deposit (CDs) or time deposits, which are accounts that the depositor has committed to leaving in the bank for a certain period of time, ranging from a few months to a few years, in exchange for a higher interest rate. In short, all these types of M2 are money that you can withdraw and spend, but which require a greater effort to do so than the items in M1. Figure should help in visualizing the relationship between M1 and M2. Note that M1 is included in the M2 calculation.
The Federal Reserve System is responsible for tracking the amounts of M1 and M2 and prepares a weekly release of information about the money supply. To provide an idea of what these amounts sound like, according to the Federal Reserve Bank’s measure of the U.S. money stock, at the end of February 2015, M1 in the United States was $3 trillion, while M2 was $11.8 trillion. Table provides a breakdown of the portion of each type of money that comprised M1 and M2 in February 2015, as provided by the Federal Reserve Bank.
| Components of M1 in the U.S. (February 2015, Seasonally Adjusted) | $ billions |
| Currency | $1,271.8 |
| Traveler’s checks | $2.9 |
| Demand deposits and other checking accounts | $1,713.5 |
| Total M1 | $2,988.2 (or $3 trillion) |
| Components of M2 in the U.S. (February 2015, Seasonally Adjusted) | $ billions |
| M1 money supply | $2,988.2 |
| Savings accounts | $7,712.1 |
| Time deposits | $509.2 |
| Individual money market mutual fund balances | $610.8 |
| Total M2 | $11,820.3 (or $11.8 trillion) |
The lines separating M1 and M2 can become a little blurry. Sometimes businesses do not treat elements of M1 alike. For example, some businesses will not accept personal checks for large amounts, but will accept traveler’s checks or cash. Changes in banking practices and technology have made the savings accounts in M2 more similar to the checking accounts in M1. For example, some savings accounts will allow depositors to write checks, use automatic teller machines, and pay bills over the internet, which has made it easier to access savings accounts. As with many other economic terms and statistics, the important point is to know the strengths and limitations of the various definitions of money, not to believe that such definitions are as clear-cut to economists as, say, the definition of nitrogen is to chemists.
Where does “plastic money” like debit cards, credit cards, and smart money fit into this picture? A debit card, like a check, is an instruction to the user’s bank to transfer money directly and immediately from your bank account to the seller. It is important to note that in our definition of money, it is checkable deposits that are money, not the paper check or the debit card. Although you can make a purchase with a credit card, the financial institution does not consider it money but rather a short term loan from the credit card company to you. When you make a credit card purchase, the credit card company immediately transfers money from its checking account to the seller, and at the end of the month, the credit card company sends you a bill for what you have charged that month. Until you pay the credit card bill, you have effectively borrowed money from the credit card company. With a smart card, you can store a certain value of money on the card and then use the card to make purchases. Some “smart cards” used for specific purposes, like long-distance phone calls or making purchases at a campus bookstore and cafeteria, are not really all that smart, because you can only use them for certain purchases or in certain places.
In short, credit cards, debit cards, and smart cards are different ways to move money when you make a purchase. However, having more credit cards or debit cards does not change the quantity of money in the economy, any more than printing more checks increases the amount of money in your checking account.
One key message underlying this discussion of M1 and M2 is that money in a modern economy is not just paper bills and coins. Instead, money is closely linked to bank accounts. The banking system largely conducts macroeconomic policies concerning money. The next section explains how banks function and how a nation’s banking system has the power to create money.
Read a brief article on the current monetary challenges in Sweden.
Key Concepts and Summary
We measure money with several definitions: M1 includes currency and money in checking accounts (demand deposits). Traveler’s checks are also a component of M1, but are declining in use. M2 includes all of M1, plus savings deposits, time deposits like certificates of deposit, and money market funds.
Self-Check Questions
If you are out shopping for clothes and books, what is easiest and most convenient for you to spend: M1 or M2? Explain your answer.
Hint:
The currency and checks in M1 are easiest to spend. It is harder to spend M2 directly, although if there is an automatic teller machine in the shopping mall, you can turn M2 from your savings account into an M1 of currency quite quickly. If your answer is about “credit cards,” then you are really talking about spending M1—although it is M1 from the account of the credit card company, which you will repay later when you credit card bill comes due.
For the following list of items, indicate if they are in M1, M2, or neither:
- Your $5,000 line of credit on your Bank of America card
- $50 dollars’ worth of traveler’s checks you have not used yet
- $1 in quarters in your pocket
- $1200 in your checking account
- $2000 you have in a money market account
Hint:
- Neither in M1 or M2
- That is part of M1, and because M2 includes M1 it is also part of M2
- Currency out in the public hands is part of M1 and M2
- Checking deposits are in M1 and M2
- Money market accounts are in M2
Review Questions
What components of money do we count as part of M1?
What components of money do we count in M2?
Critical Thinking Questions
Explain why you think the Federal Reserve Bank tracks M1 and M2.
The total amount of U.S. currency in circulation divided by the U.S. population comes out to about $3,500 per person. That is more than most of us carry. Where is all the cash?
If you take $100 out of your piggy bank and deposit it in your checking account, how did M1 change? Did M2 change?
References
Federal Reserve Statistical Release. November 23, 2013. http://www.federalreserve.gov/RELEASES/h6/current/default.htm#t2tg1link.
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:20.095480
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09/20/2018
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28873/overview
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Causes of Unemployment around the World
Overview
- Explain the nature and causes of unemployment
- Analyze the natural rate of unemployment and the factors that affect it
- Identify how undeveloped labor markets can result in the same hardships as unemployment
We can categorize the causes of unemployment in the world's high-income countries in two ways: either cyclical unemployment caused by the economy when in a recession, or the natural rate of unemployment caused by factors in labor markets, such as government regulations regarding hiring and starting businesses.
Unemployment from a Recession
For unemployment caused by a recession, the Keynesian economic model points out that both monetary and fiscal policy tools are available. The monetary policy prescription for dealing with recession is straightforward: run an expansionary monetary policy to increase the quantity of money and loans, drive down interest rates, and increase aggregate demand. In a recession, there is usually relatively little danger of inflation taking off, and so even a central bank, with fighting inflation as its top priority, can usually justify some reduction in interest rates.
With regard to fiscal policy, the automatic stabilizers that we discussed in Government Budgets and Fiscal Policy should be allowed to work, even if this means larger budget deficits in times of recession. There is less agreement over whether, in addition to automatic stabilizers, governments in a recession should try to adopt discretionary fiscal policy of additional tax cuts or spending increases. In the case of the Great Recession, the case for this kind of extra-aggressive expansionary fiscal policy is stronger, but for a smaller recession, given the time lags of implementing fiscal policy, countries should use discretionary fiscal policy with caution.
However, the aftermath of the Recession emphasizes that expansionary fiscal and monetary policies do not turn off a recession like flipping a switch turns off a lamp. Even after a recession is officially over, and positive growth has returned, it can take some months—or even a couple of years—before private-sector firms believe the economic climate is healthy enough that they can expand their workforce.
The Natural Rate of Unemployment
Unemployment rates in European nations have typically been higher than in the United States. In 2006, before the start of the Great Recession, the U.S. unemployment rate was 4.6%, compared with 9% in France, 10.4% in Germany, and 7.1% in Sweden. We can attribute the pattern of generally higher unemployment rates in Europe, which dates back to the 1970s, to the fact that European economies have a higher natural rate of unemployment because they have a greater number of rules and restrictions that discourage firms from hiring and unemployed workers from taking jobs.
Addressing the natural rate of unemployment is straightforward in theory but difficult in practice. Government can play a useful role in providing unemployment and welfare payments, for example, by passing rules about where and when businesses can operate, and assuring that the workplace is safe. However, these well-intentioned laws can, in some cases, become so intrusive that businesses decide to place limits on their hiring.
For example, a law that imposes large costs on a business that tries to fire or lay off workers will mean that businesses try to avoid hiring in the first place, as is the case in France. According to Business Week, “France has 2.4 times as many companies with 49 employees as with 50 ... according to the French labor code, once a company has at least 50 employees inside France, management must create three worker councils, introduce profit sharing, and submit restructuring plans to the councils if the company decides to fire workers for economic reasons.” This labor law essentially limits employment (or raises the natural rate of unemployment).
Undeveloped Labor Markets
Low-income and middle-income countries face employment issues that go beyond unemployment as it is understood in the high-income economies. A substantial number of workers in these economies provide many of their own needs by farming, fishing, or hunting. They barter and trade with others and may take a succession of short-term or one-day jobs, sometimes receiving pay with food or shelter, sometimes with money. They are not “unemployed” in the sense that we use the term in the United States and Europe, but neither are they employed in a regular wage-paying job.
The starting point of economic activity, as we discussed in Welcome to Economics!, is the division of labor, in which workers specialize in certain tasks and trade the fruits of their labor with others. Workers who are not connected to a labor market are often unable to specialize very much. Because these workers are not “officially” employed, they are often not eligible for social benefits like unemployment insurance or old-age payments—if such payments are even available in their country. Helping these workers to become more connected to the labor market and the economy is an important policy goal. Recent research by development economists suggests that one of the key factors in raising people in low-income countries out of the worst kind of poverty is whether they can make a connection to a somewhat regular wage-paying job.
Key Concepts and Summary
We can address cyclical unemployment by expansionary fiscal and monetary policy. The natural rate of unemployment can be harder to solve, because it involves thinking carefully about the tradeoffs involved in laws that affect employment and hiring. Unemployment is understood differently in high-income countries compared to low- and middle-income countries. People in these countries are not “unemployed” in the sense that we use the term in the United States and Europe, but neither are they employed in a regular wage-paying job. While some may have regular wage-paying jobs, others are part of a barter economy.
Self-Check Questions
What are the different policy tools for dealing with cyclical unemployment?
Hint:
If there is a recession and unemployment increases, we can call on an expansionary fiscal policy (lower taxes or increased government spending) or an expansionary monetary policy (increase the money supply and lower interest rates). Both policies stimulate output and decrease unemployment.
Explain how the natural rate of unemployment may be higher in low-income countries.
Hint:
Aside from a high natural rate of unemployment due to government regulations, subsistence households may be counted as not working.
Review Questions
What are the two types of unemployment problems?
In low-income countries, does it make sense to argue that most of the people without long-term jobs are unemployed?
Critical Thinking Question
Is it possible to protect workers from losing their jobs without distorting the labor market?
Explain what will happen in a nation that tries to solve a structural unemployment problem using expansionary monetary and fiscal policy. Draw one AD/AS diagram, based on the Keynesian model, for what the nation hopes will happen. Then draw a second AD/AS diagram, based on the neoclassical model, for what is more likely to happen.
Problems
Retrieve the unemployment data from The World Bank database (http://databank.worldbank.org/data/home.aspx) for India, Spain, and South Africa for 2011-2015. Prepare a chart that compares India, Spain, and South Africa based on the data. Describe the key differences between the countries. Rank these countries as high-, medium-, and low-income countries. Explain what is surprising or expected about this data. How did the Great Recession impact these countries?
References
Viscusi, Gregory, and Mark Deen. “Why France Has So Many 49-Employee Companies.” Business Week. Last modified May 3, 2012. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-03/why-france-has-so-many-49-employee-companies.
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:20.119770
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09/20/2018
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28878/overview
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What Happens When a Country Has an Absolute Advantage in All Goods
Overview
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Show the relationship between production costs and comparative advantage
- Identify situations of mutually beneficial trade
- Identify trade benefits by considering opportunity costs
What happens to the possibilities for trade if one country has an absolute advantage in everything? This is typical for high-income countries that often have well-educated workers, technologically advanced equipment, and the most up-to-date production processes. These high-income countries can produce all products with fewer resources than a low-income country. If the high-income country is more productive across the board, will there still be gains from trade? Good students of Ricardo understand that trade is about mutually beneficial exchange. Even when one country has an absolute advantage in all products, trade can still benefit both sides. This is because gains from trade come from specializing in one’s comparative advantage.
Production Possibilities and Comparative Advantage
Consider the example of trade between the United States and Mexico described in Table. In this example, it takes four U.S. workers to produce 1,000 pairs of shoes, but it takes five Mexican workers to do so. It takes one U.S. worker to produce 1,000 refrigerators, but it takes four Mexican workers to do so. The United States has an absolute advantage in productivity with regard to both shoes and refrigerators; that is, it takes fewer workers in the United States than in Mexico to produce both a given number of shoes and a given number of refrigerators.
| Country | Number of Workers needed to produce 1,000 units — Shoes | Number of Workers needed to produce 1,000 units — Refrigerators |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 4 workers | 1 worker |
| Mexico | 5 workers | 4 workers |
Absolute advantage simply compares the productivity of a worker between countries. It answers the question, “How many inputs do I need to produce shoes in Mexico?” Comparative advantage asks this same question slightly differently. Instead of comparing how many workers it takes to produce a good, it asks, “How much am I giving up to produce this good in this country?” Another way of looking at this is that comparative advantage identifies the good for which the producer’s absolute advantage is relatively larger, or where the producer’s absolute productivity disadvantage is relatively smaller. The United States can produce 1,000 shoes with four-fifths as many workers as Mexico (four versus five), but it can produce 1,000 refrigerators with only one-quarter as many workers (one versus four). So, the comparative advantage of the United States, where its absolute productivity advantage is relatively greatest, lies with refrigerators, and Mexico’s comparative advantage, where its absolute productivity disadvantage is least, is in the production of shoes.
Mutually Beneficial Trade with Comparative Advantage
When nations increase production in their area of comparative advantage and trade with each other, both countries can benefit. Again, the production possibility frontier is a useful tool to visualize this benefit.
Consider a situation where the United States and Mexico each have 40 workers. For example, as Table shows, if the United States divides its labor so that 40 workers are making shoes, then, since it takes four workers in the United States to make 1,000 shoes, a total of 10,000 shoes will be produced. (If four workers can make 1,000 shoes, then 40 workers will make 10,000 shoes). If the 40 workers in the United States are making refrigerators, and each worker can produce 1,000 refrigerators, then a total of 40,000 refrigerators will be produced.
| Country | Shoe Production — using 40 workers | Refrigerator Production — using 40 workers | |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 10,000 shoes | or | 40,000 refrigerators |
| Mexico | 8,000 shoes | or | 10,000 refrigerators |
As always, the slope of the production possibility frontier for each country is the opportunity cost of one refrigerator in terms of foregone shoe production–when labor is transferred from producing the latter to producing the former (see Figure).
Let’s say that, in the situation before trade, each nation prefers to produce a combination of shoes and refrigerators that is shown at point A. Table shows the output of each good for each country and the total output for the two countries.
| Country | Current Shoe Production | Current Refrigerator Production |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 5,000 | 20,000 |
| Mexico | 4,000 | 5,000 |
| Total | 9,000 | 25,000 |
Continuing with this scenario, suppose that each country transfers some amount of labor toward its area of comparative advantage. For example, the United States transfers six workers away from shoes and toward producing refrigerators. As a result, U.S. production of shoes decreases by 1,500 units (6/4 × 1,000), while its production of refrigerators increases by 6,000 (that is, 6/1 × 1,000). Mexico also moves production toward its area of comparative advantage, transferring 10 workers away from refrigerators and toward production of shoes. As a result, production of refrigerators in Mexico falls by 2,500 (10/4 × 1,000), but production of shoes increases by 2,000 pairs (10/5 × 1,000). Notice that when both countries shift production toward each of their comparative advantages (what they are relatively better at), their combined production of both goods rises, as shown in Table. The reduction of shoe production by 1,500 pairs in the United States is more than offset by the gain of 2,000 pairs of shoes in Mexico, while the reduction of 2,500 refrigerators in Mexico is more than offset by the additional 6,000 refrigerators produced in the United States.
| Country | Shoe Production | Refrigerator Production |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 3,500 | 26,000 |
| Mexico | 6,000 | 2,500 |
| Total | 9,500 | 28,500 |
This numerical example illustrates the remarkable insight of comparative advantage: even when one country has an absolute advantage in all goods and another country has an absolute disadvantage in all goods, both countries can still benefit from trade. Even though the United States has an absolute advantage in producing both refrigerators and shoes, it makes economic sense for it to specialize in the good for which it has a comparative advantage. The United States will export refrigerators and in return import shoes.
How Opportunity Cost Sets the Boundaries of Trade
This example shows that both parties can benefit from specializing in their comparative advantages and trading. By using the opportunity costs in this example, it is possible to identify the range of possible trades that would benefit each country.
Mexico started out, before specialization and trade, producing 4,000 pairs of shoes and 5,000 refrigerators (see Figure and Table). Then, in the numerical example given, Mexico shifted production toward its comparative advantage and produced 6,000 pairs of shoes but only 2,500 refrigerators. Thus, if Mexico can export no more than 2,000 pairs of shoes (giving up 2,000 pairs of shoes) in exchange for imports of at least 2,500 refrigerators (a gain of 2,500 refrigerators), it will be able to consume more of both goods than before trade. Mexico will be unambiguously better off. Conversely, the United States started off, before specialization and trade, producing 5,000 pairs of shoes and 20,000 refrigerators. In the example, it then shifted production toward its comparative advantage, producing only 3,500 shoes but 26,000 refrigerators. If the United States can export no more than 6,000 refrigerators in exchange for imports of at least 1,500 pairs of shoes, it will be able to consume more of both goods and will be unambiguously better off.
The range of trades that can benefit both nations is shown in Table. For example, a trade where the U.S. exports 4,000 refrigerators to Mexico in exchange for 1,800 pairs of shoes would benefit both sides, in the sense that both countries would be able to consume more of both goods than in a world without trade.
| The U.S. economy, after specialization, will benefit if it: | The Mexican economy, after specialization, will benefit if it: |
|---|---|
| Exports fewer than 6,000 refrigerators | Imports at least 2,500 refrigerators |
| Imports at least 1,500 pairs of shoes | Exports no more than 2,000 pairs of shoes |
Trade allows each country to take advantage of lower opportunity costs in the other country. If Mexico wants to produce more refrigerators without trade, it must face its domestic opportunity costs and reduce shoe production. If Mexico, instead, produces more shoes and then trades for refrigerators made in the United States, where the opportunity cost of producing refrigerators is lower, Mexico can in effect take advantage of the lower opportunity cost of refrigerators in the United States. Conversely, when the United States specializes in its comparative advantage of refrigerator production and trades for shoes produced in Mexico, international trade allows the United States to take advantage of the lower opportunity cost of shoe production in Mexico.
The theory of comparative advantage explains why countries trade: they have different comparative advantages. It shows that the gains from international trade result from pursuing comparative advantage and producing at a lower opportunity cost. The following Work It Out feature shows how to calculate absolute and comparative advantage and the way to apply them to a country’s production.
Calculating Absolute and Comparative Advantage
In Canada a worker can produce 20 barrels of oil or 40 tons of lumber. In Venezuela, a worker can produce 60 barrels of oil or 30 tons of lumber.
| Country | Oil (barrels) | Lumber (tons) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | 20 | or | 40 |
| Venezuela | 60 | or | 30 |
- Who has the absolute advantage in the production of oil or lumber? How can you tell?
- Which country has a comparative advantage in the production of oil?
- Which country has a comparative advantage in producing lumber?
- In this example, is absolute advantage the same as comparative advantage, or not?
- In what product should Canada specialize? In what product should Venezuela specialize?
Step 1. Make a table like Table.
Step 2. To calculate absolute advantage, look at the larger of the numbers for each product. One worker in Canada can produce more lumber (40 tons versus 30 tons), so Canada has the absolute advantage in lumber. One worker in Venezuela can produce 60 barrels of oil compared to a worker in Canada who can produce only 20.
Step 3. To calculate comparative advantage, find the opportunity cost of producing one barrel of oil in both countries. The country with the lowest opportunity cost has the comparative advantage. With the same labor time, Canada can produce either 20 barrels of oil or 40 tons of lumber. So in effect, 20 barrels of oil is equivalent to 40 tons of lumber: 20 oil = 40 lumber. Divide both sides of the equation by 20 to calculate the opportunity cost of one barrel of oil in Canada. 20/20 oil = 40/20 lumber. 1 oil = 2 lumber. To produce one additional barrel of oil in Canada has an opportunity cost of 2 lumber. Calculate the same way for Venezuela: 60 oil = 30 lumber. Divide both sides of the equation by 60. One oil in Venezuela has an opportunity cost of 1/2 lumber. Because 1/2 lumber < 2 lumber, Venezuela has the comparative advantage in producing oil.
Step 4. Calculate the opportunity cost of one lumber by reversing the numbers, with lumber on the left side of the equation. In Canada, 40 lumber is equivalent in labor time to 20 barrels of oil: 40 lumber = 20 oil. Divide each side of the equation by 40. The opportunity cost of one lumber is 1/2 oil. In Venezuela, the equivalent labor time will produce 30 lumber or 60 oil: 30 lumber = 60 oil. Divide each side by 30. One lumber has an opportunity cost of two oil. Canada has the lower opportunity cost in producing lumber.
Step 5. In this example, absolute advantage is the same as comparative advantage. Canada has the absolute and comparative advantage in lumber; Venezuela has the absolute and comparative advantage in oil.
Step 6. Canada should specialize in the commodity for which it has a relative lower opportunity cost, which is lumber, and Venezuela should specialize in oil. Canada will be exporting lumber and importing oil, and Venezuela will be exporting oil and importing lumber.
Comparative Advantage Goes Camping
To build an intuitive understanding of how comparative advantage can benefit all parties, set aside examples that involve national economies for a moment and consider the situation of a group of friends who decide to go camping together. The six friends have a wide range of skills and experiences, but one person in particular, Jethro, has done lots of camping before and is also a great athlete. Jethro has an absolute advantage in all aspects of camping: he is faster at carrying a backpack, gathering firewood, paddling a canoe, setting up tents, making a meal, and washing up. So here is the question: Because Jethro has an absolute productivity advantage in everything, should he do all the work?
Of course not! Even if Jethro is willing to work like a mule while everyone else sits around, he, like all mortals, only has 24 hours in a day. If everyone sits around and waits for Jethro to do everything, not only will Jethro be an unhappy camper, but there will not be much output for his group of six friends to consume. The theory of comparative advantage suggests that everyone will benefit if they figure out their areas of comparative advantage—that is, the area of camping where their productivity disadvantage is least, compared to Jethro. For example, it may be that Jethro is 80% faster at building fires and cooking meals than anyone else, but only 20% faster at gathering firewood and 10% faster at setting up tents. In that case, Jethro should focus on building fires and making meals, and others should attend to the other tasks, each according to where their productivity disadvantage is smallest. If the campers coordinate their efforts according to comparative advantage, they can all gain.
Key Concepts and Summary
Even when a country has high levels of productivity in all goods, it can still benefit from trade. Gains from trade come about as a result of comparative advantage. By specializing in a good that it gives up the least to produce, a country can produce more and offer that additional output for sale. If other countries specialize in the area of their comparative advantage as well and trade, the highly productive country is able to benefit from a lower opportunity cost of production in other countries.
Self-Check Question
In Germany it takes three workers to make one television and four workers to make one video camera. In Poland it takes six workers to make one television and 12 workers to make one video camera.
- Who has the absolute advantage in the production of televisions? Who has the absolute advantage in the production of video cameras? How can you tell?
- Calculate the opportunity cost of producing one additional television set in Germany and in Poland. (Your calculation may involve fractions, which is fine.) Which country has a comparative advantage in the production of televisions?
- Calculate the opportunity cost of producing one video camera in Germany and in Poland. Which country has a comparative advantage in the production of video cameras?
- In this example, is absolute advantage the same as comparative advantage, or not?
- In what product should Germany specialize? In what product should Poland specialize?
Hint:
- In Germany, it takes fewer workers to make either a television or a video camera. Germany has an absolute advantage in the production of both goods.
- Producing an additional television in Germany requires three workers. Shifting those three German workers will reduce video camera production by 3/4 of a camera. Producing an additional television set in Poland requires six workers, and shifting those workers from the other good reduces output of video cameras by 6/12 of a camera, or 1/2. Thus, the opportunity cost of producing televisions is lower in Poland, so Poland has the comparative advantage in the production of televisions. Note: Do not let the fractions like 3/4 of a camera or 1/2 of a video camera bother you. If either country was to expand television production by a significant amount—that is, lots more than one unit—then we will be talking about whole cameras and not fractional ones. You can also spot this conclusion by noticing that Poland’s absolute disadvantage is relatively lower in televisions, because Poland needs twice as many workers to produce a television but three times as many to produce a video camera, so the product with the relatively lower absolute disadvantage is Poland’s comparative advantage.
- Producing a video camera in Germany requires four workers, and shifting those four workers away from television production has an opportunity cost of 4/3 television sets. Producing a video camera in Poland requires 12 workers, and shifting those 12 workers away from television production has an opportunity cost of two television sets. Thus, the opportunity cost of producing video cameras is lower in Germany, and video cameras will be Germany’s comparative advantage.
- In this example, absolute advantage differs from comparative advantage. Germany has the absolute advantage in the production of both goods, but Poland has a comparative advantage in the production of televisions.
- Germany should specialize, at least to some extent, in the production of video cameras, export video cameras, and import televisions. Conversely, Poland should specialize, at least to some extent, in the production of televisions, export televisions, and import video cameras.
Review Questions
Is it possible to have a comparative advantage in the production of a good but not to have an absolute advantage? Explain.
How does comparative advantage lead to gains from trade?
Critical Thinking Questions
You just overheard your friend say the following: “Poor countries like Malawi have no absolute advantages. They have poor soil, low investments in formal education and hence low-skill workers, no capital, and no natural resources to speak of. Because they have no advantage, they cannot benefit from trade.” How would you respond?
Look at Table. Is there a range of trades for which there will be no gains?
You just got a job in Washington, D.C. You move into an apartment with some acquaintances. All your roommates, however, are slackers and do not clean up after themselves. You, on the other hand, can clean faster than each of them. You determine that you are 70% faster at dishes and 10% faster with vacuuming. All of these tasks have to be done daily. Which jobs should you assign to your roommates to get the most free time overall? Assume you have the same number of hours to devote to cleaning. Now, since you are faster, you seem to get done quicker than your roommate. What sorts of problems may this create? Can you imagine a trade-related analogy to this problem?
Problems
In Japan, one worker can make 5 tons of rubber or 80 radios. In Malaysia, one worker can make 10 tons of rubber or 40 radios.
- Who has the absolute advantage in the production of rubber or radios? How can you tell?
- Calculate the opportunity cost of producing 80 additional radios in Japan and in Malaysia. (Your calculation may involve fractions, which is fine.) Which country has a comparative advantage in the production of radios?
- Calculate the opportunity cost of producing 10 additional tons of rubber in Japan and in Malaysia. Which country has a comparative advantage in producing rubber?
- In this example, does each country have an absolute advantage and a comparative advantage in the same good?
- In what product should Japan specialize? In what product should Malaysia specialize?
Review the numbers for Canada and Venezuela from Table which describes how many barrels of oil and tons of lumber the workers can produce. Use these numbers to answer the rest of this question.
- Draw a production possibilities frontier for each country. Assume there are 100 workers in each country. Canadians and Venezuelans desire both oil and lumber. Canadians want at least 2,000 tons of lumber. Mark a point on their production possibilities where they can get at least 3,000 tons.
- Assume that the Canadians specialize completely because they figured out they have a comparative advantage in lumber. They are willing to give up 1,000 tons of lumber. How much oil should they ask for in return for this lumber to be as well off as they were with no trade? How much should they ask for if they want to gain from trading with Venezuela? Note: We can think of this “ask” as the relative price or trade price of lumber.
- Is the Canadian “ask” you identified in (b) also beneficial for Venezuelans? Use the production possibilities frontier graph for Venezuela to show that Venezuelans can gain from trade.
In [link], is there an “ask” where Venezuelans may say “no thank you” to trading with Canada?
References
Bernstein, William J. A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World. Atlantic Monthly Press. New York. 2008.
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:20.156620
|
09/20/2018
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/28878/overview",
"title": "Principles of Macroeconomics 2e, International Trade, What Happens When a Country Has an Absolute Advantage in All Goods",
"author": null
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/89541/overview
|
Continental Drift slideshow
Overview
Slideshow on Continental drift
Earth Science
This is a slide show that goes over Alfred Wegener and the discover of Continental Drift. It is a basic introduction.
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:20.174129
|
01/25/2022
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/89541/overview",
"title": "Continental Drift slideshow",
"author": "Joanna Mantz"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/90434/overview
|
Modal Verbs - Ability - Can and Could - Off2Class ESL Lesson Plan
Overview
Ability – Can and could
This lesson plan is a great introduction to modal verbs. It is designed for beginner students and focuses on the use of can and can’t to discuss ability, possibility, and permissions. Throughout this lesson, students can practice both the positive and negative forms of can and could. In addition, students will study common questions and short answer prompts used in spoken English.
If you want additional lesson plans and support, including teachers’ notes, be sure to register for a free Off2Class account.
Off2Class
Ability – Can and could
This lesson plan is a great introduction to modal verbs. It is designed for beginner students and focuses on the use of can and can’t to discuss ability, possibility and permissions. Throughout this lesson, students can practice both the positive and negative forms of can and could. In addition, students will study common questions and short answer prompts used in spoken English.
Download the lesson plan Ability – Can and could here: https://www.off2class.com/lesson-plan-downloads/seven-esl-lesson-plans-to-teach-modal-verbs/
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:20.192262
|
Christine Chan
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/90434/overview",
"title": "Modal Verbs - Ability - Can and Could - Off2Class ESL Lesson Plan",
"author": "Teaching/Learning Strategy"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/69958/overview
|
Education Standards
Sidewalk Chalk AMRAP Workout
Overview
This is a great way to get students to be creative with their own workout. The addition of sidewalk chalk as a material to use makes it different and fun. Students also like that this lesson is done outside. There are so many variations of this that can be developed the possibilities are endless. Would be a great tool if your school is in a virtual or at home learning setting.
Side Walk Chalk Workout
Lesson Topic:
Sidewalk Chalk AMRAP Workout
Lesson Description:
Give your students the opportunity to create their own 20 minute exercise AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) based on the knowledge they have gained in their PE class so far. This lesson can be done at home and used for a virtual PE assignment.
Learning Goals/Outcomes:
Students will be able to demonstrate their ability to put together a total body workout that they may use to pursue a healthy, active lifestyle.
Nebraska Standards:
PE.HS.8.3.d Chooses and performs at an appropriate level of challenge to experience success and desire to participate in self-selected physical activity.
Teacher Planning:
Equipment/Materials Needed: sidewalk chalk, cell phone (for camera/timer)
Time Required for Lesson: 30 minutes. (10 minutes for explanation/prep, 20 minutes for workout)
Diagram/Setup:
Technology Use:
X YES (cell phone/email) _NO
Instructional Plan:
Anticipatory Set/Pre-Activity:
Before your students are ready for this lesson they need to be introduced to a variety of warm-up exercises, body weight toning exercises, core strengthening exercises and active recovery exercises. Explain to them that an AMRAP is a workout where they are trying to complete as many rounds as possible of the exercises safely without rest.
Benefits/Explanation/Real-World Connection:
This activity gives students the opportunity to create a workout on their own that has the potential to include their entire family.
Activities (i.e. instructions, warm-up, lesson, cool-down):
Instructions:
- Students will draw a diagram on their home driveway/sidewalks that has 4 quadrants (diagram is shown in set-up)
- Top left will contain 4 different warm-up exercises
- Top right will contain 4 different body weight toning exercises
- Bottom left will contain 4 different core strength exercises
- Bottom right will contain 4 active recovery exercises
- On the side they will put a chart to record how many times they complete a round. (All 4 quadrants = 1 round)
- Students will choose the exercises that go into the categories above and write down the number of reps for each exercise.
- Students will get a family member or friends to complete the workout with them.
- Students will set a 20 minute timer and begin the workout
- When a round is completed all participants will put a tally mark next to their name.
- Students rotate through the quadrants clockwise for the entire 20 minutes continuously.
Closure:
At the end of the 20 minutes students will take a picture of each quadrant and their completed tally chart and email it to their instructor with a reflection about the workout. Students will need to reflect upon what they enjoyed about the workout, what they would do differently and how their body felt afterwards.
Assessment :
This could be modified or adjusted to be either a formative or summative assessment.
Supplemental Information:
Modifications:
No Sidewalk Chalk = Paper/Pencil
No Driveway (live in apartment building) = Use the sidewalk and have your quadrants in one straight line instead of a square.
No internet access = Send a paper/pencil copy back to school for teacher to see student product
Teacher has flexibility to change up requirements for each quadrant. Example: Each quadrant needs to contain 1 warm up exercise, 1 body weight toning exercise, 1 core strength exercise and 1 active recovery exercise
Safety Precautions:
Make sure students understand to choose exercises that fit their workout space/area and adapt them to their level of fitness. Be considerate of the level of fitness of the people you ask to join you in the workout AMRAP.
Comments (adaptations for various grades/ages, teaching styles, etc.)
Can be adapted for any age group. Younger grades may need parent help.
My example:
- Top left will contain 4 different warm-up exercises --- 25 Jumping Jacks, 10 Giant Arm Circles forward/back, 25 High Knees, Jog on the sidewalk to the end of the block and back.
- Top right will contain 4 different body weight toning exercises---10 Walking Lunges, 15 Push-ups, 20 Body Squats, 5 Burpees
- Bottom left will contain 4 different core strength exercises ---10 Plank Up Downs, 15 Superman Pulses, 20 Regular Crunches, 25 Bicycle Abs
- Bottom right will contain 4 active recovery exercises ---10 Hamstring Scoops, 10 Knee to Chest Pulls, 10 Lateral Lunges, 5 Inchworms
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:20.215845
|
07/21/2020
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/69958/overview",
"title": "Sidewalk Chalk AMRAP Workout",
"author": "Michelle Fisher"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/85194/overview
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ACTIVITY 2: Virtual Debate.
ACTIVITY 3: Jamboard.
MATCH UP
SURVEY
WORD SEARCH
Pornography and the Importance of Sex Education
Overview
This lesson plan describes our class "Porn Industry". We would focus in the aspect of pornography's influence in teenagers' perspectionl of sexual behaviour. We would like to raise awareness in students of the importance of sexual education and the risks of inadequate porn consumption while improving their English language skills.
Lesson Plan
❒ Pre-Stage of the Lesson
Introduction (20 min):
The lesson will begin by giving background information about the pornography industry; manly focusing in its influence in the economy and also its unregulated consumerism. For this, statistics and reports are going to be used to support the information.
To start off with activities, a collaborative power point presentation will be shared with the class. The students will watch a video related to the topic and in each slide (throght google drive) they will write their personal opinion. After this, a short match up quiz will be done, this time the students will match the word to its definition.
❒ While-Stage of the Lesson
Part 1 ( 20 min max):
In this section, the focus will be on why porn consumption has gotten out of hand; basically, on the causes of uncontrolled porn consumption. Hereby, you will see the reaosns that will be explained:
- Accessible technologies. (The technological era and decives that are avaible for most people)
- Lack of sexual education in schools.
- Normalization of pornography in teenager (and young adults)
Before going into the second secion, another activity will be done. This time an online debate will be done. Through an educational platform (Kialo) three different staments will be avaible. Students will choose one of them and participate in the discussion.
Part 2 (20 min max):
After talking about the causes of unregulated porn consumption, we will move on to the consecuences of this matter. The topics are going to be:
- Body stereotypes and idealization.
- Unrealistic idealization of sex intercourse.
- Pornography actors.
To finish the while stage, a Google Jamboard will be shared to students. Here, they are going to express their opinions about four statements related to pornography.
❒ Post-Stage of the Lesson
Conclusion and closure (15 min):
To conclude the lesson, a reflection on the importance on sex education for a healthier relationship with pornogaphy will be shared with the students.
Then, there is going to be a last activity that will be a short survey in which the general topic overview will be asked. The survey is the last activty because we belive that after the topic of discussion, students will have reflected upon their experience and thus, will be able to answer as honestly as possible.
For a more relaxed activity, we will provide a word-search assigment, where vocabulary will be practiced.
Activities Table
| Student Teacher in Charge | Activity | Objective | Skill | Source/sites |
| María de los Ángeles Campos | Video and reflection | Know students previous knowledge and make them reflect and form an opinion about the video´s topic. | Listening and writing? | Google Drive (PP) |
| Aylin Ome Muñoz and Paula Juliana Yasnó Rubiano | Debate - Survey | Make students take a position and form their opinions. Make them reflect on their relationship with pronography. | Reading, Writing and Speaking. | Kialo Edu QuestionPro |
| Yeison Hernández | Match up | Practicing and identifying | Reading, and vocabulary | Word Wall |
| Harol Lara Sanmiguel | Thought-provoking statements | Working on students critical thinking when faced with statements. | Writing | Google Drive (JamBoard) |
| Juan Camilo Párraga | Word search | Practice vocabulary and stimulate visual memory. | Reading and vocabulary | The word Search |
Lesson Aims
Lesson Objectives
- To contextualize about the pornography industry and its consequences in real life.
- To acquire basic knowledge about sexual education.
- To develop students' B1 English language skills.
At the End of the Class Students will be able to:
- Express their opinion about the pornography iindustry in English.
- Recognize and sustain the importance of sexual education.
- Show a respectful and mature attitude towards sexuality.
The skills focus will be in all of the 4 abilities: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing.
Foreseable Problems
- Internert Connection.
- Lack of class participation.
- It could be considered a sensitive topic (unadequate, taboo) for some students and parents.
Planned Solutions
- Recording the lesson to be watched afterwards.
- Make the students know they are free to express their thoughts without judgements. Make the time spent learning a fun and intercative experience.
- Explain to parents and students the importance of sex education and the rise of awareness of healthy sexuality.
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:20.246551
|
Assessment
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/85194/overview",
"title": "Pornography and the Importance of Sex Education",
"author": "Activity/Lab"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/87304/overview
|
اجابات التكنولوجيا للصف الخامس
Overview
يحتوي الملف على مادة اثرائية للصف الخامس
التكنولوجيا
يحتوي الملف على مادة اثرائية للصف الخامس
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:20.263457
|
10/31/2021
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/87304/overview",
"title": "اجابات التكنولوجيا للصف الخامس",
"author": "mohammad bassam alloush"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/66944/overview
|
Measurement Progression Document
Measurement Progression
Overview
This resource was created by the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.
OSPI Measurement Progression Document
Explore the OSPI-created progression documents for use by educators in all subject areas. This document focuses on the progression of measurement.
Math Teachers: Use this document to further your understanding of the coherence of the strand across the grade levels.
Other Content Areas: Use this document as a resource when planning your lessons. Increase your understanding of what math skills you can expect students to be able to access and what you can reinforce as part of your lesson to strengthen cross-content integration.
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:20.281568
|
05/18/2020
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/66944/overview",
"title": "Measurement Progression",
"author": "Hannah Hynes-Petty"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/88728/overview
|
Education Standards
housework matching concepts
JAMBOARD
key concepts slides
Lesson plan form
piggy book interactive video
POLICARPA SALAVARRIETA INTERACTIVE TEXT
Powerful women in Latin America interactive image
random picker wheel
Gender perspective and powerful women in Latin America
Overview
this kind of activities using topics such as gender perspective and powerful women in Latin America are in order to revise students ideas and concepts, while at the same time develop their linguistic skills and implementation of steam in the classroom to build more inclusive societies.
Gender perspective "Piggy book"
Hello dear students in today's class we are going to learn about gender perspective throught different tasks, the objetive of this first hour is to raise gender perspective awareness among students with the use of different literary materials.
First I am going to show the presentation slides and you will take notes about the different key concepts to contextualize the rest of the class.
Opening (20 minutes)
Once we finish the revision about concept keys, I will share a picker wheel that spins and picks a random name, you are requested to mimic a house chore and the rest of the class will guess.
Then, I want you to think about the house chores you do in your house, who usually does the house chore and who do you consider must do the chores in your house. We will share some answers to keep them in mind until the lesson finishes .
Work time piggy book (30 minutes)
Go to the youtube link attached here and watch the video about piggybook, please choose a word from the video it could be an adjetive, a verb or a house-chore and write it in your notebook.
Then I will share a link to the first interactive task and it is about the same video you are required to answer some questions as you watch it again.
To keep going, each one of you will say the word you have already chosen out loud (if you don't understand the meaning or pronunciation please let me know).
answer these questions (in pairs if you want to) in your notebook to share them with your classmates
Why did the dad and boys turn into pigs?
what does mr piggot does in the evening?
is mrs piggot a happy woman?
In order to finish, I will share the last activity called "Matching game" in which you must match the concept with the image that represents it.
Closing (10 minutes)
In order to finish, I will share the last activity called "Matching game" in which you must match the concept with the image that represents it.
I want you to think about the house chores you do in your house, who usually does the house chore, who do you consider must do the chores in your house, and why should the house work be shared by both men and women?
By doing this we can check the progress and understand if there was a change in your notions and opinions.
Outstanding women in history Second hour
Hello dear students in today's class we already learn about gender perspective, gender roles and house chores so in this second hour we are going to revise some outstanding women in history and develop different tasks about the topic. The objetive of this lesson is change your notions and opinions about women replacing it with words related to their drive, intelligence and persistence
Opening (20 minutes)
To start this activity you will find attached here a link of a google's jamboard and you will write the words such as adjetives and your idea of women.
While you do the first task please think about what women can do now that they couldn’t do in the past? and be ready to share your answers with the class.
Work time (20 minutes)
In order to develop the next tasks, I will share with you an interactive image about powerful women in Latin America, please take some notes and be ready to ask some questions.
Then I will share another link to the next task which is an interactive text about Policarpa Salavarrieta and you will complete it with some words related to her role in Colombia's history, when you finish I will ask some of you to share the answers and opinions about this outstanding woman.
Closing (20 minutes)
In order to finish the two-hour lesson I want you to come back to the google's jambord and write again different words and adjetives that you learnt, to make a comparison between the two moments of this lesson and check if there was a change in the words you used before.
Before finish I will share with you a genially game called "Wrap it up" about the two-hour lesson with topic such as the piggybook, house chores and outstanding women in latin america.
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:20.327434
|
12/14/2021
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/88728/overview",
"title": "Gender perspective and powerful women in Latin America",
"author": "GROUP 4"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/72354/overview
|
Academic Letters
Overview
THe format and style of Letters for Academic Purpose is explained. The quiz and assignment is provided.
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:20.344085
|
09/11/2020
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/72354/overview",
"title": "Academic Letters",
"author": "Archana Srinath"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/83515/overview
|
Women of the Civil Rights Movement (2)
Women's Conference Planning Document
1. Role of Women in the Civil Rights Movement
Overview
Through the play Beautiful Agitators and accompanying curriculum, students will explore the life of Vera Mae Pigee and the impact of voter suppression.
Beautiful Agitators Lesson Plan: Scene One
Standards: Local civil rights history, power relations & social justice
Content Strand 4:
A. Identify and explain the significance of the major actors, groups and events of the civil rights movement in the mid 20th century in Mississippi (i.e., Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, Dr. T.R.M. Howard, James Meredith, Freedom Rides, Freedom Summer, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party).
B. Understand and describe the historical circumstances and conditions that necessitated the development of civil rights and human rights protections and/or activism for various minority groups in Mississippi.
Tactics: Organizing, Resistance, Collective Action & Unity
Counter Tactics: Intimidation, Surveillance
PROCEDURE:
Instructor will have students read short bio of Vera Mae Pigee and Scene One from the "Beautiful Agitators" script before the whole class disscussion. Students can read the scene aloud or independently.
MATERIALS:
To complete the research portion of the lesson plan, students will need access to computers.
LESSON: Introducing Mrs. Vera Mae Pigee
VERA: I told them when we were in the process of getting started, and again when I was elected secretary, that the only thing I knew about the NAACP was that it is something that is supposed to make these Mississippi white folks act like human beings AND I want to be a part of that monster.
ACTIVITY: Discussion
- Before watching and reading the play, “Beautiful Agitators,” had you ever heard of Vera Mae Pigee?
- Who is Vera Mae Pigee?
- Explore the title of the play, “Beautiful Agitators”
- How has the word agitator been used as a pejorative when referring to civil rights activists?
- What is the significance of using this word in the title?
- What might the use of the word beautiful imply?
- How does the use of Vera Mae’s beauty salon as a clandestine location for civil rights work and citizenship training demonstrate the way in which women were able to occupy spaces and organize under the radar?
- What does this say about the expectations of women’s roles during the civil rights movement?
- How has the story of Vera Mae Pigee been preserved by the play "Beautiful Agitators"?
LESSON: Role of Women in the Civil Rights Movement
BACKGROUND:
Vera Mae Pigee is the heart of our Beautiful Agitators play. The first scene depicts the many hats Vera Mae Pigee wore in her role as an organizer and activist. While we proudly celebrate her unique and valuable contributions, Mrs. Pigee is not an outlier in the civil rights movement. She is one of many women who led the charge and carried and sustained the movement within their communities across the South. These women made great sacrifices for the movement and were themselves the targets of intimidation and violence.
OBJECTIVES:
Students will be able to answer the following questions:
- Discuss the varied roles that women played in the civil rights movement.
- Identify multiple key leaders that are too often left unmentioned.
- Evaluate why women were often excluded from the narrative.
- Articulate the critical importance of women in the civil rights movement.
ACTIVITY: Research Project
Students will uncover the unsung voices of the women of the civil rights movement. Assign each student a name from the list provided and ask them to create a digital collage representing the life of their leader which they will present to the class. Students will be required to to answer the following questions about their historical figure and her contributions to the movement:
- What is the name of your historical figure?
- Where and when was she born?
- What role did she play in the civil rights movement?
- Was she a part of a specific organization?
- Has this person been memorialized? If so, how?
EXTENSION: Monument Proposal
[See above image of Vera Mae Pigee mural in downtown Clarksdale, MS artist Charles Coleman]
Have your students work individually or in groups to submit a monument proposal.
- What type of monument would they design ex: plaque, sculpture, painting, statue, etc.?
- What artistic style would be used as inspiration- realistic, abstract, etc
- What words and images would be important to include in the monument? Ex: Personal quote, poetry, song lyric, etc
- Where would the monument be placed?
- Who would they invite to support the funding of this monument?
- Who would they invite to the dedication of this monument?
- Why is this monument important to understanding the history of the civil rights movement?
- How would this monument serve to mobilize future generations to work for civic change?
Beautiful Agitators Script: Scene One
Scene One
July 1955, Clarksdale Mississippi
Sunday evening in the Pigee house, Mary Jane is reading the newspaper after dinner.
MARY JANE: (reads aloud from newspaper) Pictured left to right, Aaron E. Henry and Vera Mae Pigee of the Coahoma County chapter. Did you have to wear that hat with those boots?
VERA: Now Mary Jane, You know I am “Thee Hat Lady” of Clarksdale! Among many other titles too! (all laughs) I’ve got to have the look to go with this attitude folks, like Chief Collins, call “big”. Besides, didn't you know, fashion is a part of my work too, child? (all laugh as Vera takes the newspaper and studies the photo)
MARY JANE: I don’t think the NAACP knows what they’ve gotten themselves into.
VERA: I told them when we were in the process of getting started, and again when I was elected secretary, that the only thing I knew about the NAACP was that it is something that is supposed to make these Mississippi white folks act like human beings AND I want to be a part of that monster.
MARY JANE: So look at you now - here you are!
VERA: And so here I am serving as the secretary for our chapter, and now advisor of the Youth Council here, my own baby.
MARY JANE: I’m glad you listened to Mr. Evers.
VERA: “When nobody else is moving and the students are moving, they are the leadership for everybody AND Vera, we need you to direct them.” Medgar said that.
MARY JANE: And he was right!
[CUE 2 - Phone Ring 1]
(The phone rings, Mary Jane enters the scene to answer the phone. Paul
VERA : Pigee’s beauty shop. How can I help you? Hello? Hello? (pause, Vera hangs up the phone) Mary Jane, you better not be courtin’!
MARY JANE: Oh, Mama!
[CUE - Phone Ring 2]
Phone rings again. This time Mary Jane rushes to try to answer.
VERA: Pigee’s beauty shop. This is Vera.(answers the phone) Hello? (pause) Hello? (pause). (hangs up phone)
[CUE - Phone Ring 3]
VERA: Hello? - what? Who is this? Don’t call here again.
Vera hangs up the phone
MARY JANE: Who was that? What did they want?
VERA: I don’t know./ The bigger this movement gets, the greater the attention. And the greater the attention the movement gets, the more those at the forefront of this struggle are targeted. Not only will we be targeted, but everyone that supports us will be targeted too. Lord, did I make the right decision?
MARY JANE: Mama you’re scaring me. What did they say? Who was on the phone.
VERA: I won’t repeat it. You’ve been sheltered, Mary Jane. You don’t know the seriousness of a black person in Mississippi today challenging the white power structure. The Klu Klux Klan, the White Citizens Council, have all got their parts in this thing.
MARY JANE: But...Mama, you’re just organizing voter registration. You’re not challenging anyone.
VERA: That is exactly what I am doing. Everytime one of our people exercises their right to vote we gain a little more power - and that will lead to change. And that terrifies the Mississippi white folks who have profited from our disenfranchisement . Our family - your father works for those white people. The worst kind. Those who own the plantations, cotton compress and the shacks, in which many colored folks live and many of those folks are my customers. Our money, our lives are dictated by white folks who contribute to our struggle everyday. My customers, your classmates, your father’s co-workers. As a community, we share our hardships, even when they don’t affect us directly. Do you see Mary Jane?
MARY JANE: I don’t want you to shelter me any longer. I want to understand, I want to help you change things.
VERA: Thank you my girl, you will be a great help. I pray I’m doing the right thing.
BLACK OUT End of Scene
Beautiful Agitators
written by Aallyah Wright, Charles Coleman, Jessica James, Nick Houston and Jennifer Welch
commissioned and produced by StoryWorks, Jennifer Welch, artistic director
Lesson 1 Video: The Role of Women in the Movement
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:20.378710
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/83515/overview",
"title": "StoryWorks: Beautiful Agitators, StoryWorks: Beautiful Agitators Curriculum",
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/83487/overview
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Document: SNCC press release: Illiterate whites vote negroes are barred, undated (possibly 1963)
DOJ: Before the Voting Rights Act
Literacy test questions & voting rights materials, March 1955
Mississippi Voter Application and Literacy Test ~ 1950s
2. Voter Suppression: Literacy Tests
Overview
Through the play Beautiful Agitators and accompanying curriculum, students will explore the life of Vera Mae Pigee and the impact of voter suppression.
Beautiful Agitators Lesson Plan: Scene Two
Standards: Local & national civil rights history, power relations & social justice, relationship between local and national movement, relationship between past and present movement, knowing all of the organizations, acronyms and their perspectives, Freedom Summer
Content Strand 4:
A. Identify and explain the significance of the major actors, groups and events of the civil rights movement in the mid 20th century in Mississippi (i.e., Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, Dr. T.R.M. Howard, James Meredith, Freedom Rides, Freedom Summer, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
B. Understand and describe the historical circumstances and conditions that necessitated the development of civil rights and human rights protections and/or activism for various minority groups in Mississippi.
Tactics: Organizing, collective action & unity
Time Period: 1955
Background for Instructors:
Read: DOJ: Before the Voting Rights Act
Talking points:
- Literacy tests were used as a tool to disenfranchise voters. This was primarily deployed as a tactic to prevent Black voters from voting but also at times used against other minorities and poor white people.
- Literacy tests are completely subjective. They were given by officials in charge of voter registration. Those who administered the tests were able to choose when to give them and how to assess them.
- Literacy tests demonstrate inequality in education and funding in education which can be understood when looking at school segregation and the underfunding of Black schools.
- Literacy tests as a method for data collection for purposes of intimidation. Applicants were forced to list their place of work so that their employers could be notified of their activity and punitive measures taken.
Sequence: Before the introduction of the Beautiful Agitators curriculum and before viewing the reading, instructors will distribute copies of the literacy test portion of the voter registration form to students using the MS Constitution for passage selection for interpretation. Students will take the test and submit their test to the instructor. The instructor will set aside the test until ready for this lesson. During this lesson, the instructor will hand the tests back to the students. The instructor will then randomly select the names of the students who have passed and who have failed. When introducing the lesson plan, the instructor will provide the background information regarding the use of literacy tests. Instructor will explain who designed/wrote the literacy test and who administered the test. The instructor will address what a literacy test suggests about the inequalities in educational opportunities and economic disparities between those administering the test and those who are taking the test. Explain the role of school segregation in maintaining barriers to literacy.
LESSON: Literacy Test
OBJECTIVES:
Through primary source analysis and group discussions, students will be able to:
- Examine how literacy tests were a means of disenfranchising voters.
- Determine who benefitted from placing these barriers to voting.
- Explain how the role of strategic organization sought to circumvent these discriminatory practices.
Distribute copies of MS voter registrations/literacy tests to students. Working in small groups students will be asked to answer the following questions:
- What information did the potential voter have to provide?
- Who was being targeted by the literacy test? Why?
- How does the information required provide data for intimidation of those registering to vote?
- What reasons might a registrant fail to pass the literacy test?
ACTIVITY: Literacy Test Results
Instructor will hand back the students' literacy tests that were administered prior to the viewing of Beautiful Agitators. Instructor will assign a grade at random: pass or fail. Discussion will continue with the gauge students' reaction.
- How does it feel to be graded this way?
- What is the goal of this restrictive system?
- How does it feel to be denied the right to vote because of this system?
REFLECTING ON THE SCRIPT:
Nick: Then what's the point of the citizenship class?
- What is Nick feeling?
- Do you relate to his frustrations?
- What was the point of the citizenship class?
ACTIVITY: In-class research projects: Citizenship Classes
Students will look at primary source documents that were used to explain, advertise and recruit teachers and students for citizenship classes across the Mississippi Delta. Students will answer the following questions:
- Who was recruited to teach the citizenship classes?
- Did the teachers receive training?
- Beyond registering citizens to vote, how did the citizenship classes work as a recruitment tool for the civil rights work in Mississippi?
ACTIVITY: Registering to Vote Today
Compare and contrast the voter registration process in the MS Delta in the 1950s-1960s with the present day voter registration process where you live today:
Students can work in small groups or individually to determine voter eligibility and the process to register to vote and in their state.
- How does your county handle voter registration?
- When is a citizen able to register to vote?
- Where is a citizen able to register to vote?
- When are registered voters able to vote? (Ex: Day of election, week before, etc.)
- How are registered voters able to vote?
- What policies are in place to deny citizens the right to vote?
- What observations can you make regarding barriers to voting during the civil rights era and today?
- What are the differences in voting laws/regulations across the United States?
- Which states have the most open voter registration and voting access and which states have the most complicated or restrictive voting registration process and voting access?
EXTENSIONS:
Furthering the research process students will investigate the status of voting rights in their home state.
- Are there any legal battles regarding voting rights in your state?
- Identify the bills in the state legislature that have been introduced and/or bills that are being debated and voted on.
- If so, what are the goals of these proposed bills?
- Are there any lawsuits before the courts concerning voting rights or voting procedure?
- What are the goals of the legal challenges?
- What organizations are involved in the debate of these voting rights issues? What are their positions?
ACTIVITY: Participating in the Conversation
Option 1:
Students will develop a plan to contact their representatives at the state or national level to engage in a conversation regarding their position on the pieces of legislation being considered/debated. Before reaching out, students will be prepared to present their thoughts and opinions regarding the proposed legislation and will use evidence to support their argument.
Option 2:
Students will write a Letter to the Editor for their school or local paper in response to the debate over a particular voting rights bill or lawsuit. Students will be required to present
strong supporting evidence to bolster their argument. Students should be mindful of their audience and be sure to offer their proposed action when concluding their article.
Option 3:
Students will work together to identify voting rights advocates or scholars that they would like to interview. Students will work collaboratively to determine the questions they would like to ask. Students will work in small groups to contact potential interviewees. Students will schedule interviews, conduct the interviews and share the recordings and transcripts with the class.
Beautiful Agitators Script: Scene Two
Scene Two
Summer of ‘55 a hot Delta night
Vera walks slowly back and forth in the center of her beauty shop with a clipboard in her hand. She watches her students work tediously on their mock literacy exams.
VERA: Alright, now. Time’s up.
ALL STUDENTS groan while passing their tests to Vera.
VERA: I don’t know what ya groaning for. Y'all had more than enough time. You don’t want ‘em to fail ya because you taking too long, now do ya?
ALL STUDENTS laugh.
VERA: Now everyone, turn to the last page of your book. There’s something I wanna go over ---l
WILMA: I need to take these papers home and study more.
VERA: (stops flipping through pages, focuses attention on Wilma): You can use all the time in the world to study ... You can be the most intelligent person to ever take the test ... You can even answer every single question correctly, but you can still fail the test if the official administering the test decides they want to fail you.
NICK: - Then what’s the point of the citizenship class?
VERA: You wanna know why we meet twice a week for three months? (looks at Nick) We want y’all to be able to register to vote.
NICK: Why do we have to take a class to learn how to register to vote?
VERA: Do you know how many colored folks are registered to vote in Mississippi?
(ALL silent)
VERA: 5 percent. 5 percent of eligible colored folks are registered to vote. If every single one of us went to register and passed the test we would become the majority.
MARY JANE: We can get our folks represented in government and start changing some things around here.
WILMA: Around here in Clarksdale and the state of Mississippi.
VERA: Yes, Wilma! That’s why we want y'all to master basic skills so y’all will be able to stand before any of those county registrars and DEMAND first-class citizenship. Now, let’s look at one of the possible selections that could be on the test.
NICK: One of the 287 possible selections. (Wilma laughs)
VERA: Turn to the last pages of your book (ALL flip to the last page) On the exam, the administrator will point out a section of the Constitution, and you will have to write down what you think it means. Now, I’m gonna pick out a section and read it aloud.
NICK (skimming through the page, inquiring to Vera): Why do they get to choose what section of the Constitution we interpret?
WILMA: They want us to fail, they can’t let us gain the majority.
NICK: They can go to hell.
VERA: Nick, there’s no time for that kind of thinking. You have to exercise self control. You don’t want to call any unnecessary attention to yourself. Just take your test and pass through. (begins to read): Section 11 of the Mississippi Constitution reads, “The right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government on any subject shall never be impaired.” Can someone tell me what that means?
(ALL silent. Nick looks flustered)
NICK: Some of those cops wouldn’t know the law if you threw it in their faces.
VERA: Let me explain Section 11. There’s two important parts that I want you to know. People have the right to peaceably assemble and the right to petition the government. Now, the right to peaceably assemble simply means we have the right to gather with other folks to defend, promote, and even discuss our ideas without the government stopping it as long as we’re not causing harm to anyone or any property.
NICK: (frustrated) Our folks protest peacefully. March peacefully and I’ve seen the state of Mississippi do everything in1 its power to stop them.
VERA: It’s all about what we do and our impact. It’s up to us to do things the right way and to know our rights, so we can fight back. That brings me to the last part of Section 11. We have the right to challenge the government about things we don’t feel is right or fair through petitions. And that’s why we must educate ourselves about these things, so when it’s time to take the test, y’all will be more prepared.
WILMA: Amen. Amen.
VERA: I say all that to say this here. No matter what section they give you, make sure you interpret it word for word to the best of your ability. (looks at the clock) Now, time’s up. (Students chatter) I still need volunteers to drive to Memphis and do the shopping for folks. This boycott is happening! Mary Jane is in charge of organizing that.
MARY JANE: Yes, anyone who can drive, let me know and I’ll get the shopping lists & money together.
WILMA: Here’s my list. I’ll see you at the food drive.
MARY JANE: Thanks, Wilma.
VERA: Here, young lady. (passes grocery list to Mary Jane) Now, remember that we don’t have class on Monday. I will be at the state’s NAACP conference in Jackson.
BLACK OUT End of Scene
Beautiful Agitators
written by Aallyah Wright, Charles Coleman, Jessica James, Nick Houston and Jennifer Welch
commissioned and produced by StoryWorks, Jennifer Welch, artistic director
Lesson Two Video: Voter Suppression and Literacy Tests
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:20.417856
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/83487/overview",
"title": "StoryWorks: Beautiful Agitators, StoryWorks: Beautiful Agitators Curriculum",
"author": null
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/83488/overview
|
Bernice Johnson Reagon On Leading Freedom Songs During The Civil Rights Movement
Bringing People Together - Song and Music
Candie Carawan and Guy Hughes Carawan oral history interview conducted by Joseph Mosnier in New Market, Tennessee, 2011 September 19.
Candie Carawan National Council of Elders
Document: Highlander Workshop News, November 1965
Document: SNCC Staff Workshop at Highlander
Freedom Singer: 'Without Music, There Would Be No Movement'
Guy and Candie Carawan Collection – Field Trip South
Highlander Research and Education Center
Highlander Research & Education Center (HREC) Documents
Music in the Civil Rights Movement | Articles and Essays | Civil Rights History Project | Digital Collections
Our Voices: SNCC
Sheet Music: "We Shall Overcome"
SNCC: Freedom Singers
SNCC: Guy and Candie Carawan
Transcript: Candie Carawan and Guy Hughes Carawan oral history interview conducted by Joseph Mosnier in New Market, Tennessee, 2011 September 19.
UNC Collection Title: Guy and Candie Carawan Collection, 1955-2010
3. How Music Moved the Movement
Overview
Through the play Beautiful Agitators and accompanying curriculum, students will explore the life of Vera Mae Pigee and the impact of voter suppression.
Beautiful Agitators Lesson Plan: Scene Three
Standards: Local civil rights history, power relations & social justice, ties to national movement, ties to historical tactic: civil disobedience & nonviolent resistance.
Content Strand 4: Understand and describe the historical circumstances and conditions that necessitated the development of civil rights and human rights protections and/or activism for various minority groups in Mississippi.
b. Identify and explain the significance of the major actors, groups and events of the civil rights movement in the mid 20th century in Mississippi (i.e., Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, Dr. T.R.M. Howard, James Meredith, Freedom Rides, Freedom Summer, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
Tactics: Organizing, Collective Action & Unity
Time Period: 1960’s
Leaders: Guy Carawan (musician), Mary Jane Pigee, NAACP, SCLC and SNCC
LESSON: How Music Moves the Movement
WILMA: I felt the thickness in the air just standing in the crowd…no one was looking at me, and I felt it.. (looks at Mary Jane lost for words) You and Guy Carawan singing “We Shall Overcome”. (looks at Mary Jane with admiration) … a colored woman with a white man singing on the same stage. AND in front of colored and white folks for the 1st time in Coahoma County. (silent for a minute) It made me believe anything was possible.
BACKGROUND:
READ:
Music in the Civil Rights Movement
Introduction to Highlander Folk School:
The Highlander Folk School served as an important nexus for integrated training of civil rights activists. In collaboration with SCLC, the NAACP and SNCC, the Highlander Folk School worked to provide leadership training and developed programs to aid in the understanding and realization of civic identity and the pursuit of civil rights.
In his role as Music Director at Highlander Folk School, Guy Carawan worked to capture, record, perform and distribute the music of the movement. Many of the songs that were produced and published by Carawan were songs that were already part of a deep foundation of Black musical tradition such as spirituals, gospel and in the Delta … blues. Guy Carawan’s intent in the distribution and publication was to preserve these songs long associated with the struggle for freedom. The anthem of the civil rights movement, “We Shall Overcome”, is an important testimony to the collaborative nature of music and the way in which older songs informed new interpretations and were shared across generations to support the common goal of freedom.
OBJECTIVES:
- Students will gain awareness of the Highlander Folk School and the role in which it played in the training of civil rights leaders.
- Students will explore the importance of using traditional Black spirituals, Black gospel music and folk music as a means of amplifying the message of the movement.
- Students will be able to articulate the ways in which Freedom Songs tell the story of the civil rights movement.
ACTIVITY: Brief Small Group Research/ Whole Class Discussion
Divide the class into small groups and assign each group a document, set of documents or radio clips relating to Highlander Folk School. Students will read the documents or listen to radio clips and then have a whole class discussion to answer the following questions. (Students will share which document/s or radio clips that they are working from and provide details from the document/s to support their assertions.)
- What was the mission of the Highlander Folk School during the 1950-1960s?
- Who were the significant leaders of the Highlander folk school?
- What training was offered at the Highlander?
- Who were the participants in Highlander’s programming?
- What prominent and well-known figures of the civil rights movement were associated with Highlander Folk School?
- What role did music play in the programming at Highlander Folk School?
- Who were the Freedom Singers?
ACTIVITY: Playlists
Students will work to identify Freedom songs In small groups, students will select 1-2 songs to use to analyze lyrics and to situate in historical context. Alternatively, instructors can provide a selection of songs for the students to work with for the activity. Ex.: “Ballad of Student Sit-Ins”, “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize”, “Ain’t You Got A Right To The Tree of Life”, “Follow the Drinking Gourd”, “I’m Going to Sit at the Welcome Table”, etc.
Using Freedom/protest/sit-in songs as primary source materials, students will interpret what the lyrics intend to say about the struggle of this time period and how that struggle is communicated?
Students will be able to answer the following questions:
- How did music play a vital role in expanding the audience for the mission of the civil rights movement?
- What was the role of music in activism?
- How does music serve as a means of protest then and now?
Using the songs identifed as Freedom songs during the civil rights movement, students will design an annotated soundtrack/playlist of the civil rights movement. Students will research the significance of songs that were made popular by identifying the themes of the songs and how those themes are supported by the lyrics. Students will be sure to cite their songs appropriately in the playlist with a 2-3 sentence explanation of why they included this song in their playlist. The length of the playlist should be determined by the instructor.
Name of Group or Performer. Year of Original Release/Recording. "Title of Song." Track# on Title Album. Label, Year of Release (if different), medium.
Students should address the following:
- What events or people inspired the writing of the song?
- Was the song a new song or part of the canon of Freedom songs?
- Where would the song be played?
- Was the song played on the radio?
- Who is the intended audience of this song?
- What inferences can you make regarding organization methodology in this song?
- How does the chorus call for action or unity or both?
Bring this discussion to the present day:
- Identify a struggle/movement that pertains to the present day.
- If you were to create a playlist for this movement, what songs would you include? Why?
- What topics/themes are communicated in the lyrics? How?
ACTIVITY: Discussion
Extend into discussion of art as a unifying phenomenon.
- What types of art help to convey messages of struggle or for necessary change?
- What is the role of art in protest?
- How does art unify a community?
- How do artists contribute to the discussion of difficult issues in a community?
- How can you contribute to your community as an artist or a consumer/supporter of the arts?
- What examples can we find of that today? Ex: poetry, literature, paintings, murals, etc.
ACTIVITY: Exploring Artwork
Ask students to find an example of art that they feel communicates a message regarding struggle or unity. Students should write a brief paper or create a slideshow explaining what message they believe the art conveys.
- Students should address how the artist communicates this message.
- Challenge students to find their artist’s artistic statement/mission.
- How has this art been received?
- Has there been controversy surrounding this piece of art?
- Students should be mindful to examine the historical context in which the art was created.
- They should reflect upon the place this piece of art has in the conversation regarding art as protest.
Beautiful Agitators Script: Scene Three
Scene Three
1961: A Sunday night; Mary Jane AND Wilma are at Vera’s house sitting at the table relaxing after the big concert and waiting for Nick to return.
WILMA: I really liked y’alls performance tonight at the church, Mary Jane.
MARY JANE: Thank you, Wilma! What did you like best about it?
WILMA: I just like listening to you sing…(pause) Were you nervous?
MARY JANE: I wasn’t nervous to be singing. But looking into the crowd and eyeing down that Chief Collins made me uneasy…
WILMA: Not knowing what he was gonna do?
MARY JANE: Not knowing what he could do.
WILMA: I felt the thickness in the air just standing in the crowd…no one was looking at me, and I felt it.. (looks at Mary Jane lost for words) You and Guy Carawan singing “We Shall Overcome”. (looks at Mary Jane with admiration) … a colored woman with a white man singing on the same stage. AND in front of colored and white folks for the 1st time in Coahoma County. (silent for a minute) It made me believe anything was possible.
MARY JANE: That’s why we did it. When I got on that stage and started singing it felt like the way it’s supposed to be.
WILMA: (smiles) You’re startin’ to sound like ya mama now. (both laugh)
(Abrupt knock on door. Wilma and Mary Jane stop to look at one another. Nick -enter)
MARY JANE: Did they make it?
NICK: Guy and his wife just got arrested.
WILMA: Mrs. Carawan is pregnant… Jail is no place for a pregnant woman!
MARY JANE: Nick, didn’t you follow them across the county line?
NICK: Yes we did. We had six cars to escort them. Three in front, three behind. We had Reverend Rayford and Reverend Drew with us.
MARY JANE: What reason did they have to arrest them?
WILMA: They don’t need a reason. Mississippi police will arrest you for having two feet.
NICK: Rev.Rayford says the cops got ‘em on a trumped up charge. They gave ‘em a ticket for running a red light
(Nick picks up phone and begins to dial)
and took ‘em to the station.
MARY JANE: - Who are you calling?
NICK: The Press Register - They’ll want to know that after Guy Carawan played in Coahoma County’s first integrated concert - he was thrown in jail!
WILMA: This is getting crazy.
MARY JANE: My mama and the NAACP lawyers need to be contacted too. Wilma can you call them? Nick, can you drive me to the station? I can’t believe they have arrested a white woman and a pregnant one at that!
Lesson Three Video: How Music Moved the Movement
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:20.464218
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/83488/overview",
"title": "StoryWorks: Beautiful Agitators, StoryWorks: Beautiful Agitators Curriculum",
"author": null
}
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/83489/overview
|
“All About CORE” brochure All About CORE
Bigger Than a Hamburger by Ella Baker
CORE: Organization Documents Archive
CORE Rules For Action (1963)
Mississippi NAACP Newsletter: April 1958
MSSC Coahoma County Youth Council Officers
MSSC Report Mary Jane Pigee, Wilma Jones and Johnnie Baird
NAACP: The Meaning of the Sit-Ins
NAACP Youth Programs
Primary Sources the 1960s: CORE
Primary Sources the 1960s: SNCC
SNCC: Organization Documents Archive
SNCC Statement of Purpose, April 17, 1960
4. Youth Action and Leadership
Overview
Through the play Beautiful Agitators and accompanying curriculum, students will explore the life of Vera Mae Pigee and the impact of voter suppression.
Beautiful Agitators Lesson Plan: Scene 4
Standards: Local & national civil rights history, power relations & social Justice, relationship between local and national movement, relationship between past and present movement, knowing all of the organizations, acronyms and their perspectives, Freedom Summer
Content Strand 4:
A. Identify and explain the significance of the major actors, groups and events of the civil rights movement in the mid 20th century in Mississippi (i.e., Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, Dr. T.R.M. Howard, James Meredith, Freedom Rides, Freedom Summer, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party).
B. Understand and describe the historical circumstances and conditions that necessitated the development of civil rights and human rights protections and/or activism for various minority groups in Mississippi.
C. Compare and contrast the effects of de jure segregation and the de facto segregation of today.
“De facto' means a state of affairs that is true in fact, but that is not officially sanctioned. In contrast, de jure means a state of affairs that is in accordance with law (i.e. that is officially sanctioned).”
Tactics:Youth participation, intergenerational cooperation, national partnerships & participation, patience & persistence, aligning different political motivations
Counter-Tactics: white power structure tactics: intimidation & violence. terror, murder, threats of violence, perversion of the legal system/arrest to intimidate,
Leaders: Vera Pigee, Mary Jane Pigee, Chief of Police Ben Collins, Senator Eastland, Youth Council, SNCC, CORE
Time Period: August 23, 1961
PROCESS:
Provide students with definitions of de facto and de jure segregation.
Provide context for desegregation campaigns with Morgan v Viginia, Boynton v Virginia, Brown v Board of Education Topeka, lunch counter sit-ins and Freedom Rides.
LESSON: Youth Action and Leadership
BACKGROUND:
The civil rights movement expanded to include a new generation of activists in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This addition helped to grow the movement. Yet, there were tensions between the established leadership of the movement and the new visionaries.
Mary Jane Pigee and Wilma Jones were both the daughters of dedicated members of the NAACP. They were inspired by the work and activism of their parents.And, they were encouraged to take up the call. Vera Mae Pigee, with her involvement in supporting the Youth Council, recognized the importance of bringing new members into the movement. Inclusion in the movement did not mean that they were integrated into the leadership hierarchy. And,the youth members pushed against this fighting to be included and making waves when they organized their own actions.
The activation of students paved the way to organize on college campuses. Students inspired by lunch counter sit-ins, the Freedom Riders of 1961 and other campaigns began to organize their own actions to press for desegregation and voting rights. With youth involvement, came new ideas about how far to push the movement and in new directions.
MARY JANE: I want direct action in response to laws that already exist and I want things to move faster. And it’s not just me, it’s the entire Youth Council. Mama, we need to increase our activities and be more confrontational.
OBJECTIVES:
- Students will be able to explain de facto segregation vs de jure segregation.
- Students will analyze the role of protest in forcing compliance of Supreme Court rulings regarding segregation of public spaces.
- Students will examine the cultural shift that happened with the expansion of the movement to include a new generation.
- Students will identify the changing demographics of the movement with particular attention paid to demographics regarding age and race.
- Students will become familiar with the NAACP Youth Council, SNCC and CORE.
ACTIVITY: Discussion
Have students read "Beautiful Agitators" scene four and Ella Baker's "Bigger Than a Hamburger".
Ask students:
- How do both of these texts address cultural shifts or philosophical differences regarding organizational structure and hierarchy of the major civil rights organizations during the 1950s-1960?
- Which character in the play serves to voice the goals and philosophy of the youth movement?
- What lines in the play help to articulate this message?
- What is the purpose of Mary Jane and Wilma’s action at the Depot?
- Are Mary Jane and Wilma taking an action against de facto or de jure segregation?
ACTIVITY: Introducing SNCC and CORE
Mary Jane Pigee and Wilma Jones were active members of the Coahoma County NAACP Youth Council. The NAACP initiated Youth Councils prior to the 1950s but in the late 1950s the push for enrollment in the NAACP and in the Youth Councils strengthened considerably. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, new youth organizations were formed such as SNCC and CORE.
Divide the class into small groups and assign each group an organization of the civil rights movement to research: SNCC and CORE.
Give each group a packet of /links to primary source documents that relate to their organization. After reviewing the documents and researching online, students will be asked to present their findings to the class. Students will be expected to answer:
- What is the full name of the organization?
- When was it founded?
- Did this organization have a sponsor organization?
- What was the vision of leadership?
- What were the tactics used by this organization?
- What actions did this organization organize or participate in?
- Who were the members of this organization?
- How did they recruit members?
- Where did these organizations operate?
- What was their position on having an integrated movement?
- Who are the most well known prominent leaders from this organization during the 1960s
ACTIVITY: Youth Participation Today
Check out what the NAACP is doing today with its youth outreach:
NAACP Youth & College Division
- What other organizations are working to engage youth in civil rights work today?
- Which organization might you be interested in joining and how would you like to participate?
TAKE ACTION:
Students will identify an organization that they would be interested in working within their community. Students will develop an action plan for how they can get involved. Ex: volunteer, attend a workshop, follow the organization on social media, etc.
Beautiful Agitators Script: Scene 4
Scene Four
August 1961
The scene opens in the white waiting room at the Clarksdale train station. It is sparse and quiet. Mary Jane Pigee and Wilma sit together on a bench near the window. They each have a suitcase on the floor next to them. Mary Jane is calm and collected. Wilma tries to maintain her composure, there is a very slight shake in her leg.
WILMA: I can’t feel the air. Can you?
MARY JANE:: No, it’s like the earth has stopped spinning, just stopped.
WIMLA: It’s heating-up in here. I can feel it.
MARY JANE: You got that right. Do you hear ‘em whispering behind the counter...they’re fixin to call the police.
After moments of unbearable silence, Wilma speaks out in a shaky voice as if speaking for the first time in a long time. Her leg is noticeably shaking and she tries to hold it down with her hands.
WILMA: Can we go? Can we go? I want to hide my face and never look back.
MARY JANE: Quiet Wilma, breathe deeply and count the tiles on the floor. This feeling will pass. Do you see the chips of marble, quartz and granite?
WILMA: Yes.
MARY JANE: buffed and bruised by all the white man's heels that walked across it. It gives me strength. If this floor can stand up to the trampling it has received then so can we. We will be the floor - strong and steady - and we will not be moved.
WILMA: Yes…(pause) It’s too quiet and all I can hear is my heart beating like a racehorse. Mary Jane, can you hear it?
MARY JANE: No. I can’t hear a thing.
WILMA: I was excited to get here and be fearless like you. But the moment we walked in the door, everything changed. It’s the way they looked at us like we were animals that had stood on our hind legs and walked right out the zoo.
MARY JANE: I’m nervous too and this feeling you're describing is what we have to overcome. It’s fear and when you overcome it that makes you fearless. Look at the floor. If the light catches it just right it shimmers. I think it’s lovely.
WILMA: It looks like it has gold flakes, do you think it does? Would this white room have a golden floor? (hearing something from the clerk)
Oh, look at that little white boy in the window. (PAUSE)
He looks worried... he knows we’re in trouble.
MARY JANE: - I bet he’s thinkin’ “Why are you in trouble when you’re sitting there so still with your best manners.”
WILMA: I want to run away. I want to run to your Mother’s beauty shop and sit with our elders and…listen to their words
MARY JANE: ...disappear into the safety of complacency? To be surrounded by women who should have done what needed to be done before we was born. But, we, the young people, the Emmet Till generation, must take the lead. So, we can’t run away.
The girls sit quietly for a few moments both trying to lose themselves in the room and disconnect from the fear that surrounds them. There is more muffled noise from the clerk and her co-workers behind the counter.
WILMA: What was that? What did she just say? Did she call Sheriff Ross? She did, didn’t she?
MARY JANE: Yes. Let’s hope the newspaper shows up before the Sheriff.
WILMA: So things are still going as planned?
MARY JANE: Yes, but we need to keep silent. Silence confuses them, remember they want an argument and we won’t give it to them.
WILMA: Look, here comes that little boy again. He can’t take his eyes off you, Mary Jane. He has no idea what is going on. Runaway little boy, go find your mama.
The female clerk crosses the terrazzo floor quickly. The clacking sounds from her shoes echo across the room. She moves to the exit to the train platform and locks the door. She immediately returns to her position behind the counter and makes a phone call speaking in a muffled voice.
MARY JANE: Wilma. I think something is happening. Stay seated, please whatever they ask you to do, stay quiet and seated.
WILMA: Just like we practiced. I can do it, Mary Jane.
Suddenly Vera Mae Pigee appears at the locked door and tries to enter the room. Pulling at the locked door she looks at Mary Jane and realizes it is locked and she will have to enter the room another way. She disappears around the side of the building.
WILMA: Mrs. Pigee is here! Mrs. Pigee is here!... Where’s she going?
She’ll have to buy a ticket and enter through the white area. She brought the Press Register- look they’ve got their cameraman outside.
MARY JANE: Right on time.
WILMA: He doesn’t seem to be in a hurry, he just lit a cigarette.
MARY JANE: There’s no story ‘til they handcuff us. Won’t that make a pretty picture?
WILMA: I never thought the first time my picture’s in the paper, it would be for getting arrested.
MARY JANE: That’s something to be proud of.
Vera Mae Pigee enters the room in a huff and full of energy. A woman in her late 30’s, she is wearing one of her famous hats and she’s waving her ticket as she speaks.
VERA: This is my ticket, I paid for it just a few minutes ago. I’m going to Memphis. Girls, how are you?
WILMA: Nobody has given us any trouble.
MARY JANE: They called Sheriff Ross a few minutes ago, he should be here soon.
VERA: Yes. I arrived just as the newspaper did. I’m sure they’re hoping for a fight.
MARY JANE: The only fight they’re getting is going to be in court. Wilma and I have been practicing.
WILMA: We won’t let them get the best of us.
VERA: Yes, you girls are well prepared and very impressive. But I question this decision? Why now Mary Jane? Without proper support?
MARY JANE: Mama, I’m not sure how many different ways I can say this. I’m fed up. Things are moving too slow.
VERA: How can you say that? We’re hitting our voter registration numbers - exceeding them.
WILMA: True. And that’s great but we can’t wait for the next election for things to change.
MARY JANE: I want direct action in response to laws that already exist and I want things to move faster. And it’s not just me, it’s the entire Youth Council. Mama, we need to increase our activities and be more confrontational.
WILMA: This is just the first step.
VERA: We have to work with the NAACP.
MARY JANE: You do Mama, but we don’t. The NAACP isn’t interested in the youth voice and it certainly isn’t interested in the female youth voice.
VERA: I agree we should be more open to young people's ideas.
MARY JANE: And leadership!
VERA: Well, yes within reason.
MARY JANE: Mama, do you trust me?
VERA: Yes. Absolutely.
MARY JANE: Have I proven myself to be steadfast and committed to the movement?
VERA: Yes, without question. But you need to know what you are risking. It’s different for you than it is for me.
MARY JANE: I don’t see how. If anything you have more to lose.
VERA: You have your entire life ahead of you - there’s nothing greater to lose. This is a violent business no matter how hard we work to avoid it.
MARY JANE: That’s my point, Mama! We have to stop working to avoid it. We have to confront it.
VERA: I see your point, I do but I fear for you and all of us once this begins.
MARY JANE: If you see our point then you have to help us convince the NAACP to listen.
WILMA: They’ll listen to you Mrs. Pigee.
MARY JANE: Wilma’s right. You’re the advisor to the Youth Council and the secretary for the chapter here. Just imagine what happens if we get the backing from the NAACP. If today is any indication, we’ve shown you we’re ready.
WILMA: We can plan more sit-ins through the Youth Council.
VERA: I’ve always encouraged you to participate in the movement, and you two have done well today. But Mary Jane, it takes strategy and extensive planning to execute this. You have to stay ten steps ahead of them. No matter what I’m still your mother and I will protect you with all that I am. And that means you too Wilma.
MARY JANE: I’m a young adult and I can take care of myself. You said it yourself, you encouraged me to do this work, so let me do what I am called to do.
WILMA: Mrs. Pigee, you can count on us! We’ve planned this out careful.
MARY JANE: Our lawyer is ready to bail us out as soon as the police take us down to the station. Mama, we thought this through.
VERA: I don’t know where you get this wisdom and strength Mary Jane.
WILMA: She gets it from you Mrs. Pigee, we all do.
MARY JANE: You’ve always told us to have self control, don’t call any unnecessary attention to ourselves and be nonviolent despite the risks involved.
VERA: - I have. And I’m proud of both of you for stepping up. I’ve waited for this moment and I knew the day would come. I agree the youth can lead the charge, but you can’t do it alone.
MARY JANE: Thank you, mama.
VERA: I’ll talk to the NAACP.
Police sirens wail in the background. A smile creeps on Mary Jane's face. Wilma looks at Mary Jane with a confirmation.
MARY JANE: It’s about time they’ve arrived.
VERA: Girls, say it with me.
MARY JANE / WILMA: The United States Constitution explicitly provides for 'the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances' in the First Amendment.
VERA: Alright my girls, I’m leaving, this is your moment. I guess I’ll be heading to the police station instead of Memphis this afternoon.
BLACK OUT End of Scene
Beautiful Agitators
written by Aallyah Wright, Charles Coleman, Jessica James, Nick Houston and Jennifer Welch
commissioned and produced by StoryWorks, Jennifer Welch, artistic director
Lesson Four Video: Youth Action and Leadership
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2025-03-18T00:36:20.517862
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COFO Affidavits 1964
Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission
MS Bureau of Investigations Report in MSSC on MLK Jr. Clarksdale Meeting
MSSC Newspaper Clipping Boycott 1961
MSSC Report Clarksdale Boycotters 1961
MSSC Report Directory Page
MSSC Report MLK Jr to Clarksdale
5. Mississippi Sovereignty Commission: Surveillance, Corruption and Violence
Overview
Through the play Beautiful Agitators and accompanying curriculum, students will explore the life of Vera Mae Pigee and the impact of voter suppression.
Beautiful Agitators Lesson Plan: Scene Five
Standards: Local civil rights history, power relations & social justice, use of the Communist threat to subvert other political movements.
Content Strand 4:
A. Identify and explain the significance of the major actors, groups and events of the civil rights movement in the mid 20th century in Mississippi (i.e., Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, Dr. T.R.M. Howard, James Meredith, Freedom Rides, Freedom Summer, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, March on Washington, Voting Rights Act of 1965, etc.)
B. Understand and describe the historical circumstances and conditions that necessitated the development of civil rights and human rights protections and/or activism for various minority groups in Mississippi.
Tactics: Knowing rights, reframing power dynamics by using intentional terms and language (for example, Mrs., negro, colored, black), non-violent response to arrest
Counter-tactics include: intimidation & violence, terror, murder, threats of violence, perversion of the legal system/arrest to intimidate, threats of loss of employment
Time Period: December 1961
Leaders: Vera Pigee, Ben Collins: Clarksdale Chief of Police
LESSON: Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission: Surveillance, Corruption and Violence
Background: The scene in which Vera Mae Pigee was arrested in her home by Clarksdale Chief of Police Ben Collins was based on both Vera Mae Pigee’s account in her autobiography Struggle of Struggles as well as reports from the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (MSSC).
Students will utilize primary and secondary sources to gain a foundational understanding of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission.
OBJECTIVES:
Students will review documents accessed through the archive/repository for MSSC reports and documents as well as other primary sources to critically evaluate the role of the MSSC.
- Students will gain awareness of the formation and founding of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (MSSC).
- Students will analyze primary source materials to investigate the ways in which the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission violated the rights of Black citizens in their attempts to gather and collect information regarding participation in civil rights activism.
- Students will compile the ways in which the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission collected personal information regarding members of the civil rights movement with intent to disrupt the work of the civil rights movement.
- Students will outline the means by which the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission worked to collude with and to corrupt local law enforcement to threaten, coerce and endanger civil rights activists and their associates
Students will be able to answer the following questions:
- How did the MSSC gather information about civil rights movement leaders and their activities?
- How did the MSSC and their collaborators utilize counter-tactics as a means to intimidate and threaten their targets?
- How did law enforcement fail to investigate and charge perpetrators of violent acts against Black citizens?
ACTIVITY: Knowing Your Rights in Interactions with Law Enforcement: Student Led Community Panel Discussion
There is a complicated history of law enforcement in the United States which is highlighted in Beautiful Agitators by the use of surveillance, intimidation and threats during the Jim Crow South. The KKK and White Citizens’ Council and the surveillance and counter-tactics employed through the work of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission provides a particularly complex example of a violation of rights.
- How do you reconcile the legalized racial segregation of the past?
- How does trust erode if there is no accountability?
- How do you rebuild an institution that has been tainted by corruption?
- How do you exercise your civil rights?
Students will devise a plan to create a panel discussion to address the historic issues of policing in the Black community in the United States past and present. Students will develop questions as a group regarding: knowing your rights, racial profiling, use of police intimidation, qualified immunity, distrust, efforts for reform, police perspectives, etc. Students will open the panel to community members such as historians, policy makers, police reform organizations, police public relations officers, etc. Students will find a location to host this event or plan for a virtual panel discussion. Students will create promotional materials to inform the public of the event.
Beautiful Agitators Script: Scene Five
SCENE FIVE
December 1961
Chief of Police Ben Collins enters the shop abruptly and uninvited. He sits down in one of the chairs and starts reading the newspaper. Collins does not bother to acknowledge Vera in her own shop and clears throat/stomps his feet.
VERA: Why are you in my shop? You here to try and get me to close down like you tried to get my husband fired?
COLLINS: You done?
Moment of awkward silence. Collins and Vera stare at each other. Collins stands up from the chair.
COLLINS: Who are you?
VERA: You know exactly who I am Ben.
COLLINS: Don’t call me Ben. I am the Chief of Police, city of Clarksdale.
VERA: And, I am Mrs. Vera Pigee and you are on my property.
COLLINS: You mean Vera Pigee don’t you?
VERA: I am Mrs. Vera Pigee, a wife, a mother, business and professional woman. Wherever I go, even in front of a police chief, my name is still Mrs. Vera Pigee.
COLLINS: Cut the crap, Vera.
(Collins pulls out a notepad and starts writing in it)
COLLINS: What’s your REAL position with the NAACP?
VERA: Why?
COLLINS: I have a list of names of people who live in Clarksdale that are suspected of being engaged in Un-American activities. And by the looks of it, you’re the only female on this list.
COLLINS: What about J.D. Rayford? You know him?
VERA: I’ve been knowing Reverend Rayford since I was a little girl. He’s one of my recruits.
COLLINS: Recruits? Civils Rights bull.
VERA: Mr. Collins, where did you even get this so-called “list” from? And what in the world are Un-American activities?
COLLINS: Washington. I’m here to investigate disloyalty to this country. Your little activities that have been going on here seem to match the description.
VERA: Investigate? Is that what you call it? You keep one of your policemen watching my house and beauty salon almost around the clock.
(Ben Collins clearly ignores Vera’s statement.)
COLLINS: Do you have any connections with the Communist Party through the NAACP? What was your role in the downtown boycott?
(Vera clearly agitated)
VERA: Do you want to know what I do Mr. Collins Collins? I am the secretary of the Coahoma County Branch of the NAACP, an Executive board member, a membership chairperson, a youth advisor for the Coahoma County Youth Council, a state conference board member, a state youth advisor, a regional youth advisor, and a voice for my people when YOU say they cannot have one. If that is a crime, then go ahead and arrest me.
COLLINS: You better watch what you wish for.
COLLINS:(Collins starts to write in his notepad again.) What kind of meetings do y’all have? What goes on? What do y’all talk about?
VERA: (sarcastically): They’re open to the public. You’re more than welcome to join. Would you like to come to our next one?
COLLINS: I didn’t come here to attend meetings and answer questions. Where can I find the other people on this list?
COLLINS: Who owns this beauty salon?
VERA: Be more specific. Are you talking about the building or the appliances?
COLLINS: Both.
VERA: Mr. Fulton Ford owns the building. I own the appliances.
COLLINS: Mr. Fulton Ford owns the house?
VERA: Yes, I told you Mr. Fulton Ford owns the house.
COLLINS: Who are your customers?
(Vera has reached her breaking point, she stands up from the chair and gets right in Collins’ face.)
VERA: Why, I am not going to tell you who my customers are. You already know. Chief, Who are your customers?
COLLINS: You are talking to the Chief of Police, Vera, and you must answer my questions.
VERA: You are talking to a married woman. My name is Mrs. Vera Pigee. I pay city, county, and state taxes to operate a legitimate business. Now, I am asking you to leave. If I ever need your service I will call you.
COLLINS: You’re making a mistake. Let’s go. You are under arrest.
VERA: What for?
COLLINS: Conspiring to withhold trade from the downtown area.
VERA: Who signed the authorization?
COLLINS: The county prosecuting attorney, Babe Pearson.
VERA: May I see it?
COLLINS: Give me your hands. I have some nice bracelets for ya.
VERA: I am a political prisoner.
(Vera turns to move away, but Collins handcuffs Vera’s right arm)
VERA: You’re treading on the wrong side of history, Mr. Collins.
(Collins begins to lead Vera out of the door as Vera recites Psalm 34:16/34:17)
VERA: The face of the Lord is against evildoers, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.
BLACK OUT End of Scene
Beautiful Agitators
written by Aallyah Wright, Charles Coleman, Jessica James, Nick Houston and Jennifer Welch
commissioned and produced by StoryWorks, Jennifer Welch, artistic director
Lesson Five Video: Mississippi Sovereignty Commission: Surveillance, Corruption and Violence
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:20.557780
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"title": "StoryWorks: Beautiful Agitators, StoryWorks: Beautiful Agitators Curriculum",
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/83491/overview
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Bob Dylan performs "Only A Pawn In Their Game" at March on Washington
Civil Rights Movement Documents March on Washington, August 28, 1963
Daily_News_Thu__Jun_13__1963__ONL38M6
Jack Minnis--A chronology of violence and intimidation in Mississippi since 1961
JFK's Speech
LibGuides: Primary Sources: The 1960s: March on Washington (1963)
Life of Medgar Evers
March on Washington, DC: Final Organization Plans
Medgar Evers and the Jackson Movement: “Until Freedom Comes”
Medgar Evers: US Army Veteran and Civil Rights Leader
The_Birmingham_News_Mon__Jun_17__1963__1dmdfPb
The_Cincinnati_Enquirer_Fri__Jun_14__1963_
The_Fresno_Bee_The_Republican_Wed__Jun_12__1963__anC7Snr
The_Greenwood_Commonwealth_Thu__Jun_13__1963__EquYnRO
The_Ogden_Standard_Examiner_Fri__Jun_14__1963__BvxF4XO
The_Tennessean_Thu__Jun_13__1963__50uTBpi (1)
Video: Death of Medgar Evers
6. Violent vs. Nonviolent Resistance
Overview
Through the play Beautiful Agitators and accompanying curriculum, students will explore the life of Vera Mae Pigee and the impact of voter suppression.
Beautiful Agitators Lesson Plan: Scene Six and Scene Seven
Standards: Local civil rights history, power relations & social justice, violent vs. nonviolent resistance, March on Washington
Content Strand 4:
A. Identify and explain the significance of the major actors, groups and events of the civil rights movement in the mid 20th century in Mississippi (i.e., Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, Dr. T.R.M. Howard, James Meredith, Freedom Rides, Freedom Summer, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, etc.)
B. Understand and describe the historical circumstances and conditions that necessitated the development of the civil rights and human rights protections and/or activism for various minority groups in Mississippi.
Tactics: Counter-tactics include: terror, murder, threats of violence, public displays of support for these methods (Greenwood parade)
Time Period: Spring 1963
Leaders: Medgar Evers, Dr. Aaron E. Henry, Vera Mae Pigee, President John F. Kennedy
LESSON:
OBJECTIVES:
- Students will identify the impact of the Medgar Evers’ aassassination on the movement both philosophically and practically.
- Students will examine the rift in the movement regarding non-violent response to escalating violence geared towards civil rights activists.
- Students will outline the organizing efforts taken to promote increased membership to NAACP and the March On Washington.
BACKGROUND:
As the civil rights movement gained momentum, there was an escalation of violence. While activists tried to take protective measures including self defense tactics, their homes, places of business and their lives were under constant violent threats from white supremacist groups like the White Citizens’ Council and the KKK 'Night Riders.'
After the attempt on the lives of Vera Pigee and Dr. Aaron Henry and Medgar Evers’ assassination, the leadership of the Mississippi movement was in a crisis. Powerful arguments were being made for and against a nonviolent response to the killing. This was in direct conflict with the NAACP & Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) leadership. This led to a heated debate and division among civil rights activists. They eventually decided to work collectively to increase membership to the NAACP by 50,000 and focus cohesive efforts to publicize the March on Washington. However, this debate would continue and would have lasting impacts on the movement going forward.
OBJECTIVE:
- Students will understand the role of Medgar Evers in the civil rights movement.
After viewing and engaging with both primary and secondary sources, students will be able to answer the following questions:
- Who is Medgar Evers?
- What was his role in the NAACP in Mississippi?
- What did the desegregation campaigns look like in Mississippi?
- What was happening right before he was assassinated?
- Watch President Kennedy's speech from the night that Medgar Evers was assassinated. What stands out in this speech?
- What impact did the assassination of Medgar Evers have on the movement?
- What was the reaction to the death of Medgar Evers outside of the movement?
ACTIVITY: Philosophical Differences
OBJECTIVE:
- Students will read and analyze primary sources and work to identify the tensions within the Black community in the South and within the civil rights movement after the assassination of Medgar Evers.
READ:
"Beautiful Agitators" Scene Six
"At the Funeral of Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi: A Tribute in Tears and a Thrust for Freedom"
Newspaper articles from resources links
- In what ways is the message of nonviolent resistance questioned by activists?
- How did the leadership work to refocus the energy toward the March on Washington?
*Find quotes from the primary sources that convey this message to support your answers.
ACTIVITY:
VERA: Medgar wanted us to keep the movement alive in our hearts. We need to be thoughtful before we respond. Clear and with purpose. Organized. I promised to keep this YOUTH COUNCIL alive and I will. The last promise I broke to the dead was to my mother & I regret it everyday of my life. So I’m not about to break this one. But we can’t be rash. Let’s focus on the call for the 50 thousand Mississippi Negroes taking out memberships in the NAACP before the March On Washington. This needs to happen in the next 30 days. That’s what you should get to work on.
Toward the end of the scene Vera tells Nick to focus his energy on the March on Washington. On August 28, 1963 over 200,000 citizens marched in solidarity in Washington D.C..
Using a contemporary social media campaign as a reference, ask students to work in groups to design a social media campaign for the March on Washington that would be effective today. Students will work with primary source documents found in archives and in links provided in the resource section.
- Pay particular attention to messages included in primary sources and work within the historical context of language/attitudes.
- Identify which social media platform would work best for your messaging campaign.
- How would you utilize hashtags, stoiries, etc.?
- What music would you use for the background?
- Be able to explain your design and content choices in a brief process paper
(Make sure to define scope of project for students: 3-5 posts, use of “stories” feature, background music, images, etc)
Beautiful Agitators Script: Scene Six and Scene Seven
Scene 6
June 8, 1963 late at night
Mary Jane and Wilma are organizing a few files for Vera and the Youth Conference, making protest signs and listening to music.
Five gunshots...three first...and two after. Telephone rings. Mary Jane answers the phone.
MARY JANE: Hello...Hello..-...Is anybody there? Hello….
Phone hangs up - Mary Jane waits for it to ring again.
There is a loud knock on Vera’s Beauty Shop. Mary Jane and Wilma are startled. Mary Jane walks cautiously towards the door.
MARY JANE: (peeking through the window) Who’s out there?
NICK: (out of breath) Nick...It’s Nick..hurry up - open up.
Mary Jane opens the door and looks dazed and confused while he begins to talk.
NICK: Turn the lights off! Get down….Mary Jane, thank God you’re here.
MARY JANE: What’s happened to you? It’s after curfew. What’s going on?
NICK: (while looking out the window) Sshhhhh. Be quiet!
WILMA: I don’t see anyone out there. You’re bleeding a lot. Do you need to go to the hospital?
NICK: They shot at them. They drove by and shot up the houses.
MARY JANE: Who shot who?
NICK: - Dr. Henry and Mrs. Pigee, I’m so glad you were here. They were in the back of a car - Klansman, Night Riders. They shot at both of their houses.
MARY JANE: Are they ok? Did you see if my Mama and Daddy were ok?
WILMA: And Dr. Henry?
NICK: Yes, they’re fine. They sent me to find you.
WILMA: Let me look at your arm. What did they do to you?
NICK: I fell - while I was running over here. I had to take the alleys ‘cause they were following me. I slipped on a gravel patch - it’s fine, just bloody.
(Wilma grabs a towel for Nick and moves to the phone)
MARY JANE: I’m calling Reverend Rayford.
NICK: No, you know they’re listening.
MARY JANE: It’s protocol. He’ll want to know right away.
NICK: We can’t risk it. Ouch... this hurts.
WILMA: Why tonight? What happened?
NICK: I think they’ve been planning this for a while.
WILMA: This has to be because we protested the telephone company. Maybe it’s payback for the voter registration conference. They’ve got to know Mrs. Pigee and Dr. Henry had some part in that.
NICK: What don’t you understand? They don’t have to have a damn reason! Tell me why they bombed Dr. Henry’s drugstore, Wilma, what was their explanation for that?
WILMA: They said it must’ve been lightning…
NICK: Exactly, “lightning”. They want us to die.
MARY JANE: We’ve got to get word to Reverend Rayford and I have to check in with my folks.
NICK: I’ll go. They might be looking for you. Keep the lights off and stay low, below the windows. Don’t let anyone catch sight of you til mornin’.
MARY JANE: We know the drill. Tell Mama we’re ok, and please stay safe, Nick.
WILMA: "Dear Lord, Send your angels to protect and keep Mr and Mrs. Pigee, Dr. Henry, Nick, and the rest of us safe. Please don't let any harm or danger come their way. In Jesus Name, Amen."
Scene fades to black as Nick exists and Wilma begins to pray.
Scene 7
June 15,1963
Back at Vera’s beauty shop - the evening of Medgar Evers’ funeral. Nick, Dr. Henry, Mary Jane, and Vera are considering their next steps.
DR HENRY: Medgar drove me to the airport and I went on to Houston and went to bed, got up the next morning to look at Lena Horne because Lena had been down here working with us, and she was going to be on the Today show. I turned the TV on when I got up, and I saw Lena sitting there, and Roy Wilkins sitting beside her, and a little picture of Medgar up in the corner. I at first rejoiced to see my folks, you know. And then to hear the announcer say, "Ladies and gentlemen, we had already scheduled Miss Horne for the Today program, but due to the tragic assassination last night of Medgar Evers in Jackson…” (As Dr. Henry sits down at the table he places his gun in the center. Exhausted.) It’s been a long couple of days.
NICK: Dr. Henry, I agree with what Mr. Wilkins said at the funeral. “Medgar Evers was the symbol of our victory and of their defeat. Medgar was more than just an opponent. In life, he was a constant threat to the system, in the manner of his death he was the victor over it.”
VERA: We all just need peace and silence to consider what to do next.
NICK: The solution has always been right in front of our faces… It’s what I’ve been telling you all along. Dr. Henry, it’s time for a change! Time for everyone to stand up for what’s theirs.
MARY JANE: So what do you suggest?
NICK: We need more protection--protection in our homes, churches, and businesses. We are sittin’ ducks! The Night Riders will come back with their guns and bombs.
VERA: Enough of that!
DR HENRY: Vera’s right. We all need to think strategically here. There has been too much blood shed already. Medgar’s family heard the sound of that rifle… they saw him sprawled out at the doorstep with his keys in his hands.
NICK: If we're gonna have a war, let's have it. Let's go in there ourselves and get it over with, one way or another. Let's go to war!
DR HENRY: Don’t you think we all feel the same way? You don’t throw stones for stones. War?! We have the right to defend our families and ourselves! But the gun will not secure our future! The power is in the vote! Our power will come with the vote!"
VERA: Medgar wanted us to keep the movement alive in our hearts. We need to be thoughtful before we respond. Clear and with purpose. Organized. I promised to keep this YOUTH COUNCIL alive and I will. The last promise I broke to the dead was to my mother & I regret it everyday of my life. So I’m not about to break this one. But we can’t be rash. Let’s focus on the call for the 50 thousand Mississippi Negroes taking out memberships in the NAACP before the March On Washington. This needs to happen in the next 30 days. That’s what you should get to work on.
MARY JANE: I have the list of demands. I can put the call out to the council and get them over here to start making more flyers.
NICK: Medgar’s death has set everyone on fire. I don’t see how flyers can harness that energy.
VERA: The flyers will motivate people to march or support those that do. We are changing the course now. Can you imagine what we could accomplish with 50,000 new members of the NAACP? I can! We need to continue publicizing the march and organizing transportation. Mary Jane, I want you to work with me on this.
DR HENRY: Keep alert - we know there are still targets on our backs and they are watching our every move. Work in teams.
NICK: How can a march change anything? We all saw what happened in Jackson. The Citizens’ Council was paradin’ through Greenwood.
DR HENRY: The state of Mississippi is stuck in its stubborn, white supremacist ways... but if we get the rest of the nation to slap the beast in its face, the beast has no other choice but to wake up.
BLACK OUT End of Scene
Beautiful Agitators
written by Aallyah Wright, Charles Coleman, Jessica James, Nick Houston and Jennifer Welch
commissioned and produced by StoryWorks, Jennifer Welch, artistic director
Lesson Six Video: Violent vs. Nonviolent Resistance (scene six)
Lesson Six Video: Violent vs. Nonviolent Resistance (scene seven)
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:20.601279
| null |
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/83491/overview",
"title": "StoryWorks: Beautiful Agitators, StoryWorks: Beautiful Agitators Curriculum",
"author": null
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|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/83492/overview
|
COFO Civil Rights Education Center (US National Park Service)
Enterprise-Journal May 14, 1964 COFO Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer Digital Collection: Wisconsin Historical Society
NAACP memo: Aaron Henry
NAACP MS Freedom Brochure 1964
What is COFO?
7. Coalition Building: From COFO to Freedom Summer
Overview
Through the play Beautiful Agitators and accompanying curriculum, students will explore the life of Vera Mae Pigee and the impact of voter suppression.
Beautiful Agitators Lesson Plan: Scene Nine & Scene 10
Standards: Local & national civil rights history, power relations & social justice, Rrelationship between local and national movement, relationship between past and present movement, knowing all of the organizations, acronyms and their perspectives, Freedom Summer
Content Strand 4:
B. Identify and explain the significance of major leaders, groups and events - Freedom Summer
Tactics: Youth participation, intergenerational cooperation, national partnerships & participation, patience & persistence, aligning different political motivations
Counter-tactics: white power structure tactics: intimidation & violence. terror, murder, threats of violence, perversion of the legal system/arrest to intimidate
Time Period: 1964
Leaders: Dr. Aaron E. Henry, Vera Pigee, Clarksdale Chief of Police Ben Collins & Senator Eastland
COFO, NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, CORE
BACKGROUND: Dr. Aaron E. Henry
LESSON: Coalition Building
DR. HENRY: Mississippi has so violently distorted the national dream that these young Americans want to help the hundreds of thousands of us who have been denied the right to vote! Soon the saying will be true. “Hands that pick cotton now can pick our public officials!”
OBJECTIVES:
- Students will recognize the role of Dr. Aaron Henry and the leadership he provided to COFO in order to build the coalition of organizations to support the collective mission of the Freedom Summer campaign.
- Students will identify the goals of Freedom Summer.
Students will be expected to answer the following:
- Who was Dr. Aaron Henry and what was his role in the civil rights movement? (NAACP, COFO)
- Identify the organizations named in the speech delivered by Aaron Henry in the script.
- What was the importance of building a coalition?
- Why is Dr. Aaron Henry working so hard to build unity?
- What was the vision of Freedom Summer?
ACTIVITY: Source Investigators
After reading the scene Aaron Henry Speaks to COFO, students will work in groups to search the digital Freedom Summer archive at Wisconsin History Freed Summer Project. Students will be asked to answer the questions above and support their answers using quotes from the scene and documents they have located in the archives. Students will regroup to discuss their findings and share the primary source documents they chose to utilize.
ACTIVITY: Speech
Building a coalition of allied organizations spanning multiple regions and generations is key to leveraging change. Where can we observe coalition building today? Find a current issue and develop a plan to build a coalition with a specific action or goal in mind. Students will identify potential coalition members by looking carefully at membership demographics, guiding principles and influence. Each group will write a persuasive speech that addresses the groups involved which appeals to a sense of common interest that could help to galvanize the groups and persuade them to work together toward a common goal.
Beautiful Agitators Script: Scene Nine & Scene Ten
Scene Nine
Jackson, Mississippi May 1964
Dr. Aaron Henry addresses The Council of Confederated Organizations (COFO) and announces
Mississippi Freedom Summer.
DR. HENRY : Good Evening COFO and members of the National Council of Churches. I am happy that we are all here tonight. We have in attendance members of the following organizations; the Congress for Racial Equality, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership. Welcome brothers and sisters. (pause) For 250 years the white man acted and the Negro reacted and now the roles are being reversed. The Negro is now acting and the white man is reacting. However, the reaction of the two groups is quite different. We have reacted by using the courts by trying to resort to love and kindness by trying to reach the white man’s heart and overcoming his hostility. The white man’s reaction is a lynch mob, a gun, a bomb, the cross. But regardless of how his reaction continues we are convinced we have enough of what is good to overcome whatever actions that he might try to use to continue to subdue us. (pause) The purpose of tonight’s meeting is to introduce you to the new Mississippi Freedom Summer Initiative. The goals of this initiative are to help the Negro community and convince whites that change is inevitable. Yes, there will be repression and privation that will hover over us. But have no fear - help is on its way. Those students who helped out with the Freedom Vote last year will return with others to participate this summer. We have developed a network and that network is continuing to grow. Our supporters have multiplied to over 1,000! And we have called on them to donate their political and organizational abilities to help us. Bob Moses, Dave Dennis, Hunter Morey and I have been recruiting college students across the country from Harvard to Hawaii. Outside help is vital. (pause) Mississippi has so violently distorted the national dream that these young Americans want to help the hundreds of thousands of us who have been denied the right to vote! Soon the saying will be true. “Hands that pick cotton now can pick our public officials!”
Black Out / End of Scene
Scene Ten
Freedom Summer 1964
The scene opens with Mary Jane on the phone trying to get information about the disappearance of three Freedom Summer volunteers.
MARY JANE: Thank you, I will be sure to call you once I have more information. Good bye.
NICK: What have you heard from neighboring counties?
MARY JANE: Nothing new, nobody wants to say anything over the phone so if you want information you have to travel and most folks are too scared to go far.
NICK: And the jails?
MARY JANE: I’ve called every jail in Mississippi. Nobody has any account of arrests under the names Goodman, Chaney or Schwerner.
NICK: I think we should drive to Longdale to or and find out what’s happening there.
MARY JANE: Do you think there’s any hope? Northerners helping the southern movement are missing. They have the mark of Cain! Nothing good will come from that.
NICK: They can’t be dead Mary Jane. Not yet. They’ll be arrested and held for questioning.
MARY JANE: There’s no gossip. Barely any news coverage! (slight pause) The officials who are supposed to be looking for them, seem pretty content that…“the boys went out for a swim... and drowned.”
NICK: Did they search the river? No! No one’s even looking. (cross to the table next to Mary Jane) Look, we know Mickey, Andrew and Bear left Meridian at noon and made it to Kirkland’s house by one. They all went together to Mount Zion church to look at the fire damage and spend time with the congregation.
MARY JANE: Bud Cole - he told them that the Klan had been looking for Mickey that night and that the blows he took were intended for him. Mickey would have been there too if he hadn’t been working at the Freedom School.
NICK: They never got out of Neshoba County.
(Dr. Henry enters the scene - Door Knocks)
NICK: Dr. Henry, it’s great to see your face. Did you shake up Washington?
DR. HENRY: We got an audience with Bobby Kennedy. Charles Evers, Roy Wilkins and I marched to the Justice Department and they let us in.
MARY JANE: What’d Kennedy have to say?
DR. HENRY: The Attorney General is on our side - as an advisor. He’s ordered the FBI to expedite the search and appointed Allen Dulles to investigate.
NICK: Dulles the former CIA director?
DR. HENRY: Yes. Once he arrives, Charles Evers and I will brief him on the abduction, and the failure of the FBI to effectively assist us. President Johnson will be sending the troops from the Naval Air Station in Meridian to help with the search. The President is making a very loud statement. How are things here Mary Jane?
MARY JANE: The second group of volunteers will be here Sunday and I’m not sure if we are sending any to Neshoba County. I’m making alternate arrangements for them just to be on the safe side.
[Telephone rings. Mary Jane answers -- it's - Vera again]
MARY JANE: Pigee’s Beauty Salon, how can I help you?
VERA: Mary Jane -
MARY JANE:Yes, Mama!
VERA: Is Dr. Henry there yet?
MARY JANE: Yes, he just arrived and we’re ----
VERA: Good. Tell him things are in place. Listen, I have to be quick. They found the station wagon by a swamp off of 491. They’d burned it. They’d burned it! Gov. Johnson has offered to send in the Mississippi National Guard to lead the search. Now, I’ve got to go. I’ll be home late.
MARY JANE: Please be careful Mama. Good bye.
(Hangs up the phone)
NICK: The National Guard! That’s the end of it. Might as well send in the Klan.
DR. HENRY: Senator Eastland will deny any KKK activity.
NICK: Invalidating our movement. Exactly what the Dixiecrats need to fuel their filibuster against the Civil Rights Act. Will the rest of the country believe him?
DR. HENRY: God help us. If we can crack Mississippi we can crack the whole south.
Black Out / End of Scene
Beautiful Agitators
written by Aallyah Wright, Charles Coleman, Jessica James, Nick Houston and Jennifer Welch
commissioned and produced by StoryWorks, Jennifer Welch, artistic director
Lesson Seven Video: Coalition Building: From COFO to Freedom Summer (scene nine)
Lesson Seven Video: Coalition Building: From COFO to Freedom Summer (scene ten)
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:20.640159
| null |
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/83492/overview",
"title": "StoryWorks: Beautiful Agitators, StoryWorks: Beautiful Agitators Curriculum",
"author": null
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/83493/overview
|
Document: LBJ’s Speech to Congress on Voting Rights, March 15, 1965
Document: Senate Roll Call Vote Tally on S. 1564, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, May 26, 1965
Document: Voting Rights Act of 1965
House Vote: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
NAACP's The Crisis Aug.-Sept. 1964
Senate Vote: US Senate: The Senate Passes the Voting Rights Act
The 1965 Enactment of the Voting Rights Act
The Effect of the Voting Rights Act
Video: LBJ's Special Message to the Congress: The American Promise
8. The Voting Rights Act of 1965
Overview
Through the play Beautiful Agitators and accompanying curriculum, students will explore the life of Vera Mae Pigee and the impact of voter suppression.
Beautiful Agitators Lesson Plan: Scene Eleven
Standards: Voting Rights Act, local & national civil rights history, power relations & social justice, relationship between local and national movement, relationship between past and present movement
Content Strand 4:
A. Identify and explain the significance of the major actors, groups and events of the civil rights movement in the mid 20th century in Mississippi (i.e., Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, Dr. T.R.M. Howard, James Meredith, Freedom Rides, Freedom Summer, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, March on Washington, Voting Rights Act, etc)
B. Understand and describe the historical circumstances and conditions that necessitated the development of civil rights and human rights protections and/or activism for various minority groups in Mississippi.
Tactics: Youth participation, intergenerational cooperation, national partnerships & participation, patience & persistence, aligning different political motivations, taking action.
Counter-tactics: Legal vs. interpersonal discrimination
Time Period: 1965
Leaders: Vera Pigee, Mary Jane Pigee, JFK, Lyndon Johnson, Dr. Aaron Henry (Counter movement figure Senator Eastland)
Event: Voting Rights Act of 1965
BACKGROUND:
The passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was one of the most significant developments in legislative change in civil rights history. However, its passage did not end the struggle nor was it the end of the civil rights movement. In the last scene of Beautiful Agitators, Vera Mae Pigee shares a powerful moment with her daughter expressing hopeful relief that the years of sacrifice, dedication and hard work has paved the way for this particular moment while emphasising that the work must go on.
LESSON: The Voting Rights Act of 1965
OBJECTIVES:
- Examine how the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was designed to end barriers to voting on the basis of race.
- Explain how the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed.
- Identify the two major civil rights moments that served as catalysts for the momentum to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
WATCH:
READ: Transcript of Johnson's Special Message to the Congress
READ: Voting Rights Act of 1965
WATCH:
ACTIVITY: Discussion
- What events served as a catalyst for the Voting Rights Act?
- What was the vote count in both the House of Representatives and the Senate?
- How does the vote count reflect what you understand about the civil rights movement and where their efforts were focused?
- What was the function of the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
ACTIVITY: What will YOU do to “catch it yourself”?
READ: Beautiful Agitators Scene 11
REFLECTING ON THE SCRIPT:
VERA: Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. It is our indomitable will that led to this moment.You and the other young people who dedicated themselves to our cause will travel all over the country, furthering your careers in business, education, religion, whatever you choose. Your future success is worth all of the effort, sacrifices, and years of struggling. No longer can the white man decide the height of the star on which a colored person could hitch his social, economic and educational aspirations. Now you can choose the height, width and depth of your own stars. The constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness, Mary Jane, you have to catch it yourself.
Vera Mae is reflecting back on the long road of the struggle. She is looking to the future and dreaming of the potential that may now be open to future generations. She is also imparting a valuable lesson that the struggle is never over and people must continue to be engaged in the struggle to fight against injustice to preserve civil and human rights. She is asking Mary Jane what her vision of the future is and what she is going to do to see to catch that dream.
- Students will identify a civil rights issue that is important to them personally. Students will answer the question "What will you do to catch it for yourselves"?
- Write a monologue, poem, speech, short story, journal entry, action plan, etc. that addresses the issues surrounding your cause and that demonstrates who is impacted by this issue. Explore the struggle surrounding the issue and address the solutions you propose? Ex: Monologue from perspective of disenfranchised voter, spoken word poem/immigration, speech:equitable funding education, etc.
ACTIVITY: Drafting a New Voting Rights Act
Students will work in small groups to submit a list of recommendations for a new Voting Rights Act. Students should provide evidence for their claims and be able to defend their assertions. After working in the small groups, students will come together to share their recommendations. The instructor will facilitate a discussion regarding the recommendations. Students will work together to rank the recommendations and determine a final list. Students will be asked to choose a recommendation they are passionate about and make a plan to reach out to an organization that they can engage with as volunteers. Ex: League of Women Voter- voter registration drive.
Beautiful Agitators Script: Scene Eleven
Scene Eleven
August 6, 1965
Characters: Vera & Mary Jane alone together in the beauty parlor listening to President Johnson's speech announcing the signing of the Voting Rights Act. Vera styles Mary Jane’s hair.
MARY JANE: It’s happening...President Johnson has done it. Finally, we’ve won.
VERA: “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”
MARY JANE: Amen. Mama, just look at where your hard work has brought us. All these years, the trauma, the sacrifice… it wasn’t in vain.
VERA: Mary Jane, Your great - great-grandmother, Alice Matthews was born Monday April 10, 1865. She could not read or write and did not remember all of the details about Lee surrendering Sunday April 9, 1865; but she knew her mother told her she was born the first day after surrender. She told me “I am white because my father was a white southern cotton plantation owner of Negro slaves and my mother was a pretty black girl who was his property. (beat) We are the bi-product of a white man’s wishes, but we are not the courier of his demons."I will be the first to admit it was difficult to set those demons aside and pursue our nonviolent movement. I held the words of Gandhi close to me when I felt weak. Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. It is our indomitable will that led to this moment.You and the other young people who dedicated themselves to our cause will travel all over the country, furthering your careers in business, education, religion, whatever you choose. Your future success is worth all of the effort, sacrifices, and years of struggling. No longer can the white man decide the height of the star on which a colored person could hitch his social, economic and educational aspirations. Now you can choose the height, width and depth of your own stars. The constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness, Mary Jane, you have to catch it yourself.
End of Play
Beautiful Agitators
written by Aallyah Wright, Charles Coleman, Jessica James, Nick Houston and Jennifer Welch
commissioned and produced by StoryWorks, Jennifer Welch, artistic director
Lesson Eight Video: The Voting Rights Act of 1965
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:20.676915
| null |
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/83493/overview",
"title": "StoryWorks: Beautiful Agitators, StoryWorks: Beautiful Agitators Curriculum",
"author": null
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/120307/overview
|
Natural Disasters
Environmental Education
Overview
This ILP includes different activities and tasks directed to 7th grade students who are L2 (English) learners. In this lesson, students from high school cycle will not only improve their language skills: writing, speaking, listening, but also develop a deeper awareness of climate change and its impact on the world.
Introduction
This ILP device will help students build the language tools they need to discuss environmental issues, express their opinions, and consider what actions can be taken to protect the planet. This approach ensures that students learn in a way that is both meaningful and relevant to their lives, while also improving their language skills.
The different activities presented here are designed to help the learner to understand vocabulary and improve their competences through this specific topic.
Competences and ICT goals
| Reading (A1) |
|
| Writing (A1) |
|
| Listening (A1) |
|
- ICT goals:
| Technological competence | Incorporating technological competence into a lesson plan about environmental education can enhance students' understanding of this vital global issue. Objective: Students will develop technological competence by utilizing digital tools and resources to research and analyze the impacts about this topic. They will engage in activities such as creating presentations, using interactive platforms for collaboration, and accessing reliable online information about environmental issues. |
| Communicative competence | Incorporating communicative competence from the Colombian ICT framework can help students effectively convey and share their knowledge about this topic. Objective: Students will develop communicative competence by using various digital communication tools and methods to convey information about the environmental and social impacts of it. They will engage in activities such as discussions and presentations to enhance their understanding and collaboration. |
| Pedagogical competence | Incorporating pedagogical competence from the Colombian ICT framework can enhance the teaching and learning process related to environmental education. Objective: Students will develop pedagogical competence by applying various teaching methods and digital resources to explore climate change. This includes project-based learning, interactive discussions, and the use of multimedia tools to foster collaboration among peers. |
Ice Breaker Task
Word Search
In this activity, you will learn some key vocabulary related to climate change.
Instructions
- Click on the following link: here #1.
- Complete the word search with the words shown.
- Be careful! This activity is limited time (10 minutes).
Pre-Activity Task
Read and Underline
''My Daily Actions for the Environment''
In this activity you will read a short text about the daily actions of a character who helps combat climate change.
Instructions
- Make groups of 4 people.
- Read the text.
- Underline the sentences in the present simple tense.
While Activity Task
Writing Section
''Natural Disasters''
In this activity you will write sentences using ''should'' and ''shouldn't''.
Instructions
- Read each paragraph.
- Make 5 sentences using ''should'' or ''shouldn't' for each paragraph.
Post Activity Task
Listening Section
In this activity you will listen a short audio and fill in the blanks according to the vocabulary taught during the lesson.
Instructions
- Click the link to enter the video.
- Listen carefully.
- Fill in the blanks.
Final Assessment
True or False!
Finally, in this section you will find a true or false game where you can prove how much you have learned in this lesson.
Click the link to enter the ''true or false game''
Authors
- Issabela Andrade Cuenca
- Salome Suarez Salcedo
- Juan Sebastian Tovar Pascuas
- David Santiago Trujillo Cortes
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:20.707286
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Santiago Trujillo
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/120307/overview",
"title": "Environmental Education",
"author": "Lesson"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/73953/overview
|
PA Career Zone Interest Inventory
Overview
Middle and High School educators across Lebanon County, Pennsylvania developed lesson plans to integrate the Pennsylvania Career Education and Work Standards with the content they teach. This work was made possible through a partnership between the South Central PA Workforce Investment Board (SCPa Works) and Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit 13 (IU13) and was funded by a Teacher in the Workplace Grant Award from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. This lesson plan was developed by one of the talented educators who participated in this project during the 2019-2020 school year.
Title of Lesson: PA Career Zone Interest Inventory
Course Name: Counseling
Grade Level: 10
Author’s Name: Nick Shewell
Author’s School District: Northern Lebanon
| ASCA Academic Standards for School Counseling | |
C:A1.3 - Develop an awareness of personal abilities, skills, interests, and motivations C:B2.1 - Demonstrate awareness of the education and training needed to achieve career goals C:C1.1 - Identify personal preferences which influence career choices and success | |
| PA Academic Standards for Career Education and Work | |
13.1: Career Awareness and Preparation 13.1.11.A - Relate careers to individual interests, abilities, and aptitudes. 13.1.11.B - Analyze career options based on personal interests, abilities, aptitudes, achievements, and goals. 13.1.11.H - Review personal high school plan against the current personal career goals and select post-secondary opportunities based upon personal career interests. | |
| Learning Objectives | |
This lesson will teach students how to explore career options using information from pacareerzone.org. The following objectives will be completed during the lesson:
| |
| Conceptual Background | |
| With a quick review of www.pacareerzone.org and the Interest Profiler activity, any educator/staff personnel would be able to conduct this lesson. This is mostly a student-guided activity in which the electronic Interest Profiler questions roll nicely into the formative assessment. | |
| Instructional Procedure | |
| Pacing | Instructional Procedure |
| 10 minutes | Introduction of www.pacareerzone.org and the many tools the website has to offer. |
| 15 minutes | Students answer the questions associated with the Interest Profiler. |
| 10 minutes | Students will review the results of their Interest Profiler and complete the accompanying worksheet. |
| 7 minutes | Debrief as a class. Was anyone surprised by their results? Did anyone find a career they will look into a little deeper? |
| Formative Assessment | |
10th Grade – Interest Profiler
| |
| Materials Needed | |
| |
| References | |
| Pennsylvania CareerZone. (n.d.) Retrieved November 25, 2019, from https://www.pacareerzone.org/. |
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:20.729227
|
NICHOLAS SHEWELL
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/73953/overview",
"title": "PA Career Zone Interest Inventory",
"author": "Rachael Haverstick"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/62258/overview
|
Social Studies Rubric - Extended Version (Landscape Mode)
Social Studies Rubric - Short Form
Washington Quality Review Rubric for Social Studies
Overview
Use this rubric to review lessons and units with respect to the Washington State Social Studies Learning Standards and the Washington ELA and Literacy in History/Social Studies Standards.
Washington Quality Review Rubric for Social Studies
The purpose of this rubric is to measure the alignment and overall quality of lessons and units with respect to the Washington State Social Studies Learning Standards and the Washington ELA and Literacy in History/Social Studies Standards. This rubric also evaluates lessons and units for integration with the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework. The rubric is divided into four dimensions:
- Alignment to Standards
- Teaching Strategies
- Instructional Supports
- Assessment
This rubric IS designed to evaluate:
- Lessons that include activities and assessments that may extend over a few periods or days
- Units that include integrated and focused lessons that extend over a longer period of time
This rubric IS NOT designed to evaluate:
- Single tasks or stand-alone activities
Two Versions:
- Extended Version - best used collaboratively with larger units or modules or in service of the intended uses outlined below.
- Short Form- best for individual educators looking to evaluate a supplemental resource.
Intended Uses:
- Review existing lessons and units to determine what revisions or supplements are needed
- Inform the development of new lessons and units
- Build the capacity of educators to evaluate and improve the quality of instructional materials for use in their classrooms and schools.
Recommendations:
To apply this rubric, an understanding of the following resources is needed:
- Washington State Social Studies Learning Standards
- Washington State ELA and Literacy in History/Social Studies Standards (Common Core)
- C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards
Additional Resources
Social Studies
- Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction - Social Studies
- Washington State Social Studies Laws/Regulations
- Social Studies Group on the OER Commons Washington Hub
- C3 Resources from the C3 Literacy Collaborative
- Washington State Council for the Social Studies
- Since Time Immemorial: Tribal Sovereignty in Washington State
- Ethnic Studies (coming soon)
English Language Arts
- Navigating Text Complexity – Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
- Academic Vocabulary – Which Words Do I Teach and How?
We express our gratitude to all the educators involved in the adaptation of this rubric. Without their support and expertise in the field of Social Studies, this resource would not be possible. This work was funded through a grant from the Washington State OER Project and administered by Educational Service District 105
Cover image by artistlike from Pixabay
Version 3.0
updated 1/31/2020
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:20.763858
|
Physical Geography
|
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/62258/overview",
"title": "Washington Quality Review Rubric for Social Studies",
"author": "History"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/101755/overview
|
Grade 10 Interdisciplinary Science and Health Opioid Prevention Lesson
Overview
Being able to ask important questions and discover their answers through critical thinking and utilization of available data and information are important and useful skills in health education, science education, and in life. This lesson begins that process with a focus on health topics, particularly substance use/misuse/abuse and mental health, however, the science and engineering practices identified in this lesson transcend into other science disciplines. This lesson focuses on the development of important questions and then analyzing/locating sources of information to help answer those questions.
Grade 10 lessons (Science & Health Education)
Oregon Department of Education
Opioid Prevention Lessons - Grade 10
Lesson 1
Lesson 2
Lesson 3
Grade 10 Assessment
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:20.786426
|
Physical Science
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/101755/overview",
"title": "Grade 10 Interdisciplinary Science and Health Opioid Prevention Lesson",
"author": "Life Science"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/89731/overview
|
Kindness
Overview
Kindness reflection activity and discussion. Great for mental health awareness, health care empathy, and class discussion. Works for a variety of classes and age groups.
Kindness activity
This kindness activity could be used in a variety of classes and age groups. This could be used as an individual activity and then used in a socrative circle. Mental health is so important for students to understand and talk openly about. This activity can open the door for discussion.
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:20.803872
|
02/02/2022
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/89731/overview",
"title": "Kindness",
"author": "Krista Tressa"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/95091/overview
|
Team Building Activities for a Diverse Classroom
Overview
These activities in team building exercies will help students develop skills in thoughtfullness. The more students do these type of team building activities they develop a higher mental collaboration. This helps students improve communication and social skills.
Elementary Team Building Activities
Divide students into groups by having them count off. Give each group a set of character cards for their 5 minute skit.
Learning Outcome: All students in a diverse classroom will be challenged to work together and problem solve activities.
Teacher Planning: Literature activity unit lesson taught over a period of a few days. Create a Harry Potter themed classroom.
Information Handout On Unit
- Transform the classroom to mimic Hogwarts school of witchcraft
- Divide students into groups. Each group reciving a specific color of construction paper to make a wizzard hat and wand.
- Each person is given an index card with a Harry Potter character name and the team prepares a 5 minute skit on witch craft and wizzardrey.
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:20.821774
|
07/11/2022
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/95091/overview",
"title": "Team Building Activities for a Diverse Classroom",
"author": "Laura Baker"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/98039/overview
|
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Follow an inquiry-based process in seeking knowledge in curricular subjects, and make the real-world connection for using this process in own life.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Find, evaluate, and select appropriate sources to answer questions.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Read, view, and listen for information presented in any format (e.g., textual, visual, media, digital) in order to make inferences and gather meaning.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Demonstrate mastery of technology tools for accessing information and pursuing inquiry.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Display initiative and engagement by posing questions and investigating the answers beyond the collection of superficial facts.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Demonstrate confidence and self-direction by making independent choices in the selection of resources and information.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Demonstrate creativity by using multiple resources and formats.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Maintain a critical stance by questioning the validity and accuracy of all information.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Demonstrate adaptability by changing the inquiry focus, questions, resources, or strategies when necessary to achieve success.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Display emotional resilience by persisting in information searching despite challenges.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Display persistence by continuing to pursue information to gain a broad perspective.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Respect copyright/intellectual property rights of creators and producers.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Follow ethical and legal guidelines in gathering and using information.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Contribute to the exchange of ideas within the learning community.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Use information technology responsibly.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Monitor own information-seeking processes for effectiveness and progress, and adapt as necessary.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Use interaction with and feedback from teachers and peers to guide own inquiry process.
Learning Domain: Inquiry, Critical Thinking, and Knowledge Acquisition
Standard: Seek appropriate help when it is needed.
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:20.859076
|
10/18/2022
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/98039/overview",
"title": "African American Biography Research - Elementary",
"author": "Cim Gillam"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/111187/overview
|
ECHOES - Toolkit
Overview
Are you a teacher, trainer or mentor involved in distance learning and digital learning processes?
Are you looking for tools that allow you to create digital content easily and effectively?
How can you connect with colleagues and students in your organization? How to organize and structure training effectively and actively involve your students in the learning process?
Do you need to monitor learning progress and provide feedback digitally?
The ECHOES Toolkit is designed to support the implementation of online training interventions within Vocational Education and Training (VET) systems.
Content
AREA 01 - Professional engagement
- 01.1.1 Microsoft Teams
- 01.1.2 ClickUp
- 01.1.3 Zoom
- 01.1.4 Google Meet
- 01.1.5 Rocket.Chat
- 01.1.6 Cisco Webex Team
- 01.1.7 Brosix
- 01.1.8 Pumble
- 01.1.9 Chanty
- ----------------------------------------
- 01.2.1 Google Drive
- 01.2.2 Microsoft OneDrive
- 01.2.3 Dropbox
- 01.2.4 Sync.com
- 01.2.5 Amazon Drive
- ----------------------------------------
- 01.3.1 Digital Online Learning
- 01.3.2 e-Learning
- 01.3.3 Mobile Learning
- 01.3.4 Micro Learning
- 02.1.1 ADDIE MODEL
- 02.1.2 SAM MODEL
- --------------------------
- 02.2.1 Canva
- 02.2.2 Genial.ly
- 02.2.3 Edpuzzle
- 02.2.4 Infogram
AREA 03 - Teaching and learning
AREA 01 - Professional Engagement
The area of Professional Engagement focuses on the ability of education professionals to use digital technologies not only to improve teaching, but also to increase their abilities to interact professionally with colleagues, students, members of learning communities and others interested parties, thus promoting their professional development and access to innovation.
This Area is made up of three Sub-Areas, which concern the acquisition of specific skills and competences in the areas of communication, collaboration and professional development.
Based on the real needs expressed by VET professionals in the framework of the ECHOES project, the following Sub-Areas of skills improvement have been identified. For each Sub-Area, the available tools (orange colour) and methodologies (blue colour) are therefore presented.
01.1.1 - Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams allows you to stay connected and access shared content at any time to learn, plan and innovate, share your screen, use “together” mode to be virtually in the same space, make and receive calls, voice messages, easily find, share and edit files in real time using apps like Word, PowerPoint and Excel, share one-to-one or group chats.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English Microsoft Teams EN
- German Microsoft Teams DE
- Italian Microsoft Teams IT
- Slovenian Microsoft Teams SL
- Spanish Microsoft Teams ES
01.1.2 - ClickUp
ClickUp is a project management software that brings together the functionality of different applications; therefore, you don't need to have as many tools to do the same job. It offers a wide range of features: design, monitoring, collaboration with third parties in interactive documents. The different views allow you to monitor the progress of each project.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English ClickUp EN
- German ClickUp DE
- Italian ClickUp IT
- Slovenian ClickUp SL
- Spanish ClickUp ES
01.1.3 - Zoom
Zoom is a downloadable application for both computers and smartphones, its main function is to create real-time video conferences between two or more participants. The app allows you to schedule meetings (bilaterally or in groups), live chat between users, share screens, files and record sessions for later viewing.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
01.1.4 - Google Meet
Google Meet is a tool for organizing virtual meetings in a very simple way. These meetings have meeting codes, unique passwords that are created for each video call. This is a secure method, as only users with the code will have access to meetings. Anyone with a Google account can create an online meeting with up to 100 participants and 60 minutes per session.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English Google Meet EN
- German Google Meet DE
- Italian Google Meet IT
- Slovenian Google Meet SL
- Spanish Google Meet ES
01.1.5 - Rocket.Chat
Rocket.Chat is an open-source team communication and collaboration platform with live chat, video and audio conferencing, file sharing, message translation, and more. In a group or one-to-one environment, it allows users to create channels and conversations for collaboration. Its open-source nature means that users can join the community and develop their own custom features, plugins and integrations to produce a solution that suits their needs
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English Rocket.Chat EN
- German Rocket.Chat DE
- Italian Rocket.Chat IT
- Slovenian Rocket.Chat SL
- Spanish Rocket.Chat ES
01.1.6 - Cisco Webex Team
Cisco Webex Teams offers unlimited and secure "virtual rooms" for collaboration, even in teams. Those who access the "virtual room" can send messages, share files, manage encryption keys, view files instantly without downloading them, review messages and file history so everyone can stay updated, participate and collaborate from their mobile device , from your computer or browser.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English Cisco Webex Team EN
- German Cisco Webex Team DE
- Italian Cisco Webex Team IT
- Slovenian Cisco Webex Team SL
- Spanish Cisco Webex Team ES
01.1.7 - Brosix
Brosix is recommended for those who are looking for a solution capable of offering advanced protection in communication processes. The closed network and P2P encryption ensure communications confidentiality and data protection. In fact, it includes advanced applications and features, such as the configuration and management of private computer networks, control of user roles, etc.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
01.1.8 - Pumble
Pumble is a free application that enables collaboration between teams of any size. Unlike other similar apps, it offers the ability to have unlimited users, unlimited chat history, administrative tools for users and workspaces, and web support for free. It is available on all platforms, mainly as a browser application, but is also accessible on desktop and mobile.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
01.1.9 - Chanty
Chanty is a communication platform that aims to facilitate teamwork, improve collaboration and productivity. Allows you to make calls, organize meetings and exchange files. Enable screen sharing during video calls. It allows you to organize tasks via messages: a Kanban board allows you to view them in rows and columns and set deadlines for their execution.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
01.2.1 - Google Drive
Google Drive aims to make file sharing easier. Storage, sharing and collaboration on files and folders can be activated via mobile device, tablet or computer. Allows multiple users to collaborate on processing and editing files simultaneously.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English Google Drive EN
- German Google Drive DE
- Italian Google Drive IT
- Slovenian Google Drive SL
- Spanish Google Drive ES
01.2.2 - Microsoft OneDrive
Microsoft OneDrive aims to support archiving processes, offering a secure and accessible solution. It offers connection and interoperability between different devices, to simplify document management and processing. It offers users free cloud storage. It is also characterized as a data backup solution. It offers advanced features, such as document scanning with OCR technology and integration with Office apps (Word, Excel and PowerPoint).
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English Microsoft OneDrive EN
- German Microsoft OneDrive DE
- Italian Microsoft OneDrive IT
- Slovenian Microsoft OneDrive SL
- Spanish Microsoft OneDrive ES
01.2.3 - Dropbox
Dropbox is a cloud storage service that allows users to store files securely online and access them virtually anywhere with an Internet connection. Beyond simple storage, Dropbox offers a variety of features designed to make file syncing, sharing, and collaboration between workgroup members easier. You don't need to have a Dropbox account to access your shared files and folders.
Dropbox allows granular control over access in edit or read mode.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English Dropbox EN
- German Dropbox DE
- Italian Dropbox IT
- Slovenian Dropbox SL
- Spanish Dropbox ES
01.2.4 Sync.com
Sync.com is a cloud-based file storage and sharing platform that includes tools for sending and receiving files, organizing folders, previewing documents, backing up files, and controlling user permissions. It offers free 5GB storage and unlimited file uploads.
With its zero-knowledge encryption and HIPAA compliance, Sync.com offers high privacy standards and unlimited data storage plans.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English Sync.com EN
- German Sync.com DE
- Italian Sync.com IT
- Slovenian Sync.com SL
- Spanish Sync.com ES
01.2.5 - Amazon Drive
Amazon Drive is a secure cloud storage service for the most common files. You can upload, download, preview and share files, including photos and videos.
It integrates with other Amazon services, such as Amazon Photos, which allows users to store and manage their photo collections, and with other services and devices available in the Amazon ecosystem, such as Kindle e-readers and Fire tablets.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English Amazon Drive EN
- German Amazon Drive DE
- Italian Amazon Drive IT
- Slovenian Amazon Drive SL
- Spanish Amazon Drive ES
01.3.1 - Digital Online Learning
Online digital learning refers to the use of digital technologies and the Internet to deliver educational content.
It includes online courses, webinars, virtual classrooms and interactive multimedia resources.
The learning process usually occurs synchronously: the trainer and the student interact instantly on the same platform or digital resource.
Students can access the training from anywhere, using an Internet connection. The contents are structured to host multimedia elements, quizzes and discussion forums to facilitate online interaction and collaboration processes.
ECHOES homepage
- English Digital Online Learning EN
- German Digital Online Learning DE
- Italian Digital Online Learning IT
- Slovenian Digital Online Learning SL
- Spanish Digital Online Learning ES
01.3.2 - e-Learning
e-Learning, or electronic learning, is a term generically associated with the creation of online courses and training programs delivered through digital platforms (Learning Management System, LMS).
The learning process can occur synchronously or asynchronously. The trainer and the learner communicate and interact through a digital learning platform.
While online digital learning can include a wider range of digital resources, e-learning tends to be more structured and integrated into formal courses or training programs. It often involves reference to a curriculum and systematic assessment.
ECHOES homepage
- English e-Learning EN
- German e-Learning DE
- Italian e-Learning IT
- Slovenian e-Learning SL
- Spanish e-Learning ES
01.3.3 Mobile Learning
Mobile Learning is a training approach focused on the use of mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to deliver training content and facilitate learning. In the context of VET, Mobile Learning offers a flexible and accessible tool for the transfer of knowledge and skills.
Mobile Learning is often used to deliver training content structured in thematically focused and short-term teaching units. This approach favours: the personalization of learning pathways; rapid updating of skills; the creation of blended learning paths; the involvement of learners.
ECHOES homepage
- English Mobile Learning EN
- German Mobile Learning DE
- Italian Mobile Learning IT
- Slovenian Mobile Learning SL
- Spanish Mobile Learning ES
01.3.4 Micro Learning
Micro-learning consists of a training approach that provides content organized into small, focused and easily assimilable units. These units, often called "microlessons," are designed to address specific learning objectives that can be achieved in a short amount of time. In the context of VET, microlearning is used to impart targeted, practical and immediately applicable knowledge and skills.
Micro-learning content is short and concise, typically lasting a few minutes or even a few seconds. The contents are highly specific. Micro-learning is recommended whenever you intend to promote targeted learning, avoiding providing excess content. It therefore supports continuous learning.
ECHOES homepage
- English Micro Learning EN
- German Micro Learning DE
- Italian Micro Learning IT
- Slovenian Micro Learning SL
- Spanish Micro Learning ES
AREA 02 - Digital Resources
The Digital Resources Area refers to the skills necessary to: effectively identify the resources that best suit the learning objectives, also in relation to the class group and the teaching approach; structure materials and teaching resources; create connections between topics, modify and personalize digital resources according to the expected learning outcomes.
This Area is made up of several Sub-Areas, which relate to the specific skills and abilities that online training professionals should possess to: use and manage digital content effectively and responsibly, including compliance with copyright regulations; edit and share digital assets; protect sensitive content and data (for example, learning tests and related results).
02.1.1 - ADDIE MODEL
The ADDIE model is a systems approach for designing and developing training and learning programs. The acronym ADDIE represents five key phases: Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation. During the analysis, training needs are identified and objectives are defined. In the planning phase, the training plan is developed and teaching resources are designed. The development phase involves the actual creation of training materials. The implementation of the training program takes place in a physical or virtual (online) environment. In the evaluation phase, a judgment is expressed on the effectiveness of the program and future improvements are outlined. The ADDIE is a flexible and widely used model in the field of training and education.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English ADDIE MODEL EN
- German ADDIE MODEL DE
- Italian ADDIE MODEL IT
- Slovenian ADDIE MODEL SL
- Spanish ADDIE MODEL ES
02.1.2 - SAM MODEL
The SAM model (Successive Approximation Model) is an iterative and collaborative approach for developing courses and educational materials. Unlike other traditional models, it promotes agile design and development. It is divided into eight phases that develop cyclically: "Agile Planning", "Analysis", "Design", "Development", "Iterative Design", "Iterative Development", "Review" and "Wrap-up". This model places an emphasis on continuous stakeholder engagement and the ability to make changes and improvements throughout the development process, making it particularly suitable for projects that require flexibility, rapid response, and constant interaction with end users. The SAM model, building on interaction and engagement, aims to reduce the risks of costly errors and improve the overall quality of learning materials through iterative and cyclical review.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English SAM MODEL EN
- German SAM MODEL DE
- Italian SAM MODEL IT
- Slovenian SAM MODEL SL
- Spanish SAM MODEL ES
02.2.1 - Canva
Canva is a graphic design and image composition website for communication that offers online tools to create your own projects, both for leisure and professional use. It offers a freemium service, which you can use for free, but with the alternative of paying for advanced options. It has over 8,000 free templates for 100 types of designs. It also allows you to create designs from scratch, through an interface with which you can move the composition menu items with the mouse.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
02.2.2 Genial.ly
Genial.ly is an online platform and media creation tool that allows users to design and create interactive and visually engaging presentations, infographics, interactive images, posters, and other types of multimedia content. It provides a wide range of professionally designed templates that users can customize to create their own content. You can include clickable elements, animations, pop-ups, links to external content and even quizzes or polls to engage your audience. Genial.ly allows you to integrate various multimedia elements, such as images, videos, audio, and even 3D models.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English Genial.ly EN
- German Genial.ly DE
- Italian Genial.ly IT
- Slovenian Genial.ly SL
- Spanish Genial.ly ES
02.2.3 Edpuzzle
Edpuzzle is an online platform that allows trainers and educators to create interactive quizzes and video-based learning activities. Teachers can select videos from sources like YouTube or upload their own videos and then add questions, comments and interactions directly within the video. This tool promotes active learning by allowing students to answer questions while the video is playing, receiving immediate feedback. Edpuzzle offers an intuitive and effective way to improve the online learning experience, monitor student progress and evaluate their understanding of learning content.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English Edpuzzle EN
- German Edpuzzle DE
- Italian Edpuzzle IT
- Slovenian Edpuzzle SL
- Spanish Edpuzzle ES
02.2.4 - Infogram
Infogram is an interactive online charting and infographic creation platform, designed to simplify data visualization and visual communication. Users can use intuitive tools to easily create charts, maps, tables, and other visual representations of data, adding text, images, and interactive elements to make information more engaging and effective. Infogram is widely used in business, journalism, and education to transform complex data into engaging visual stories, allowing users to effectively share clear, meaningful information with their audiences.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English Infogram EN
- German Infogram DE
- Italian Infogram IT
- Slovenian Infogram SL
- Spanish Infogram ES
AREA 03 - Teaching and Learning
The Teaching and Learning Area is focused on the ability of trainers and educators to outline and organize, in relation to the specific competence framework and the chosen strategy, the efficient use of digital technologies in the different phases of the training process.
This Area, composed of a single Sub-Area, contains the specific skills and competences that training professionals should acquire to improve the effectiveness of training and interact, individual or in gruoup, with students.
03.1.1 - Miro
Miro is an application for developing remote team workflows, through an infinite virtual whiteboard. A collaborative space for groups, configured for projects, where it is possible to save whiteboards and/or panels, jointly called "boards".
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
03.1.2 - Flip
Flip (Flipgrid) is a free video discussion app from Microsoft for sharing short videos and participating in a community. By creating a Group, you can invite students by sending a membership code or uploading from the Google Classroom list.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
03.1.3 - Kialo
Kialo is a free online platform for trainers and educators, specifically designed for online reasoned debate and to support critical thinking development processes in learners. The platform is free to use for trainers/teachers all over the world and can be integrated with other online educational systems. Kialo Edu is a user-friendly tool; discussions can be held in any language and on any topic.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
AREA 04 - Assessment
The Assessment area is focus on the educators’ ability to analyse and interpret the wide range of data available on each individual learner’s learning behaviour and use it to help make decisions, consider how digital technologies can enhance existing assessment strategies and create or facilitate innovative assessment approaches.
This area is composed by different subareas, focus on specific skills and competences education professionals should work on to build their ability adapting teaching strategies and to provide targeted support, based on the evidence generated by the digital technologies used and enabling learners and parents to understand the evidence provided by digital technologies and use it for decision-making.
Based on the real needs experienced by VET professionals in the framework of the ECHOES project, the following sub-area for improvement has been identified. For this purpose, in the ECHOES Toolkit for Extended Classrooms for Higher Opportunities Enhancing Skills you will find a series of tools and tricks for their application in this journey using digital technologies to provide targeted and timely feedback to learners.
04.1.1 - Google Classroom
Google Classroom is a tool designed exclusively for the educational world. Its mission is to enable collaborative classroom management via the Internet, being a platform for learning management. Allows the management of online lessons, including blended ones. Google Classroom allows you to create documents, share information and data, and hold virtual meetings. Trainers and students can access their "classes", notes, assigned tasks, etc. from any device
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English Google classroom EN
- German Google classroom DE
- Italian Google classroom IT
- Slovenian Google classroom SL
- Spanish Google classroom ES
04.1.2 - TopWorkSheets
TopWorksheets is a platform where you can create and manage self-grading interactive worksheets. Students can complete these worksheets online, get their results immediately, and send their answers to their teacher.
Interactive worksheets allow you to incorporate multimedia technologies such as audio, video and voice recordings. A library with thousands of worksheets created by other teachers is available for free.
TopWorksheets allows you to automatically receive answers to questions, to examine and evaluate works, obtaining real-time processing and statistics.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English TopWorkSheets EN
- German TopWorkSheets DE
- Italian TopWorkSheets IT
- Slovenian TopWorkSheets SL
- Spanish TopWorkSheets ES
04.1.3 - Open Badges
Open Badges are digital certificates (or badges) issued to learners of training courses who have acquired a specific set of skills, or to certify the results achieved or their participation. They can serve as "proof" of learning achieved, courses completed, or further educational outcomes. The badges therefore serve to recognize learning. They can be used in many sectors: work, school, leisure. There are a number of free platforms available for designing open badges, such as Canva, Accredible, Openbadges.me, or RedCritter.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English Open Badges EN
- German Open Badges DE
- Italian Open Badges IT
- Slovenian Open Badges SL
- Spanish Open Badges ES
AREA 05 - Empowering Learners
The Area refers to the knowledge and skills that Training professionals must possess to effectively use learner-centered pedagogical strategies online and aimed at: increasing students' active involvement in the learning process; experiment with new options or solutions; understand connections and invent creative solutions.
This Area, composed of a single Sub-Area, contains the specific skills and competences that VET professionals should acquire to improve the active participation and involvement of learners in learning processes.
05.1.1 - Kahoot
Kahoot is a gamified social education web service. Kahoot behaves like a game: it awards a prize to those who make progress in learning and to those who acquire the highest scores in tests. Anyone can create a gaming table, called Kahoot. Once created, players can join it by entering a PIN code in the mobile application. In this way, the mobile phone becomes a remote control with which you can answer questions. The questions appear on the screen from time to time and the scores and rankings are reported.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
05.1.2 - OpenBoard
OpenBoard is an open source, cross-platform learning software. It can be used with interactive whiteboards and via dual-screen setups with a pen-tablet display and a beamer.
OpenBoard allows, in the context of distance learning, to record video lessons (podcasts) and conduct interactive lessons using the whiteboard. Supported platforms are Windows (7+), macOS (10.9+), and Linux.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English OpenBoard EN
- German OpenBoard DE
- Italian OpenBoard IT
- Slovenian OpenBoard SL
- Spanish OpenBoard ES
AREA 06 - Facilitating Learners Digital Competence
The Area contains a selection of techniques and tools that can be used by trainers and professionals of distance and online VET systems to improve the knowledge and skills of learners in the following areas: retrieval of information and resources to be used in digital learning environments; effective and responsible use of digital technologies for communication, collaboration and participation; application of digital technologies and resources for problem solving or creative application.
06.1.1 - Google Classroom
Google Classroom is a tool that can be used to simplify a large number of communication processes relevant to learning. Google Classroom allows for increased interaction between teachers and students. Through the application of the "flipped classroom", Google Classroom allows you to invert the classroom, allowing the active participation of students in the learning processes: in fact, question/answer, discussion, exploration, concepts and application of ideas functions are available.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English Google Classroom EN
- German Google Classroom DE
- Italian Google Classroom IT
- Slovenian Google Classroom SL
- Spanish Google Classroom ES
06.1.2 - Trello
Trello is an application that helps organize, coordinate and monitor work, through the creation and management of "boards" available online. It is easy to use and facilitates collaboration between team members or between them and third parties.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
06.1.3 - wrike
Wrike is a cloud-based collaboration and project management tool. In addition to its general project management application, Wrike offers custom software and team features with pre-configured templates by task, by workflow, and by communication type. It provides a centralized database of information, digital assets and workflows. Users, who access through different levels of permissions, have an intuitive and easy-to-use dashboard.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
06.1.4 - INVIDEO.AI
InVideo AI is a free editing tool that makes video creation easy. It uses advanced AI algorithms to automate video creation tasks, making it easy for anyone to develop and edit videos via text input. InVideo.AI generates the script, creates scenes and adds voices. The user has many available templates to choose from text boxes, animations, stickers and overlays.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
- English INVIDEO.AI EN
- German INVIDEO.AI DE
- Italian INVIDEO.AI IT
- Slovenian INVIDEO.AI SL
- Spanish INVIDEO.AI ES
06.1.5 - LUMEN5
Lumen5 is an AI-based tool that create videos to accompany written content. Users can insert a link to an article or blog post, or write text, and Lumen5 will turn the text into a video. Users can then refine the video by adding music, inserting new photos and changing the format.
Company homepage
ECHOES homepage
Disclaimer
This project is funded by the European Commission through the Erasmus+ Programme.
Project Ref: 2021-1-IT01-KA220-VET-000033244.
This open educational resources reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:20.983987
|
Martin Mitterer
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/111187/overview",
"title": "ECHOES - Toolkit",
"author": "Thomas Kreuzer"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/72416/overview
|
Construction and Standardization of Achievement Test
Overview
This resoursce includes the different steps of construction and standardization of achievement test. This content is very muh helpful for the undergraduate, postgraduate and research scholars.
Construction
An achievement test is used to ascertain what any how much has been learnt or how well a task can be performed, the focus is on evaluation of the past without reference to the future, except for the implicit assumption that acquired skills and knowledge will be useful in their own right in the future
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:21.002174
|
09/12/2020
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/72416/overview",
"title": "Construction and Standardization of Achievement Test",
"author": "Dr. Parmvir Singh Sandhu"
}
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/86251/overview
|
Digital Curriculum scope and sequence, k-6th
Overview
Scope & sequence developed by librarians in Snohomish.
Includes:
- How computers work and digital tools
- Balance and online safety
- Evaluating resources
Scope & sequence developed by librarians in Snohomish.
Includes:
- How computers work and digital tools
- Balance and online safety
- Evaluating resources
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:21.019019
|
Washington OSPI OER Project
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/86251/overview",
"title": "Digital Curriculum scope and sequence, k-6th",
"author": "shaelynn charvet bates"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/105168/overview
|
Phonological Awareness
Overview
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear the separate sounds, or phonemes, in words. Phonemic awareness is a purely oral understanding and deals only with sounds – not letters. As soon as letters are introduced, we call it “phonics”. A more over-arching term is “phonological awareness”, which includes an awareness of parts of speech larger than phonemes – syllables and words for instance. Research has shown that Phonological Awareness develops in a hierarchical manner, with the ability to complete some skills necessarily preceding others.
Phonological Awareness Interventions
Phonological Awareness Interventions:
In general, phonological awareness develops in this order:
- Preparatory activities – students develop listening habits and tune in to sounds
- Rhyme awareness
- Phoneme awareness
- Segmenting – the ability to:
- segment sentences into words
- segment words into syllables
- segment words into sounds
- Blending – the ability to:
- blend syllables into words
- blend sounds into words
- Manipulation – the ability to:
- delete syllables from words
- substitute syllables in words
- delete sounds from words
- substitute sounds in words
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention - Awareness of Gross Differences
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Source or adapted from Voyager U Reading Academy
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Materials: none needed
Instructions for administration:
This phonological awareness skill involves both word and sound discrimination. Children are asked to determine if two words or sounds are the same or different. Or, given the choice of three, children might be asked to identify the word or sound that is different.
Introduce the Task:
I will say two words. Listen to the words and tell me if the words are the same or different. If I said cat-hug, you would say the words were different.
Present the Activity:
Now you try some.
Set 1
1. pet-hug 6. toad-band
2. tree-tree 7. nose-moon
3. sun-net 8. word-word
4. wag-mess 9. run-hat
5. dog-dog 10. red-red
Set 2
baseball-baby sad-sad
baby-baby jump-jump
shoe-shark feet-feet
no-stop pop-see
tap-tap rip-sip
Set 3
hip-baby baby-bait
no-yes help-stop
talk-walk apple-apple
able-apple bottle-baby
tree-see dog-dig
This same format can be used to present pairs of phonemes that are the same or different—for example, /t/-/k/ (different) or /p/-/p/ (same).
The words you use in this activity determine the level of difficulty. In the model, the words that are different are entirely different. They share none of the same phonemes. As children’s ability to hear sounds develops, move gradually from such words to pairs of words that have one phoneme in common—for example, run-rake; cook-like; meet-feel—and finally to minimal pairs, words that are the same except for one phoneme—for example, pants-plants; beat-bean; rug-rag.
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention - Distinguishing Words—Oddity Task
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Source or adapted from Voyager U Reading Academy
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Materials: none needed
Instructions for administration:
Introduce the Task:
I will say three words. Two of them are the same. One is different. Listen to the words and tell me which word is different. If I said cat-hug-hug, you would tell me that cat is different.
Present the Activity:
box-bird-bird run-run-bike
vet-van-vet tell-fall-fall
pear-pear-pat mess-kick-kick
ant-cat-ant soap-too-soap
red-red-dot one-two-one
car-camp-car slip-slip-slide
This format can be used to present individual phonemes and have children tell which is different—for example, /b/-/b/-/r/.
The level of difficulty is determined by the degree of difference or similarity in the sound or words presented. It is more difficult to hear the different sound in the set /j/-/j/-/ch/ than in the set /j/-/j/-/m/. Similarly, it is more difficult to identify the word that is different in the set bed-beard-bed than the word that is different in the set bed-rug-bed.
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Rhyming identification: auditory rhyming
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
No materials are needed.
Instructions for administration:
- Tell student three words (two that rhyme and one that does not).
- Ask student to identify which two words rhyme.
- Remind student that when words rhyme they have the same sound at the end (vowel plus consonant: man, tan). These words do not have to have the same spelling.
- Increase up to three and then four words and have the student tell which words rhyme.
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Rhyming identification: Picture card rhyming match
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” Notebook
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Materials:
Rhyming picture cards
Instructions for administration:
- Show student three picture cards or three picture tiles (two that rhyme and one that does not).
- Ask student to identify which two pictures rhyme by asking student to remove the card that does not rhyme.
- Remind student that when words rhyme they have the same sound at the end (vowel plus consonant: man, tan). These words do not have to have the same spelling.
- Increase up to five or six cards and have the student remove all the words that do not rhyme (only two cards will remain).
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Rhyming Production: picture card rhyming match
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Rhyming picture cards
Instructions for administration:
- Show student one picture card or overhead picture tile.
- Ask student to produce a word that rhymes with that picture card.
- Remind student that when words rhyme they have the same sound at the end (vowel plus consonant: man, tan). These words do not have to have the same spelling.
- Word can be a nonsense word.
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Rhyming production: auditory rhyming identification
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
No materials are needed.
Instructions for administration:
- Say one word to the student.
- Ask student to produce a word that rhymes.
- Remind student that when words rhyme they have the same sound at the end (vowel plus consonant: man, tan). These words do not have to have the same spelling.
- Word can be a nonsense word.
Skill- Phonemic Awareness
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Intervention – Initial sound match
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
No materials are needed.
Instructions for administration:
- Tell student three words (two that have the same initial sound and one that does not).
- Ask student to identify which two words have the same initial sound.
- Increase up to three and then four words and have the student tell which two words have the same initial sound.
Skill- Phonemic Awareness
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Intervention – Initial Sound Identification with picture cards
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Picture cards
Instructions for administration:
- Show student three picture cards or picture tiles (two that begin with the same sound and one that does not).
- Ask student to identify which two pictures have the same initial sound by asking student to remove the card that does not have the same initial sound.
- Increase up to 5 or 6 cards and have the student remove all the words that do not have the same initial sound (only two cards will remain).
Skill- Phonemic Awareness
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Intervention – Initial Sound Production with Elkonin boxes
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Several chips or counters and a paper with Elkonin boxes:
Instructions for administration:
Give student Elkonin box and chips. Give one chip per sound in the word.
- Say the word to the student sound by sound.
- Point to the first chip. Ask student to produce the initial sound. Say: “What do you hear in the initial position of _______.”.
- Then have the student touch the initial sound (the chip) and repeat the sound. (Say, “Can you touch the initial sound? What sound does that chip represent?”)
Skill- Phonemic Awareness
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Intervention – Initial Sound Production
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Source or adapted from – “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Picture cards
Instructions for administration:
Show student various picture cards or picture tiles. Ask the child to produce the initial sound of the object in the picture. Begin with more simple initial consonants and then progress in the following order. You will want to introduce 5-6 cards with different sounds during each intervention session.
- Consonants (mat, can)
- Short vowel sounds (egg, ant)
- Consonant blends (black, frog)
- Consonant digraphs (shop, chin)
- Long vowel sounds (eat, aim)
Skill- Phonemic Awareness
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Intervention – Initial sound alliteration
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Source or adapted from Voyager U Reading Academy
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Materials:
none needed
Instructions for administration:
Nonsense sequences are an excellent way to introduce the concept of alliteration and to encourage children to play with sounds. These activities can be used with single consonant sounds or consonant blends. Remember to prompt the students with a sound, but do not mention the letter name. Start with a simple sequence. The sequences can get more complicated each time you revisit the activity.
Nonsense Sequences
Introduce the task: Do you know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk? There’s a giant in that story who likes to say “Fee fie foe fum.” Let’s say that together: Fee fie foe fum. All those words begin with /f/: Fee fie foe fum. Let’s see if we can say those words with a different beginning sound. Let’s try /d/: Dee die doe dum.
Present the Activity: I will say a sound. Then, we’ll say the giant’s nonsense words with that sound at the beginning.
/t/--tee, tie, toe, tum /ch/--chee, chie, choe, chum
/y/--yee, yie, yoe, yum /r/--ree, rie, roe, rum
/b/--bee, bie, boe, bum /m/--mee, mie, moe, mum
/st/--stee, stie, stoe, stum /h/--hee, hie, hoe, hum
/n/--nee, nie, noe, num /gr/--gree, grie, groe, grum
When children are comfortable with the concept of alliteration, engage them in completing simple alliterative sentences. The point of such activities is for children to think of words that fit the alliterative pattern. Don’t be concerned if a word offered doesn’t make sense in the sentence or isn’t a genuine word.
Another variation of this activity is to use the “Happy Birthday to You” song in a silly way. Explain that they will begin each word with (example /mmmm/). Review the sound production cue for letter m.
Remember, when you say /mmm/, your lips come together and the sound comes out of your nose. Put your lips together and say /mmmm/.
Sing the song to students, beginning each word with /mmm/.
Mappy mirthday moo moo.
Mappy mirthday moo moo.
Mappy mirthday, mean _________.
Mappy mirthday moo moo.
Other letters can be used as well.
Skill- Phonemic Awareness
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Intervention - Producing Alliteration
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Source or adapted from Voyager U Reading Academy
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Materials:
No materials are needed.
Instructions for administration:
Introduce the Task: Listen to this sentence: Leila likes lions. Did you notice that all the words in the sentence start with the same sound? We will make up more sentences like that. I will say the first two words. I want you to finish the sentence with a word that begins with the same sound.
Let’s try it. If I say, William wants ____, you would finish the sentence with a word that starts with /www/ like William and wants. You could say, William wants water or William wants worms or William wants waffles.
Present the Activity: I’ll start the sentence. You finish it with a word that begins with the same sound as the words I say.
Cathy cooks ___. Sam sees ___.
Burt buys ___. Felicia fixes ___.
Maura makes ___. Gus gets ___.
Pat paints ___. Tina takes ___.
Harry has ___. Nan needs ___.
Skill- Phonemic Awareness
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Intervention – Final Sound Identification: auditory final sound match
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
No materials are needed.
Instructions for administration:
- Tell student three words (two that have the same final sound and one that does not).
- Ask student to identify which two words have the same final sound.
- Increase up to three and then four words and have the student tell which two words have the same final sound.
Skill- Phonemic Awareness
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Intervention – Final Sound Identification: picture card match
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Picture cards
Instructions for administration:
- Show student three picture cards or picture tiles (two that end with the same sound and one that does not).
- Ask student to identify which two pictures have the same final sound by asking student to remove the card that does not have the same final sound.
- Increase up to 5 or 6 cards and have the student remove all the words that do not have the same final sound (only two cards will remain).
Skill- Phonemic Awareness
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Intervention – Final Sound Production: Picture card
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Picture cards
Instructions for administration:
- Show student various picture cards or picture tiles. Ask the child to produce the final sound of the object pictured. Begin with more simple final consonants and then progress in the following order. You will want to introduce 5-6 cards with different sounds during each intervention session.
- Consonants (mat, can)
- Consonant digraphs (touch, cash)
- Long vowel sounds (tea, be)
Skill- Phonemic Awareness
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Intervention – Final Sound Production: Elkonin boxes
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Several chips or counters and a paper with Elkonin boxes:
Instructions for administration:
- Give student an Elkonin box and chips. Give one chip per sound in the word.
- Say the word to the student sound by sound.
- Point to the first chip. Ask student to produce the final sound. (Say: “What do you hear in the final position of: _______.”)
- Then have the student touch the final sound (the chip) and repeat the sound. (Say, “Can you touch the final sound? What sound does that chip represent?”)
Skill- Phonemic Awareness
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Intervention – Final Sounds Production: auditory production
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
No materials needed.
Instructions for administration:
- Say a word to the student.
- Ask student to produce the final sound. (Say: “What do you hear in the final position of: _______.”)
Skill- Phonemic Awareness
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Intervention – Medial Sound Identification: Picture match
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Picture cards
Instructions for administration:
- Show student three picture cards or picture tiles (two that end have the same medial sound and one that does not).
- Ask student to identify which two pictures have the same medial sound by asking student to remove the card that does not have the same final sound.
- Increase up to 5 or 6 cards and have the student remove all the words that do not have the same medial sound (only two cards will remain).
Skill- Phonemic Awareness
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Intervention – Medial Sound Identification: auditory match
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Source or adapted from – “In the Trenches”
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Materials:
No materials needed
Instructions for administration:
- Tell student three words (two that have the same medial sound and one that does not).
- Ask student to identify which two words have the same medial sound.
- Increase up to three and then four words and have the student tell which two words have the same medial sound.
Skill- Phonemic Awareness
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Intervention – Medial Sound Production with picture cards
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Picture cards
Instructions for administration:
- Show student various picture cards or picture tiles. Ask student to produce the medial sound of the object pictured. Begin with more simple medial consonants and then progress in the following order. You will want to introduce 5-6 cards with different sounds during each intervention session.
- short vowel sounds (cat, pin)
- long vowel sounds (team, time)
Skill- Phonemic Awareness
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Intervention – Medial Sound Production with Elkonin boxes
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Several chips or counters and a paper with Elkonin boxes:
Instructions for administration:
- Give student an Elkonin box and chips. Give one chip per sound in the word.
- Say the word to the student sound by sound.
- Point to the first chip. Ask student to produce the final sound. (Say: “What do you hear in the medial position of: _______.”)
- Then have the student touch the medial sound (the chip) and repeat the sound. (Say, “Can you touch the medial sound? What sound does that chip represent?”)
Skill- Phonemic Awareness
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Intervention – Medial Sound Production: auditory production
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
No materials needed
Instructions for administration:
- Say a word to the student.
- Ask student to produce the medial sound. (Say: “What do you hear in the medial position of: _______.”)
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Segmenting Sentences into Words
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Several chips or tokens and a paper with Elkonin boxes:
Instructions for administration:
- Give student an Elkonin box and chips. Give one chip per word and a chip for the ending punctuation.
- Say the sentence word by word to the student.
- Ask the student to repeat the sentence pulling down one chip per word.
- Then have the student touch each chip while repeating the sentence.
- Ask the student what the punctuation chip stands for (period, question mark, and exclamation point).
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Auditory Sentence Segmenting
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
No materials needed
Instructions for administration:
- Say one sentence to the child.
- Ask student to reproduce the sentence word by word.
- Ask the student to tell you how many words are in the sentence.
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Segmenting Compound Words: Elkonin boxes
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Several chips or counters and a paper with Elkonin boxes:
Instructions for administration:
- Give student an Elkonin box and chips. Give one chip per base word.
- Example: (Say: Let’s segment the compound word “rainbow” into its two base words.)
- Ask the student to repeat the compound word while pulling down one chip per base word.
- Then have the student touch each chip segmenting the compound word into the two base words.
- Then have the student delete either the beginning or ending base word.
- Example: (Say: “Now say rainbow without rain.”)
- Review three-five compound words per session until the task becomes automatic for the student.
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Segmenting Syllables: Elkonin boxes
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Several chips or counters and a paper with Elkonin boxes:
Instructions for administration:
- Give student an Elkonin box and chips. Give three or four chips.
- Example: Say: (“Let’s segment the word “tiger” into syllables.”)
- Ask the student to repeat the word while pulling down one chip per syllable (ti)and (ger).
- Then have the student touch each chip segmenting the while segmenting the word.
- Review three to five multisyllabic words per session until the task becomes automatic for the student.
- Move from two syllable to three and four syllable words once the student becomes proficient.
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Segmenting Syllables: auditory
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
No materials needed
Instructions for administration:
- Say: (“Can you segment tiger into syllables?”)
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Segmenting Phonemes: Elkonin boxes
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Several chips or counters and a paper with Elkonin boxes:
Instructions for administration:
- Give student an Elkonin box and chips. Give three or four chips.
- Example: Say: (“Let’s segment the word “at” into its phonemes”)
- Ask the student to repeat the word while pulling down one chip per phoneme /a/-/t/).
- Then have the student touch each chip while segmenting the word.
- Review three to five words per session until the task becomes automatic for the student.
- Move from two phoneme to three and four phoneme words once the student becomes proficient.
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Segmenting Phonemes: auditory
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
No materials needed
Instructions for administration:
Say: “Can you segment at into its phonemes?”
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Blending compound words: Elkonin boxes
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Several chips or tokens and a paper with Elkonin boxes:
Instructions for administration:
- Give student an Elkonin box and chips. Give student three-four chips per word.
- Example: (Say: Let’s blend two words into a compound word. We’re going to put together “rain” and “bow”.)
- Ask the student to repeat the two words while pulling down one chip per word.
- Then have the student touch each chip blending the words together to form a compound word.
- Review three-five compound words per session until the task becomes automatic for the student.
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Blending Compound words: auditory
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
No materials needed
Instructions for administration:
Say: (“Can you put rain and bow together to make one word?”)
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Blending Syllables: Elkonin boxes
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Several chips or counters and a paper with Elkonin boxes:
Instructions for administration:
- Give student an Elkonin box and chips. Give student three-four chips per word.
- Example: (Say: “Let’s blend two syllables into a compound. We’re going to put together (ti) and (ger)”.)
- Ask the student to repeat the two syllables while pulling down one chip per syllable.
- Then have the student touch each chip blending the syllables together to form a word.
- Review 3-5 words per session until the task becomes automatic for the student.
- After student if proficient blending two syllable words, spend time working on words of three and four syllables.
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Blending Syllables: Auditory
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
No materials needed
Instructions for administration:
- Say: “Can you put “ti” and “ger” together to make one word?”
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Blending Phonemes: Elkonin boxes
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
|
Materials:
Several chips or counters and a paper with Elkonin boxes:
Instructions for administration:
- Give student an Elkonin box and chips. Give student three-four chips per word.
- Example: Say: (“Let’s blend two phonemes to make a word. We’re going to put together /a/ and /t/.”)
- Ask the student to repeat the phonemes while pulling down one chip per phoneme.
- Then have the student touch each chip blending the phonemes together to form a word.
- Review three-four words per session until the task becomes automatic for the student.
- After student is proficient blending two phoneme words such as the one in the example, spend time working on words of three, four and five phonemes.
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Blending phonemes: auditory
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
No materials needed
Instructions for administration:
Say: (“Can you put /a/ and /t/ together to make one word?”)
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Deleting Compound Words: Elkonin boxes
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
Several chips or counters and a paper with Elkonin boxes:
Instructions for administration:
- Give student an Elkonin box and chips. Give three or four chips.
- Example: (Say: “Let’s segment the compound word “rainbow” into its two base words.”)
- Ask the student to repeat the compound word while pulling down one chip per base word.
- Then have the student touch each chip segmenting the compound word into the two base words.
- Then say: (“Now delete rain from rainbow. What is left?”)
- Review three-three compound words per session until the task becomes automatic for the student.
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Deleting Compound Words: auditory
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
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Materials:
No materials needed
Instructions for administration:
- Say “Say rainbow without rain” OR “Say rainbow without bow.”
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Deleting Syllables: Elkonin Boxes
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
|
Materials:
Several chips or counters and a paper with Elkonin boxes:
Instructions for administration:
- Give student an Elkonin box and chips. Give three or four chips.
- Example: (Say: “Let’s segment the word “tiger” into its syllables.”)
- Ask the student to repeat the word while pulling down one chip per syllable.
- Then have the student touch each chip segmenting the word into the syllables.
- Then have the student take away a chip corresponding to which syllable they take away. (Say:“Now say tiger without /ti/.”)
- Review three-5 words per session until the task becomes automatic for the student.
- Move from two syllable to three and four syllable words once the student becomes proficient.
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Deleting Syllables: auditory
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
|
Materials:
No materials needed
Instructions for administration:
Say: (“Say tiger without /ti/”.)or (“Say tiger without /ger/”.)
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Substituting Syllables: auditory
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Source or adapted from - www.phonologicalawareness.org
|
Materials:
List (for teacher’s use) of compound words such as: doghouse, fingernail, cupcake, eggshell, hotdog, eyeball, greenhouse, doorbell, birdbath
Elkonin boxes and markers
Instructions for administration:
Orally present a compound word as you push up a marker for each part of the word. For instance, say “dog…house” and push up 2 markers, one for each root word. Then ask the child what the word would be if we took out “dog” and put “cat”. Once the child is able to do this, have them substitute sillier words.
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Substituting phonemes: auditory
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Source or adapted from - www.phonologicalawareness.org
|
Materials:
List for teacher’s use of CVC words, such as cat, hog, pit, mop, etc.
Elkonin boxes and markers
Instructions for administration:
Orally present a CVC word as you push up a marker for each phoneme of the word. For instance, say “hog…/h/…/o/…/g/” and push up 3 markers, one for each phoneme. Then ask the child what the word would be if we took out “/h/” and put “/d/”. Try to choose substitutions that create real words to aid in the student’s understanding of the need for reading to make sense.
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Deleting Phonemes: Elkonin boxes
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
|
Materials:
Several chips or counters and a paper with Elkonin boxes:
Instructions for administration:
- Give student Elkonin box and chips. Give three or four chips.
- Example: Say: (“Let’s segment the word “at” into its phonemes.”)
- Ask the student to repeat the word while pulling down one chip per phoneme.
- Then have the student touch each chip segmenting the word into the phonemes.
- Then have the student take away a chip corresponding to which phoneme is to be taken away. Example: Say (“Take away the /a/ in at. What is left?”)
- Review 3-5 words per session until the task becomes automatic for the student.
- Move from two phoneme to three and four phoneme words once the student becomes proficient.
Skill- Phonological Awareness
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Intervention – Deleting Phonemes: auditory
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Source or adapted from - “In the Trenches” notebook
|
Materials:
No materials needed
Instructions for administration:
- Say (“Say at without saying /a/.”) or (“Say at without saying /t/.”)
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:21.211998
|
Brandi Mack
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/105168/overview",
"title": "Phonological Awareness",
"author": "Teaching/Learning Strategy"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/120742/overview
|
Together We Rise
Overview
Students develop media literacy skills by analyzing narratives about indigenous communities, Black communities, and immigrant communities. Through this examination of historical narratives, students build an understanding of key events in American history, such as enslavement, Indigenous displacement, and turn-of-the-20th-century migration. Through the final product, a podcast, students reflect on what the media has presented about these groups of people and highlight a more accurate history as they consider: How can we amplify the untold stories of U.S. history?
Educator Welcome
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We understand the joy every teacher experiences when they discover what lights up a student.And that breakthrough can make way for a powerful shift in motivating engagement in studentlearning. We’re thrilled to partner with you in bringing project-based learning to yourclassroom, and we think you’ll love these lessons—created in collaboration with educators, learning scientists, and experts in the field. Whether this is your first voyage into project-based learning or you’re a seasoned pro, we’re sure you’ll agree it’s an approach that sparks interest, ignites possibility, fuels a love for learningin students, and brings wonder to the classroom. As you join your students on this learning journey, we’d love to hear from you. We want to share in your successes, experience your students’ curiosity, celebrate their projects, hear what we can do better, answer any questions you have—and of course, support you each step of the way. Thank you for taking us along on this adventure.
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Acknowledgements
Unit Credits & Acknowledgments
Together We Rise
Unit Credits & Acknowledgments
Educurious would like to express sincere gratitude to our partners for contributing their expertise, insights, and energy. Their collaboration was instrumental in the co-design of this project-based learning unit.
Design Teachers and Schools:
- Amanda Creasia
- Brad Clay
- Christine Pyle
- Delaney Hanon
- Diya Bailey
- Heather Wren
- Nathaniel Okamoto
A special thank you to Amanda Christensen for her leadership and support throughout this project.
The Educurious Team:
Unit Development Team:
- Writers: Cody Pietro, Mary Kate Lonergan
- Educurious Reviewer: Valeria Gamarra
- Editors: Clare Lilliston, Beth Sullivan
Production Team:
- Erik Robinson, Angela Rosenberg
Project Managers:
- Chris Carter, Valeria Gamarra
Educurious Leadership:
- Jane Chadsey, CEO
Unit Poster Image Credits:
- Poster created by Carlos Suarez-Murias
License & Attribution
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Unless otherwise noted, Together We Rise © 2024 by Educurious is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Unit At A Glance & Teacher's Edition Download
Module 1 Overview: The Power of Narrative
Module Overview
Module 1: The Power of Narrative
Together We Rise
Unit Driving Question
How can we amplify the untold stories of U.S. history?
Module Driving Question
How are dominant narratives of the American story created?
Module Overview
In this module, students examine the power of narrative in shaping our understanding of U.S. history through the lens of media literacy. Typically, American history is told through a dominant narrative. Dominant narratives are explanations or stories that are told in service of the dominant social group’s interests and ideologies. These dominant narratives leave out other voices and stories and silence alternative accounts. Students will consider what influences the development of a dominant narrative, and we will do so by examining how the media they consume, and even create, shapes beliefs, opinions, and actions—even when it comes to shaping our understanding of the past.
In Lesson 1.1, students weigh the difference between dominant and counternarratives by examining narratives about the Statue of Liberty. In 1.2, after being introduced to the concept of media literacy, students consider the impact media plays in shaping dominant narratives by reflecting on stereotypes. In 1.3, students confront the dominant narratives of the United States and reflect on the role curriculum plays in shaping the dominant narrative of United States history.
| Lesson 1.1: The Power of Narrative (60 minutes) | |
Key Standards for Success Criteria D2.His.5.9-12D2.His.7.9-12CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1 Success CriteriaBy the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
| In this unit launch, students build on what they learned about the collective U.S. identity in Unit 1 by exploring the ideas of dominant and counternarratives. First, they explore the poem “The New Colossus” and the story it tells about the Statue of Liberty. Next, they analyze an alternative viewpoint of the Statue of Liberty through the poem “The Bartholdi Statue.” Then, they define new vocabulary and consider how the stories of the Statue of Liberty fit into the ideas of dominant and counternarratives. Finally, they discuss the prevailing narrative of how Americans portray and perceive their story and the importance of complicating that narrative. They will also learn about the unit and unit project. |
| Lesson 1.2: Shaping the Dominant Narrative (60 minutes) | |
Key Standards for Success Criteria D2.His.5.9-12D2.His.7.9-12CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.7 Success CriteriaBy the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
| In this lesson, students are introduced to the concept of media literacy and reflect on the role media plays in shaping their opinions and the dominant narrative of the American story. Students begin by brainstorming examples of media and reviewing the definition of media literacy. Students confront examples of commonly held stereotypes and reflect on how the media reinforces or challenges stereotypes. Students consider the media they consume and create and how it may reinforce or challenge stereotypes and the dominant American narrative. |
| Lesson 1.3: Confronting the Dominant Narrative (120 minutes) | |
Key Standards for Success Criteria D2.His.5.9-12D2.His.7.9-12CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1 Success CriteriaBy the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
| To challenge the dominant narratives, students research a topic in U.S. history and then present their findings. Students then read an article and reflect on the role curriculum plays in shaping the dominant narrative of U.S. history. Finally, students are introduced to the project and unpack the project rubric. |
| Module Assessments |
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| Vocabulary |
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Unless otherwise noted, Together We Rise © 2024 by Educurious is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Lesson 1.1: The Power of Narrative
Teacher Guide
Lesson 1.1: The Power of Narrative
Together We Rise
Unit Driving Question:How can we amplify the untold stories of U.S. history?
Module Driving Question:How are dominant narratives of the American story created?
Learning Targets I can:
Purpose In this unit launch, you will build on what you learned about the collective U.S. identity in Unit 1 by exploring the ideas of dominant and counternarratives. First, you will explore the poem “The New Colossus” and the story it tells about the Statue of Liberty. Next, you will analyze an alternative viewpoint of the Statue of Liberty through the poem “The Bartholdi Statue.” Then, you will define new vocabulary and consider how the stories of the Statue of Liberty fit into the ideas of dominant and counternarratives. Finally, you will discuss the prevailing narrative of how Americans portray and perceive their story and the importance of complicating that narrative. You will also learn about the unit and unit project. Lesson Steps
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Teacher Preparation Notes
| Pacing | |
| Lesson Timing: | 60 minutes |
| Standards | |
| D2.His.5.9-12: Analyze how historical contexts shaped and continue to shape people’s perspectives.D2.His.7.9-12: Explain how the perspectives of people in the present shape interpretations of the past. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole. |
| Lesson Resources | ||
| For Students | For Educators | Materials |
|
| Lesson Overview |
| In this unit launch, students build on what they learned about the collective U.S. identity in Unit 1 by exploring the ideas of dominant and counternarratives. First, they explore the poem “The New Colossus” and the story it tells about the Statue of Liberty. Next, they analyze an alternative viewpoint of the Statue of Liberty through the poem “The Bartholdi Statue.” Then, they define new vocabulary and consider how the stories of the Statue of Liberty fit into the ideas of dominant and counternarratives. Finally, they discuss the prevailing narrative of how Americans portray and perceive their story and the importance of complicating that narrative. They also learn about the unit and unit project. |
| Teacher Preparation |
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Lesson Steps in Detail
| Step 1: Read “The New Colossus” | (20 min) |
Purpose: Students examine the Emma Lazarus poem and consider the story it tells about the Statue of Liberty.
You might say: In our last unit, we spent some time thinking about how we might shift the collective identity of the United States so that it is truly inclusive to all of the different people who live in the United States. This too is how we will approach learning about the history of the United States. The stories we tell about our history shape our perceptions and beliefs about the United States. We will be exploring a variety of stories we tell about U.S. history so that we can figure out how to tell a more inclusive story about the past of the United States. Then, at the end of the unit, you will create a narrative podcast designed to disrupt the main story told about a specific group of people in the United States.
[Slide 2] Facilitate turn and talk.
- Ask: What does the Statue of Liberty represent in American culture and history?
- Possible responses: Immigration, freedom, power, international relationships
- Provide students time to talk to their partner about the question.
- Invite a few students to share out to the whole class.
[Slides 3–8] Lead a close reading of the poem “The New Colossus.”
- Distribute “The New Colossus” handout.
- [Slides 3–5] Provide context for the poem.
- [Slide 6] Provide students time to complete the context, audience, perspective, and purpose boxes on their handout.
- [Slide 7] Read the poem as a class, one line at a time.
- Define vocabulary necessary to understanding as you go.
- Invite students to “translate” each line into language that is closer to how they would speak.
- Ask: How would you summarize this poem in 1–2 sentences?
- Possible response: Other countries have tried to conquer everyone and exile the people they don’t like. The United States will instead welcome everyone, especially the least fortunate.
- Invite students to turn and talk to their partner about the significance box.
- What story about the Statue of Liberty does this poem tell?
- Provide students time to write a response in the box.
- Invite students to share out.
- [Slide 8] Reflect on the story.
- Ask: Does this story line up with your understanding of the Statue of Liberty? Why or why not?
- Possible response: Yes, because it’s about welcoming immigrants.
- Ask: Does this story line up with your understanding of U.S. history? Why or why not?
- Possible response: No, because immigrants often weren’t (and aren’t) welcome, especially those who are the poorest.
- Provide students time to talk to their partner about the questions.
- Invite students to share out.
Teacher Tip: Annotating Poetry In this lesson, students engage with two different poems. This is a good opportunity to introduce a poem annotation strategy if you have not already done so. There are many different ways that you can have students annotate a poem. One example is TPCASTT, an in-depth strategy that involves reading a poem several times. If you want to incorporate an annotation strategy but are limited on time, you can also consider having students do the following:
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| Step 2: Read “The Bartholdi Statue” | (20 min) |
Purpose: Students examine the John Greenleaf Whittier poem and consider the story it tells about the Statue of Liberty. They then compare that story to the story told in the Lazarus poem.
You might say: We just discussed the idea of a dominant narrative, and now we are going to take a look at counternarratives. A counternarrative speaks back to the dominant narrative and complicates the story, adding nuance. It fills the gaps and can tell the story from an alternative perspective.
[Slides 9–13] Lead a close reading of the poem “The Bartholdi Statue.”
- Distribute “The Bartholdi Statue” handout.
- [Slides 9–10] Provide context for the poem.
- [Slide 11] Provide students time to complete the context, audience, perspective, and purpose boxes on their handout.
- [Slide 12] Read the poem as a class, one line at a time.
- Define vocabulary necessary to understanding as you go.
- Invite students to “translate” each line into language that is closer to how they would speak.
- Ask: How would you summarize this poem in 1–2 sentences?
- Possible response: Our friend France gives us another gift in the form of this statue, which represents freedom and was created by and for free people. It will offer light and hope to anyone who has faced enslavement and will smite anyone who tries to take actions against others and call them liberty.
- Invite students to turn and talk to their partner about the significance box.
- What story about the Statue of Liberty does this poem tell?
- Provide students time to write a response in the box.
- Invite students to share out.
- [Slide 13] Reflect on the story.
- Ask: Does this story line up with your understanding of the Statue of Liberty? Why or why not?
- Possible response: This is a different story—it’s about freedom from slavery, not immigration.
- Ask: Does this story line up with your understanding of U.S. history? Why or why not?
- Possible response: Yes and no. Yes, because the timing of this poem was around abolition and Reconstruction, so the timing makes sense. No, because I hadn’t heard that the Statue of Liberty had anything to do with slavery or the Civil War before.
- Provide students time to talk to their partner about the question.
- Invite students to share out.
[Slide 14] Reflect on the story of the Statue of Liberty.
- Ask: What does the usual, but incomplete, story tell you about the United States? Why do you think the story about immigration is the story that gets told?
- Possible response: It tells me that they want to seem like the kind of place that is a beacon of hope for everyone, unlike other countries. This is a positive spin on U.S. identity.
- Ask: What does the more complicated, detailed story tell you about the United States? Why do you think the story about abolition is not the story that gets told?
- Possible response: It tells me that the United States has a dark past and needs a reminder to keep them on track. This is more of a negative spin on U.S. identity.
| Step 3: Learn about dominant narratives and counternarratives | (10 min) |
Purpose: Students explore the ideas of dominant narratives and counternarratives to start to understand how we can tell a more inclusive history of the United States.
You might say: In our last unit, we spent some time thinking about how we might shift the collective identity of the United States so that it is truly inclusive to all of the different people who live in the United States. This too is how we will approach learning about the history of the United States. The stories we tell about our history shape our perceptions and beliefs about the United States. Typically, we view American history through a dominant narrative. We will be exploring the ideas of dominant and counternarratives so that we can figure out how to tell a more inclusive history of the United States. Then, at the end of the unit, you will create a narrative podcast designed to disrupt the dominant story told about a specific group of people in the United States.
[Slide 15] Examine the dominant narrative.
- Ask students what dominant means. Then, what narrative means.
- Inform students that you will share a class definition, but that you want them to try to develop their own definition based on their close reading earlier in the lesson.
- Ask: What do you think is the dominant narrative about the Statue of Liberty?
- Possible response: Welcoming immigrants
- Ask: How do dominant stories come to exist? Who benefits from the telling of dominant narratives?
- Possible response: Responses will vary but might include thinking around power. Dominant stories come to exist because they make certain groups of people look good. People in power benefit from positive portrayals because it makes it harder to criticize their actions. Also, sometimes dominant narratives might come to exist based on our collective societal biases.
[Slide 16] Define dominant narrative.
- dominant narrative: stories we tell ourselves, or learn from others, consciously or unconsciously, that also uphold existing power dynamics; these stories tend to paint those with power in a positive light and blame or diminish already marginalized people
- Dominant narratives:
- serve the people in power
- are told by the "victor"
- omits other perspectives
- are taught as "the truth"/a single story
- are familiar to most people (from school, the news, parents, etc.)
- Ask: How do you think the dominant narrative about the Statue of Liberty serves people in power?
- Possible response: It makes the United States seem like a place full of hope, which it probably is for those in power.
[Slide 17] Examine counternarratives.
- Invite students to think about their definition of counternarrative given their understanding of dominant narratives.
- Have students generate some other examples of counternarratives (i.e., in literature or popular culture) with a partner.
- You may consider giving them examples to get the conversation started.
- For example, you can ask what the counternarrative would be in well-known fairy tales like The Three Little Pigs, Goldie Locks and the Three Bears, or Red Riding Hood.
- How might the story change if these stories were told from a different perspective?
- What information might we be missing from these stories?
[Slide 18] Define counternarrative.
- counternarrative: stories that highlight the experiences and perspectives of people who have been traditionally ignored, oppressed, or silenced in society
- Counternarratives:
- complicate or challenge the dominant narrative with new information
- make audiences question dominant narratives
- explore multiple perspectives
- Ask: How do you think the counternarrative about the Statue of Liberty complicates the dominant narrative?
- Possible response: It adds more nuance to the story. If the Statue is about abolition, then it’s acknowledging the U.S. had slavery and needs guidance to stay on the right path.
[Slide 19] Lead a whole-class discussion.
- Ask: How can asking questions and seeking out multiple perspectives about historical events help us complicate dominant narratives?
- Possible response: Asking questions can help us think through the reasons why a story might be told the way it is told. If we ask questions about who benefits from certain stories, then we can examine if the story seems complete or if we should investigate something further. When we also seek out multiple perspectives about something that happened, we can sometimes uncover parts of stories that we had no idea existed.
| Step 4: Reflect on the danger of the single story | (10 min) |
Purpose: Students reflect on their conclusions and determine how a single, dominant narrative impacts their understanding and beliefs. Then, they preview the unit through the unit poster.
You might say: So why are we approaching U.S. history through the ideas of dominant and counternarratives? What is so dangerous about having a single, uncomplicated understanding of history, or even of people whose identities differ from our own? Let’s spend some time exploring these questions so that we understand why we will be working to complicate dominant stories in U.S. history throughout the year.
[Slide 20] Play TED video “Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story” [3:48].
- After viewing:
- Ask: What is the danger of a single story? Why is it important to challenge a dominant narrative?
- Possible response: It reduces people down to just one thing, which dehumanizes them.
- Ask: How can we tell a more complete history of the United States?
- Possible response: We can get lots of stories from lots of different perspectives and try to put them all together to understand the past as best we can.
[Slide 21] Introduce the unit and final product.
- Review the unit driving question, module driving questions, and the final product.
- Invite students to share one question they have and one thing they are excited about.
Teacher Tip: Reflecting on Historiography You may want to include a conversation about historiography and how it relates to the concept of dominant narratives and power. Historiography is the study of the way history is presented. The ways that U.S. history has been told have changed over time. The way that U.S. history is told has the power to shift society. Think of how Indigenous history was told 30 years ago compared to the ways teachers help tell those stories today in more accurate, inclusive, ways. Think also of the efforts to limit how history can be told in different states across the country right now. If time allows, open this conversation up for students to consider. |
Unless otherwise noted, Together We Rise © 2024 by Educurious is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Lesson 1.2: Shaping the Dominant Narrative
Teacher Guide
Lesson 1.2: Shaping the Dominant Narrative
Together We Rise
Unit Driving Question:How can we amplify the untold stories of U.S. history?
Module Driving Question:How are dominant narratives of the American story created?
Learning Targets I can:
Purpose In this lesson, you’ll be introduced to the concept of media literacy and reflect on the role media plays in shaping your opinions and the dominant narrative of the American story. You’ll begin by brainstorming examples of media and reviewing the definition of media literacy. Then, you’ll examine how the media creates or reinforces dominant narratives through stereotypes. Finally, you will reflect on your learning to make connections between the role of media and dominant narratives and U.S. history. Lesson Steps
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Teacher Preparation Notes
| Pacing | |
| Lesson Timing: | 60 minutes |
| Standards | |
| D2.His.5.9-12: Analyze how historical contexts shaped and continue to shape people’s perspectives.D2.His.7.9-12: Explain how the perspectives of people in the present shape interpretations of the past. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.7: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) to address a question or solve a problem. |
| Lesson Resources | ||
| For Students | For Educators | Materials |
|
| Lesson Overview |
| In this lesson, students are introduced to the concept of media literacy and reflect on the role media plays in shaping their opinions and the dominant narrative of the American story. Students begin by brainstorming examples of media and reviewing the definition of media literacy. Students confront examples of commonly held stereotypes and reflect on how the media reinforces or challenges stereotypes. Students consider the media they consume and create and how it may reinforce or challenge stereotypes and the dominant American narrative. |
| Teacher Preparation |
|
Lesson Steps in Detail
| Step 1: Define media literacy | (10 min) |
Purpose: In this step, students are introduced to the concept of media literacy to reflect on the role media plays in shaping their opinions and the dominant narrative of the American story.
You might say: For our final product, we will create media podcasts that amplify a more complete and representative narrative of U.S. history. To do so, we need to understand how media affects us. During our previous lesson, we examined the idea of dominant and counternarratives. Today, we are going to consider what influences the development of a dominant narrative, and we will do so by examining how the media we consume, and even create, shapes our beliefs, opinions, and actions—even when it comes to shaping our understanding of the past.
[Slides 2–3] Define media.
- [Slide 2] Ask: Where do you get your information?
- Possible responses: social media, books, websites
- Provide students time to brainstorm examples with a partner.
- Invite students to share out.
- [Slide 3] Define the term.
- media: media refers to all forms of communication (electronic, digital, print, etc.) that are designed to reach a mass audience
- Ask: What media do you consume?
- Possible responses: TikTok, Instagram, music, TV, video games
- Talking points:
- Encourage students to think beyond music, TV, movies, and social media posts.
- Media also includes video games, advertisements, flags, currency, clothing, textbooks, curriculum, maps, etc.
Teacher Tip: Defining the Difference Between Media and the Media You may want to address the difference between the terms media vs. the media with students. Often, the media refers to news media. When we use the term media in this unit, we refer to all forms of communication and any messages conveyed through visuals, language, and/or sound. |
[Slide 4–5] Define media literacy.
- Before showing the definition, ask students if they have heard of media literacy or what they think it might mean.
- [Slide 4] Share the definition of media literacy.
- media literacy: the ability to: decode, or unpack, media messages, reflect on the influence of those messages on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals or society; and create media thoughtfully and conscientiously (source)
- [Slide 5] Ask: Why might being media literate be important?
- Possible response: Responses will vary, but students might say that media literacy empowers us to make better, more informed decisions; media literacy gives us the power not to be duped by fake news/false information; awareness of how media influences take away some of its power; being media literate helps us to be aware of biases in media and ourselves.
[Slide 6] Examine an example of a lack of media literacy.
- Invite students to explore Case Study 2 (Covid-19 and masks). You can also read this aloud as a class.
- Ask: How do you think lack of media literacy affected people in this case?
- Possible response: They might have stopped wearing masks.
- Ask: How do you think this misinformation affected people’s perception of mask wearers?
- Possible response: They probably thought people who wore masks weren’t smart and were actually the danger to everyone else.
- Ask: How do you think this case affected society?
- Possible response: It further politicized Covid-19, and if it led people to not wear masks, it probably led to additional spread of the virus.
Teacher Tip: Setting Community Norms for Discussing Controversial Issues If you haven’t done so already in the school year, you may want to establish (or refer back to) community norms for civil discourse. Have students generate a set of norms or expectations—or even what behavior and actions they deem acceptable or unacceptable. Be sure to communicate the expectations and ensure that students understand them. These norms can include: Respecting differences of opinion, not attacking the identity of others, everyone has the right to be heard, or be respectful while still being critical. |
| Step 2: Examine and confront dominant narratives in media | (25 min) |
Purpose: To understand the role media plays in shaping the dominant American story, students review what a stereotype is and discuss the ways in which media can create or reinforce stereotypes. They explore different examples of media stereotypes and connect their thinking to the idea of dominant narratives. Finally, they reflect on the ways that having media literacy can help us identify and challenge dominant narratives in U.S. history.
You might say: The media we consume influences us whether we realize it or not. Let’s dive into this idea a bit deeper by considering stereotypes and the role media plays in reinforcing or creating stereotypes. At times, we see these stereotypes shape the narrative of U.S. history and are sometimes repeated in the stories we are told about U.S. history.
[Slide 7] Lead a small-group discussion.
- Invite students to discuss the following question in small groups or with a partner. Then, invite students to share their thoughts as a class.
- Ask: What is a stereotype? How do you think stereotypes influence how different groups of people are treated in society?
- Possible responses: Responses will vary, but students might say that a stereotype is a generalization about a group of people. Students might discuss their own identities and the stereotypes they face, or they might discuss how stereotypes limit people’s ability to live freely since assumptions are made about them. They might also discuss how stereotypes are harmful because they can play into, or reinforce, other societal issues like racism, sexism, and homophobia.
[Slide 8] Define stereotype.
- Direct students to Part 1 of their Confronting Stereotypes handout. Read directions aloud with students and then continue with the following slides as students take notes.
- stereotype: a generalization or broad belief about a group of people; stereotypes are often widely held but fixed and oversimplified images or ideas of a group of people
[Slide 9] Play Raising Equity video “Stereotype Defined” [1:43].
- Ask: How do stereotypes trap our thinking, or limit our understanding, of different groups of people?
- Possible response: Stereotypes flatten our understanding of groups of people because they push us to make assumptions about different groups of people, especially when they are different than us. They do not allow us to see the full picture of a group of people or to get to know individuals and their unique identities.
[Slide 10] Lead a discussion on the relationship between media and stereotypes.
- Ask: What role do you believe media plays in creating and reinforcing stereotypes?
- Possible response: Media transmits messages and information and can play a part in the development of stereotypes of different groups of people that stick. Sometimes that is a reflection of what’s happening in society. Then, media can play a part in reinforcing those stereotypes over time, making it harder to get rid of those ideas in people’s minds.
[Slide 11] Provide instructions for source exploration.
- See the Teacher Preparation note about pulling image sources into the handout.
- Direct students to Part 2 of their handout.
- Read instructions with students, set them up into small groups, and provide guidance on how much time they have to finish this activity.
- When students are finished, invite them to share their reactions to the source exploration as a class. Then continue with discussion below.
[Slides 12] Lead a whole-class discussion.
- Ask: How do media representations of people impact the way that they are seen and treated in society? If possible, try to connect your thinking to our learning about intersectionality by thinking about how people with intersecting identities face several layers of stereotyping.
[Slide 13] Play PBS NewsHour video “Why On-Screen Representation Matters, According to These Teens” [2:07].
- Direct students to Part 3 of their handout.
- Read directions with students, then play the video and discuss responses to the guided question.
- Ask: Why does accurate representation in media matter?
- Possible response: Responses will vary, but students might say that because media shapes our beliefs and opinions, and ultimately our actions—both positively and negatively. If certain groups are stereotyped or overlooked, people may come away with misconceptions and act on those misconceptions. Prejudice and racism can be reinforced.
- Ask: What can be done to address the issue of stereotypes in popular media? In the news media? What about social media?
- Possible response: Responses will vary, but students might say it needs to be “called out”/identified and creators need to be held accountable. They may bring up current events dealing with that issue. They may also raise the idea that other voices and creators need to be heard.
Teacher Tip: Extension Opportunity Watch the video “Reclaiming Native Truth Intro.” Read and discuss this excerpt from “Inside a New Effort to Change What Schools Teach About Native American History.”
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Teacher Tip: Do No Harm Be aware of the power of media messages and the potential for unintended consequences (e.g., reinforcing/introducing stereotypes or potentially harmful messages you engage with).You can contrast negative or potentially harmful messages with positive media representation. Try to cue into and follow up with students’ emotional responses to documents and listen well to the meaning-making of your students to address potentially harmful or triggering ideas.As you probe with questions, e.g., “What feelings does this bring up for you?” it is important to cue into the emotional reactions of your students. Pay attention to the impact of this work on all students, particularly those most marginalized in your class and society. This lesson may potentially challenge students who hold strong beliefs or come from households with strong beliefs. Consider having the class establish guidelines for safe and civil (but not necessarily comfortable) conversations before doing this decoding, e.g., no attacking individuals for their identities or beliefs. They should trust that your goal is to have them think critically and independently, not to conform to your views. See Project Look Sharp’s “Tips for Decoding Media Documents” for more information on the “do no harm.”Finally, you can use this infographic and share it with students to explore tips for engaging with media literacy. |
| Step 3: Make connections and conclusions | (10min) |
Purpose: Students learn a new discussion skill. They reflect on their learning and make connections between the role of media and dominant narratives in a Concentric Circles discussion.
You might say: Let’s relate everything we’ve been discussing—media, media literacy, stereotypes, and narrative—back to our question: How are dominant narratives of the American story developed? We will have a Concentric Circles discussion to consider the different parts of this question. Before we do so, I will introduce the Unit 2 discussion skill. In Unit 1, the discussion skill we focused on was “elaborate & clarify.” In this unit, our discussion skill of focus is “support ideas with examples.” Keep in mind that these skills build on one another—you should still be working to elaborate & clarify as you move on to this new skill.
[Slides 14–16] Introduce the “support ideas with examples” discussion skill.
- [Slide 14] Frame the skill.
- Strengthen your arguments with evidence.
- Use examples from:
- Text
- Other media
- The world
- Your own life
- Provide examples.
- Talking points: In a discussion about whether or not video games are good for society, I say: “Video games make society smarter.”
- Someone might ask me, “Can you give an example of a way that video games make society smarter?”
- I would then go back to my argument and say, “Yes, they help people multitask. Scientists have done research that proves that video games help students learn how to multitask, which makes them better students.”
- In this example, I have provided evidence from the world to support my original argument.
- Someone might also ask me, “Can you give me an example from the text that backs up your argument?”
- I would then have to return to the text to prove my point. I might say something like, “Yes, so scientists found that students who play an average of 30 minutes of video games a day are more likely to be stronger math students; this proves that video games make society smarter.” This is made-up information, by the way, but it shows how I would have to use MORE information to back up my argument.
- [Slide 15] Talking points: As we discuss, I will have some sentence starters you can use if you are asked to support ideas with examples in case you get stuck. Eventually, we’ll get so good at using evidence that we won’t be asked to support our ideas with examples.
- Prompting:
- Can you give an example from the text?
- Can you show me where it says that?
- What are examples from other texts?
- What is a real-world example?
- What is an example from your life?
- Are there any cases of that?
- What is the evidence for that?
- Like what?
- Why do you say that?
- How do you justify that?
- What does that look like?
- Such as?
- What would illustrate that?
- Why is that a good example?
- Responding:
- For example…
- In the text it said that…
- One case showed that…
- An example from my life is…
- For instance…
- According to…
- An illustration of this could be…
- On one occasion…
- In this situation…
- To demonstrate…
- In fact…
- Indeed…
- …such as…
- Have you ever…?
[Slides 16–19] Facilitate a Concentric Circles discussion.
- [Slide 16] Split the class in half and have them stand in two concentric circles facing each other (outer circle faces in and inner circle faces out).
- Read the instructions on the slide.
- Discuss the question on the slide with the person directly across from you in the other circle.
- When time is up, the outer circle rotates clockwise one student, and a new discussion question is displayed for you to discuss.
- [Slides 17–19] Display and read the first question on the slide. Provide students time to discuss the question with their first partner. When time is up, instruct the outer circle to rotate clockwise one student. Display the next question. Continue until all three questions have been discussed.
- [Slide 17] How is the dominant narrative of the American story developed? What role does media play in forming the dominant narrative?
- Possible response: Responses will vary, but students might say that media shapes the stories we tell ourselves; in some cases, media are the stories we tell ourselves—about groups, individuals, and history; media can reinforce and challenge stereotypes and narratives of some groups and it can leave out important parts of history.
- [Slide 18] How can we change and/or challenge the dominant narrative about historically marginalized groups of Americans through our learning of U.S. history?
- Possible response: Responses will vary, but students might say that other voices and perspectives need to be included or heard and that we can do that in our U.S. history course by learning about multiple perspectives of the same events in U.S. history.
- [Slide 19] What can be done to address the issue of stereotypes in popular media? In the news media? On social media? What about in our textbooks or curriculum?
- Possible response: Responses will vary, but students might say that other voices and perspectives need to be included or heard; creators with different experiences need to be amplified.
- Invite 3–4 students to share out what they discussed, what they learned, or something interesting shared by one of their peers.
[Slide 20] Reflect on the discussion.
- Invite students to respond to the following prompts:
- One specific thing I did well while practicing this skill is…
- One specific thing the class did well while practicing this skill is…
- One specific thing we could work on when it comes to this skill is…
Teacher Tip: Concentric Circles Concentric Circles discussions are useful for getting students to speak to a wide variety of their peers and build on each other’s ideas efficiently. If you are new to Concentric Circles discussions, consider exploring this resource to see an example of what the activity can look like. |
Unless otherwise noted, Together We Rise © 2024 by Educurious is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Lesson 1.3: Confronting the Dominant Narrative
Teacher Guide
Lesson 1.3: Confronting the Dominant Narrative
Together We Rise
Unit Driving Question:How can we amplify the untold stories of U.S. history?
Module Driving Question:How are dominant narratives of the American story created?
Learning Targets I can:
Purpose To challenge the dominant narratives, you will research a topic in U.S. history and then present your findings. Then, you will read an article and reflect on the role curriculum plays in shaping the dominant narrative of U.S. history. Finally, you’ll be introduced to your final product and explore the project requirements by unpacking the Podcast Rubric. Lesson Steps
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Teacher Preparation Notes
| Pacing | |
| Lesson Timing: | 120 minutes |
| Standards | |
| D2.His.4.9-12: Analyze complex and interacting factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras.D2.His.5.9-12: Analyze how historical contexts shaped and continue to shape people’s perspectives.D2.His.7.9-12: Explain how the perspectives of people in the present shape interpretations of the past. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole. |
| Lesson Resources | ||
| For Students | For Educators | Materials |
|
| Lesson Overview |
| To challenge the dominant narratives, students research a topic in U.S. history and then present their findings. Students then read an article and reflect on the role curriculum plays in shaping the dominant narrative of U.S. history. Finally, students are introduced to the project and unpack the project rubric. |
| Teacher Preparation |
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Lesson Steps in Detail
| Step 1: Research and present ideas about narratives in U.S. history | (40 min) |
Purpose: To review previous content and to challenge the dominant narratives, students participate in a jigsaw activity during which they research a key moment in U.S. history and then present their findings to their team.
You might say: We are now going to review key events that you already learned about. We will use these stories to help challenge the dominant narrative of U.S. history. Understanding the dominant narrative of U.S. history will help you prepare for your final product in which you disrupt and challenge that narrative.
[Slide 2] Provide instructions for the activity.
- Distribute the U.S. History Narratives handout.
- Direct students to Part 1 of their handout.
- Place students in small groups and assign each group a topic.
- Read directions with students.
- Explore the sources related to your topic with your teams.
- Discuss and respond to the questions based on the sources.
- Provide groups time to explore the sources and respond to the questions.
[Slide 3] Facilitate sharing of narratives.
- Place students into new groups, with one representative from each topic in each group.
- Instruct students to share the stories they learned about and their responses to the questions with the rest of their group.
- Ask: What patterns do you notice across the different dominant and counternarratives?
- Possible response: The dominant narratives all give a positive or neutral spin on the United States, and the counternarratives are more complicated.
- Invite students to share out their groups’ responses to the question with the whole class.
| Step 2: Read and reflect on who decides what we learn about in history class | (30 min) |
Purpose: Students will read an article and reflect on the role curriculum plays in shaping the dominant narrative of United States history.
You might say: What we learn about in history—the curriculum—influences how we come to understand the American narrative and shapes our opinions and beliefs. Unlike education expectations in reading, science, or math, the study of history/social studies provides a unique civic function. Social studies curriculum is the starting point for textbooks—the narratives that make up most of your first, and often only, introduction to the American story. Because of those reasons, there’s a major debate about how and what we should learn about in history in class. Let’s dig deeper into that debate.
[Slide 4] Choose an article to read and reflect.
- Distribute copies of the History Curriculum Exploration handout.
- Read directions with students.
- Invite students to choose an article and to write down one thought, one wondering, one epiphany, and one connection as they read.
- Then, lead the debrief below.
[Slide 5] Debrief.
- Ask: How does curriculum connect to our learning about dominant and counternarratives in this unit?
- Possible response: The curriculum determines what we learn and is often the dominant narrative, which isn’t the whole story.
- Ask: Would you say you’ve learned more about dominant narratives or counternarratives in your history classes?
- Possible response: Responses will vary by student experience.
- Ask: What is needed to ensure a more inclusive narrative?
- Possible response: Making sure lots of different types of people are teachers/making the decisions about curriculum.
| Step 3: Learn about the final product | (10 min) |
Purpose: Students learn about the final product, organize into project teams, and discuss the project rubric.
[Slide 6] Introduce the project.
- Invite students to organize into project teams and review the project requirements.
- Distribute the Podcast Rubric.
- Invite students to work with a partner to read through the rubric and write one thought and one question.
- Invite students to ask clarifying questions about the criteria.
- If needed, add further detail to the rubric as a class.
Unless otherwise noted, Together We Rise © 2024 by Educurious is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Module 2: Disrupting the Single Story
Module Overview
Module 2: Disrupting the Single Story
Together We Rise
Unit Driving Question
How can we amplify the untold stories of U.S. history?
Module Driving Question
How do dominant narratives about the past impact American society today?
Module Overview
In this module, students complicate the dominant narratives told about different groups of people living in what we now call the United States. They learn about dominant narratives through primary source exploration and then work through curated sources to learn about the impact of those dominant narratives. Then, they create mini projects (art, a textbook section rewrite, and an audio recording) that tell a more complete story about different groups of people. By the end of this unit, students have an understanding of how to question dominant narratives, why it is important to do so, and how to create media that highlights multiple perspectives.
In Lesson 2.1, students complicate the dominant story told about immigrants in the United States and create counternarrative art. In Lesson 2.2, students learn about the Carlisle Indian School and challenge the narrative found in a modern U.S. history textbook, recalling the lessons about history curriculum from Unit 1. In Lesson 2.3, students learn about the movie The Birth of a Nation and examine the impact of popular media on policies and behavior. They create an audio recording on the same platform they will use to create podcasts in Module 3 in response to the module driving question, using evidence from the unit so far.
| Lesson 2.1: Immigration Narratives (100 minutes) | |
Key Standards for Success Criteria D2.His.4.9-12D2.His.5.9-12CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.7 Success CriteriaBy the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
| In this lesson, students hear from other perspectives and voices to have a more complete understanding of U.S. history. Students learn about the dominant immigration narrative at the turn of the 19th century through political cartoons and the impact of that narrative through a series of sources about immigration policies. Then, students read a source about modern-day immigration myths, tracing the dominant narrative and considering its impact over time. Then, using what they learned, they create a piece of art that communicates an immigration counternarrative. Finally, they explore effective student podcasts in preparation for their final product. |
| Lesson 2.2: Indigenous Narratives (70 minutes) | |
Key Standards for Success Criteria D2.His.4.9-12D2.His.5.9-12CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.7 Success CriteriaBy the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
| In this lesson, students hear from other perspectives and voices to build a more complete understanding of Indigenous history in the United States. They learn about a dominant narrative from U.S. history regarding Indigenous boarding schools. They consider what might be missing from this dominant narrative. Then, they work in small groups to complicate the narrative by exploring additional sources. Finally, using what they learned, students write a textbook section on Indigenous boarding schools that includes the counternarratives. |
| Lesson 2.3: Black Narratives (100 minutes) | |
Key Standards for Success Criteria D2.His.4.9-12D2.His.5.9-12CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1 Success CriteriaBy the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
| In this lesson, students hear from other perspectives and voices in order to have a more complete understanding of Black history in the United States. They examine a movie clip displaying a dominant narrative. Then, they work in small groups to challenge this narrative by exploring different curated sources on counternarratives. Next, using what they learned, they create an audio recording challenging the dominant narrative as displayed in the movie clip. Finally, they meet in their podcast teams to select a topic and reflect on what they know and still need to learn. |
| Module Assessments |
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| Vocabulary |
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Unless otherwise noted, Together We Rise © 2024 by Educurious is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Lesson 2.1: Immigration Narratives
Teacher Guide
Lesson 2.1: Immigration Narratives
Together We Rise
Unit Driving Question:How can we amplify the untold stories of U.S. history?
Module Driving Question:How do dominant narratives about the past impact American society today?
Learning Targets I can:
Purpose In this lesson, you will hear from other perspectives and voices to have a more complete understanding of U.S. history. You will learn about the dominant immigration narrative at the turn of the 19th century through political cartoons and the impact of that narrative through a series of sources about immigration policies. Then, you will read a source about modern-day immigration myths, tracing the dominant narrative and considering its impact over time. Then, using what you learned, you will create a piece of art that communicates an immigration counternarrative. Finally, you will explore effective student podcasts in preparation for your final product. Lesson Steps
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Teacher Preparation Notes
| Pacing | |
| Lesson Timing: | 100 minutes |
| Standards | |
| D2.His.4.9-12: Analyze complex and interacting factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras.D2.His.5.9-12: Analyze how historical contexts shaped and continue to shape people’s perspectives. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole. |
| Lesson Resources | ||
| For Students | For Educators | Materials |
|
| Lesson Overview |
| In this lesson, students hear from other perspectives and voices to have a more complete understanding of U.S. history. Students learn about the dominant immigration narrative at the turn of the 19th century through political cartoons and the impact of that narrative through a series of sources about immigration policies. Then, students read a source about modern-day immigration myths, tracing the dominant narrative and considering its impact over time. Then, using what they learned, they create a piece of art that communicates an immigration counternarrative. Finally, they explore effective student podcasts in preparation for their final product. |
| Teacher Preparation |
|
Lesson Steps in Detail
| Step 1: Reflect on the dominant narrative | (40 min) |
Purpose: Students reflect on the dominant narrative around immigration in the late 1800s by looking at a series of sources.
You might say: When we started this unit, we launched our thinking about dominant and counternarratives using the story of the Statue of Liberty. This helped us begin to understand how the ways in which stories are told in society, in history, are not always the most complete, or the most accurate. Since then, we have learned more about becoming conscious consumers of media, how media creates and reinforces stereotypes, and how the ways in which we tell stories in U.S. history have a direct impact on how groups of people are treated. We will now use all this learning to consider the topic of immigration and challenge dominant narratives.
[Slides 2–5] Conduct an image analysis.
- [Slide 2] Distribute the Dominant Immigration Narrative handout. Direct students to Part 1.
- Go over context for immigration in the late 1800s to early 1900s.
- [Slide 3] Display the first image.
- Ask: What do you see?
- Possible response: A person with an evil smile, cross necklace, phone lines labeled “republican vote” and “democratic vote”
- Ask: What does it mean?
- Possible response: This person is maybe representing the pope, and he’s controlling voting in the United States from a distance.
- Ask: What message is this cartoon sending about immigrants?
- Possible response: Immigrants are dangerous because they affect the outcomes of voting in our country, and it’s basically like letting other countries decide on our leaders and policies. Also, Catholicism specifically is a threat.
- [Slide 4] Display the second image.
- Ask: What do you see?
- Possible response: A caricature of a Chinese person, running away from San Francisco, running toward China, chased by a steam washer trunk
- Ask: What does it mean?
- Possible response: White Americans want Chinese immigrants out of California and to go back to China because they’re racist and also they were taking jobs (steam washing).
- Ask: What message is this cartoon sending about immigrants?
- Possible response: This is a racist image, so it’s dehumanizing and makes immigrants seem like they’re not really people. It’s also saying they need to go because they are taking jobs from American citizens.
- [Slide 5] Display the third image.
- Ask: What do you see?
- Possible response: Caricature of an Irish immigrant in four different settings
- Ask: What does it mean?
- Possible response: Irish immigrants take over elections, are violent, and are drains on the economy.
- Ask: What message is this cartoon sending about immigrants?
- Possible response: Immigrants are dangerous. They commit violent crimes and take money from the economy without contributing. They influence elections negatively.
[Slides 6–8] Facilitate jigsaw activity.
- [Slide 6] Place students in groups and direct them to Part 2 of their handouts.
- Read the instructions.
- With your group, explore your assigned source(s).
- In the table on your handout, record the immigration policies and their impact as described in your source(s).
- Provide students time to complete the first part of the jigsaw activity.
- [Slide 7] Place students in new groups, with a representative from each of the original groups.
- Read the instructions.
- Present your findings to your new group.
- Record the findings from the other groups on the table on your handout.
- [Slide 8] Reflect on the sources.
- Ask: What connections can you draw between the views you saw in the cartoons and these immigration policies?
- Possible response: These policies limit immigration, which is a response to all the negative things people believe about immigrants.
- Ask: What impact can a dominant narrative have on our society and the experiences of the people living in it?
- Possible response:
- It can change the laws we have, which changes the kinds of lives we can all lead. It also affects how people view and treat each other in our society.
Teacher Tip: Curating and Choosing Sources The events, people, and resources in the handouts are suggestions and places to start. Depending on your students, interests, and needs, you may want to add key events and resources to review or replace the events with different ones. You may want to pare back the number of resources students examine at each station. |
Teacher Tip: Racist Language and Imagery in Primary Sources The primary sources include language, images, or ideas that require thoughtful preparation. Educators should review primary sources carefully and be prepared for any slurs and other hateful or hurtful speech/images. These sources depict beliefs and perspectives of previous eras, including negative stereotypes and insulting and offensive language/imagery that were once commonplace. Remind students that primary sources reflect attitudes from the time when they were created and that beliefs and values, as well as commonly accepted ways of expressing them, have changed. Have a plan in place to address this speech before asking students to read aloud or quote primary sources in class discussions and essays and fall back on the conclusions students made about stereotypes in Lesson 2 from the previous module. |
Teacher Tip: Do No Harm Be aware of the power of media messages and the potential for unintended consequences (e.g., reinforcing/introducing stereotypes or potentially harmful messages you engage with). You can contrast negative or potentially harmful messages with positive media representation. Try to cue into and follow up with students’ emotional responses to documents and listen well to the meaning-making of your students to address potentially harmful or triggering ideas. See Project Look Sharp’s “Tips for Decoding Media Documents” for more information on the “do no harm.” |
| Step 2: Make connections to today | (20 min) |
Purpose: Students consider modern dominant narratives of immigration and compare them with the dominant narrative from the past.
You might say: Dominant narratives can be followed over time. We are going to look at a source debunking modern-day immigration myths—dominant narratives that many people in the United States believe about immigration—and make connections between these narratives and the past narrative we just explored.
[Slide 9] Read the source.
- Direct students to Part 3 of their handout.
- Read instructions with students.
- Read the source.
- Note similarities between the modern-day dominant narrative and the past dominant narrative.
- Note differences between the modern-day dominant narrative and the past dominant narrative.
- Provide students time to read and complete Part 3 of their handout independently.
[Slide 10] Facilitate pair discussion.
- Ask:
- How does the modern dominant narrative compare with the dominant narrative from the past?
- Possible response: It’s really similar—people are worried about immigrants being violent, taking jobs, and influencing elections.
- How do these narratives serve people in power?
- Possible response: It lets them continue to make laws that affect immigrants negatively. It gives them a scapegoat—rather than actually addressing the problems in society people are angry about, they pin the blame on immigrants.
- Provide students time to turn to their partner and discuss the questions.
- Invite students to share out to the whole class.
| Step 3: Create counternarrative art | (30 min) |
Purpose: Students examine examples of art about immigration for inspiration. Using what they learned, they create a piece of art that communicates a counternarrative to the dominant narrative described in “The New Colossus.”
You might say: Now that we have learned about some of the many different immigrant experiences and the laws that shaped those experiences, it’s time to apply our learning by creating a piece of art that illuminates a counternarrative.
[Slide 11] Lead an image analysis.
- Distribute Immigration Counternarrative Art handout.
- Direct students to Part 1.
- Place students into pairs. Instruct them to view the images in Part 1 of their handout.
- Ask: What are the messages about U.S. immigration? What from the image makes you say that?
- Possible response: The first political cartoon is making a joke about how people say to send immigrants back where they came from, with the Statue of Liberty basically getting deported back to France. They’re trying to show that the rhetoric around sending people back is ridiculous.
- Ask: From whose perspective is each image created? How do you know?
- Possible response: This is created by people who are anti-deportation and anti-attitudes that immigrants don’t belong in the United States. They show this by placing those attitudes alongside the idea of deporting the Statue of Liberty, a national symbol that is from France.
[Slide 12] Facilitate art creation.
- Direct students to Part 2 of their handout.
- Review the directions.
- See Teacher Prepration note to determine if you want students to complete their art on their handout, another material like cardstock, or using some digital tool they have used before.
- Allow student work time and provide timing guidance.
- Invite students share their work with each other in small groups and explain the choices they made in the creative process.
| Step 4: Explore student podcast examples | (10 min) |
Purpose: Students listen to a student-created podcast in a jigsaw with their podcast team. Then, they discuss the role that podcasting can play in challenging dominant narratives about U.S. immigration.
You might say: In your final product, you will be asked to create a podcast that helps audiences challenge a dominant story in U.S. history. But what makes an effective podcast? And how can podcasting help us challenge dominant narratives and create change? We will explore these questions by looking at a student-created podcast example.
[Slide 13] Provide instructions for podcast jigsaw.
- Invite students to organize themselves into their project teams for this activity.
- Distribute Immigration Podcast Reflection handout.
- Read directions with students, then assign each student a podcast to listen to.
- When they are done listening, invite students to share their notes with their team.
- Then, invite one person from each team to share their takeaways.
[Slide 14] Lead a whole-class discussion.
- Ask: How can we use podcasting to challenge the dominant narratives in U.S. history?
- Possible response: Podcasting is an opportunity for storytelling, so it lets you tell stories that people might not otherwise hear. You can also interview people on podcasts, showing even more perspectives.
- Ask: What topics interest you as we begin to think about our final podcasts?
Teacher Tip: Storytelling Storytelling is a key part of the final product for this unit because it’s an important part of creating deeper understanding. If you have time to extend this lesson, play the BBC video “The Science of Storytelling” [4:37] to help students consider the power of storytelling.
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Unless otherwise noted, Together We Rise © 2024 by Educurious is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Lesson 2.2: Indigenous Narratives
Teacher Guide
Lesson 2.2: Indigenous Narratives
Together We Rise
Unit Driving Question:How can we amplify the untold stories of U.S. history?
Module Driving Question:How do dominant narratives about the past impact American society today?
Learning Targets I can:
Purpose In this lesson, you will hear from other perspectives and voices to build a more complete understanding of Indigenous history in the United States. You will learn about a dominant narrative from U.S. history regarding Indigenous boarding schools. You will consider what might be missing from this dominant narrative. Then, you will work in small groups to complicate the narrative by exploring additional sources. Finally, using what you learned, you will write a textbook section on Indigenous boarding schools that includes the counternarratives. Lesson Steps
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Teacher Preparation Notes
| Pacing | |
| Lesson Timing: | 70 minutes |
| Standards | |
| D2.His.4.9-12: Analyze complex and interacting factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras.D2.His.7.9-12: Explain how the perspectives of people in the present shape interpretations of the past. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.7: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem. |
| Lesson Resources | ||
| For Students | For Educators | Materials |
|
| Lesson Overview |
| In this lesson, students hear from other perspectives and voices to build a more complete understanding of Indigenous history in the United States. They learn about a dominant narrative from U.S. history regarding Indigenous boarding schools. They consider what might be missing from this dominant narrative. Then, they work in small groups to complicate the narrative by exploring additional sources. Finally, using what they learned, students write a textbook section on Indigenous boarding schools that includes the counternarratives. |
| Teacher Preparation |
|
Lesson Steps in Detail
| Step 1: Explore the dominant Indigenous narrative | (20 min) |
Purpose: Students are introduced to a dominant narrative regarding Indigenous Americans by examining a text by Captain Richard Pratt, founder of the Carlisle School.
You might say: In the final product, you will create podcasts that elevate and amplify the voices and perspectives of those who are often silent in the dominant narrative of U.S. history. Today, we will look at a dominant narrative from history surrounding Indigenous Americans and examine sources that challenge that dominant narrative.
[Slides 2–6] Lead a close reading of the U.S. history textbook excerpt.
- Distribute Dominant Indigenous Narrative handout to students.
- [Slide 2] Provide context for the text.
- [Slide 3] Provide students time to complete the context, audience, perspective, and purpose boxes on their handout.
- Talking points:
- This is a modern-day textbook, so the context we are looking at is our context.
- Remember our lesson in Module 1 about history curriculum, who writes it, and its impact as you fill out audience, perspective, and purpose.
- [Slide 4] Read the text as a class, one paragraph at a time.
- Define vocabulary necessary to understanding as you go.
- Encourage students to annotate the text. You can have them look for subjective language, word choices with positive and negative connotations, and euphemisms.
- Ask: How would you summarize this text in 1–2 sentences?
- Possible response: In the late 1800s, reformers in the United States sought to take Indigenous children and put them in boarding skills to forcibly assimilate them into White American society.
- Invite students to turn and talk to their partner about the significance box.
- What story about Indigenous boarding schools does this source tell?
- Provide students time to write a response in the box.
- Invite students to share out.
- [Slide 5] Reflect on the story.
- Ask: What story about Indigenous boarding schools is the textbook telling?
- Possible response: They were a thing that happened in the late 1800s, and they forced Indigenous kids to give up their culture in favor of White culture. This was an example of reform at a time when a lot of people just wanted to kill Indigenous people.
- Ask: How does that story make you feel?
- Possible response: Kind of irritated—it feels disingenuous to call this reform, and I feel like it probably downplays the negative impact of the schools. But I haven’t been given enough information to feel anything very strongly.
- Provide students time to talk to their partner about the questions.
- Invite students to share out.
| Step 2: Complicate the dominant Indigenous narrative | (30 min) |
Purpose: In order to complicate the dominant narrative about Indigenous people, students work in small groups to explore additional sources.
You might say: We will now examine and analyze sources that complicate the narrative expressed in the textbook. This is good practice for your final product, in which you will challenge a dominant narrative.
[Slide 6] Engage in a station rotation activity.
- Distribute the Complicate the Narrative handout.
- Read instructions with students.
- With your group, explore the source at your station.
- Discuss the questions on your handout and record notes based on the source.
- When time is up, rotate to your next station.
[Slide 7] Facilitate a whole-class reflection.
- Remind students that they are working on the discussion skill “support ideas with evidence.”
- Ask: Think back to our lesson in Module 1 about history curriculum. How does telling the story the way the textbook did benefit people in power?
- Possible response: It stops people from feeling really upset about the long-term impacts of the policy. It also makes them look less bad than it actually was.
- Ask: What impact does this dominant narrative have on our society?
- Possible response: People might think Indigenous people are exaggerating about the impact or that they’re disproportionately angry about something that’s in the past.
- Talking points:
- This approach of downplaying the experiences of marginalized groups is a common one.
- It makes people who are not part of the targeted group, who don’t share their experiences, dismiss their stories about what happened and the impact it has had. When they try to fight back, they can be seen as overly sensitive, aggressive, and/or unreasonable.
- Parallels you could draw:
- Black Lives Matter
- Trans rights
- #MeToo
Teacher Tip: Curating and Choosing Sources The events, people, and resources in the handouts are suggestions and places to start. Depending on your students, interests, and needs, you may want to add key events and resources to review or replace the events with different ones. You may want to pare back the number of resources students examine at each station. See the teacher prep note for more guidance. |
Teacher Tip: Racist Language and Imagery in Primary Sources The primary sources include language, images, or ideas that require thoughtful preparation. Educators should review primary sources carefully and be prepared for any slurs and other hateful or hurtful speech/images. These sources depict beliefs and perspectives of previous eras, including negative stereotypes and insulting and offensive language/imagery that were once commonplace. Remind students that primary sources reflect attitudes from the time when they were created and that beliefs and values, as well as commonly accepted ways of expressing them, have changed. Have a plan in place to address this speech before asking students to read aloud or quote primary sources in class discussions and essays and fall back on the conclusions students made about stereotypes in Lesson 2 from the previous module. |
Teacher Tip: Do No Harm Be aware of the power of media messages and the potential for unintended consequences (e.g., reinforcing/introducing stereotypes or potentially harmful messages you engage with). You can contrast negative or potentially harmful messages with positive media representation. Try to cue into and follow up with students’ emotional responses to documents and listen well to the meaning-making of your students to address potentially harmful or triggering ideas. See Project Look Sharp’s “Tips for Decoding Media Documents” for more information on the “do no harm.” |
| Step 3: Rewrite the book | (20 min) |
Purpose: Students examine example textbook excerpts to prepare them to write their own textbook section. Then, using what they learned about Indigenous people, they write a textbook section about Indigenous boarding schools that illuminates a counternarrative.
You might say: In Unit 1, we learned about history curriculum decision-making and how teaching the dominant narrative in schools, without including counternarratives, leads us to create certain narratives about groups of people in our everyday lives. We can do that in ways that subconsciously reinforce dominant narratives instead of challenging them. By rewriting the textbook, we can work to challenge dominant narratives and we can become more conscious of the ways in which the media we see every day influence our understanding of the world and the people in it.
[Slide 8] Facilitate textbook section writing.
- Distribute the Indigenous Counternarrative Textbook handout.
- Review the directions.
- See Teacher Preparation note to determine if you want students to complete their excerpt on their handout, another material like cardstock, or using some digital tool they have used before.
- Allow student work time and provide timing guidance.
- Invite students to share their work with each other in small groups and explain the choices they made in the writing process.
Unless otherwise noted, Together We Rise © 2024 by Educurious is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Lesson 2.3: Black Narratives
Teacher Guide
Lesson 2.3: Black Narratives
Together We Rise
Unit Driving Question:How can we amplify the untold stories of U.S. history?
Module Driving Question:How do dominant narratives about the past impact American society today?
Learning Targets I can:
Purpose In this lesson, you will hear from other perspectives and voices to have a more complete understanding of Black history in the United States. You will examine a movie clip displaying a dominant narrative. Then, you will work in small groups to explore the impact of this narrative. Next, using what you learned, you will create an audio recording in response to the Module 2 driving question. Finally, you will meet in your podcast teams to select a topic and reflect on what you know and still need to learn. Lesson Steps
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Teacher Preparation Notes
| Pacing | |
| Lesson Timing: | 100 minutes |
| Standards | |
| D2.His.4.9-12: Analyze complex and interacting factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras.D2.His.5.9-12: Analyze how historical contexts shaped and continue to shape people’s perspectives. |
| CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.7: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) to address a question or solve a problem. |
| Lesson Resources | ||
| For Students | For Educators | Materials |
|
| Lesson Overview |
| In this lesson, students hear from other perspectives and voices to have a more complete understanding of Black history in the United States. They examine a movie clip displaying a dominant narrative. Then, they work in small groups to challenge this narrative by exploring different curated sources on counternarratives. Next, using what they learned, they create an audio recording challenging the dominant narrative as displayed in the movie clip. Finally, they meet in their podcast teams to select a topic and reflect on what they know and still need to learn. |
| Teacher Preparation |
|
Lesson Steps in Detail
| Step 1: Explore the dominant narrative | (20 min) |
Purpose: Students view a movie clip demonstrating a historical dominant narrative about Black Americans. Then, students reflect on how this narrative served people in power.
You might say: In the final product, you will create podcasts that elevate and amplify voices and perspectives of those who are often silent in the dominant narrative of U.S. history. Today we will look at the dominant narrative surrounding Black Americans and examine sources that challenge the dominant narrative. Throughout our lesson, try to think of the connection between how Black people have been portrayed in media, the reinforcement and creation of stereotypes, and how these dominant narratives impact the lived experienced of this group of people.
[Slides 2–5] View and discuss the clip from 13th.
- Distribute Dominant Black Narrative handout to students.
- Direct students to Part 1 of their handout.
- [Slides 2–3] Provide context for the source.
- Reconstruction—rights
- Political/economic growth for Black Americans
- [Slide 4] Watch clip of “13th” [2:48–7:26].
- Ask: How would you summarize this source in 1–2 sentences?
- Possible response: Birth of a Nation was a wildly popular movie that reinforced existing stereotypes about Black Americans and led to a number of dangerous and oppressive policies and societal shifts.
- [Slide 5] Reflect on the story.
- Ask: How did this dominant narrative serve people in power?
- Possible response: Birth of a Nation justified racist policies for those who had traditionally held power (wealthy White men) to help them maintain that power.
- Provide students time to talk to their partner about the question.
- Invite students to share out.
Teacher Tip: Racist Language and Imagery in Primary Sources The primary sources include language, images, or ideas that require thoughtful preparation. Educators should review primary sources carefully and be prepared for any slurs and other hateful or hurtful speech/images. These sources depict beliefs and perspectives of previous eras, including negative stereotypes and insulting and offensive language/imagery that were once commonplace. Remind students that primary sources reflect attitudes from the time when they were created and that beliefs and values, as well as commonly accepted ways of expressing them, have changed. Have a plan in place to address this speech before asking students to read aloud or quote primary sources in class discussions and essays and fall back on the conclusions students made about stereotypes in Lesson 2 from the previous module. |
Teacher Tip: Do No Harm Be aware of the power of media messages and the potential for unintended consequences (e.g., reinforcing/introducing stereotypes or potentially harmful messages you engage with). You can contrast negative or potentially harmful messages with positive media representation. Try to cue into and follow up with students’ emotional responses to documents and listen well to the meaning-making of your students to address potentially harmful or triggering ideas. See Project Look Sharp’s “Tips for Decoding Media Documents” for more information on the “do no harm.” |
| Step 2: Examine impact | (30 min) |
Purpose: Students work in small groups to explore the impact of the dominant Black narrative by viewing different curated sources.
You might say: We will now examine and analyze sources that demonstrate the impact of the dominant narrative expressed in Birth of a Nation. These sources will demonstrate what we’ve been discussing throughout this unit—that dominant narratives shape our society in profound ways.
[Slides 6–8] Engage in a jigsaw activity.
- See Teacher Preparation note above for guidance on breaking up sources and groups.
- Direct students to Part 2 of their handout.
- [Slide 6] Place students in groups.
- Read the instructions.
- With your group, explore your assigned source.
- In the table on your handout, record the events as described in your source.
- Provide students time to complete the first part of the jigsaw activity.
- [Slide 7] Place students in new groups, with a representative from each of the original groups.
- Read the instructions.
- Present your findings to your new group.
- Record the findings from the other groups in the table on your handout.
- [Slide 8] Reflect on the sources.
- Ask: What connections can you draw between these sources and the film clip?
- Possible response: The sources show an increase in violence against Black people, which is basically what the film was advocating for.
Teacher Tip: Curating and Choosing Sources The events, people, and resources in the handouts are suggestions and places to start. Depending on your students, interests, and needs, you may want to add key events and resources to review or replace the events with different ones. You may want to pare back the number of resources students examine at each station. |
| Step 3: Create an audio recording | (30 min) |
Purpose: Students practice using the audio recording software they will use for their unit projects to conclude their learning for the module.
You might say: To wrap up your learning for the unit and prepare for the unit project, you will create an audio recording in response to our module driving question: How do dominant narratives about the past impact American society today? You will use the sources you have explored throughout the unit to provide evidence to support your response.
[Slide 9] Provide guidance about your class audio recording platform.
- Provide instructions to students about the audio platform you will be using. See the Teacher Tip for information about using Audacity as your platform.
- If needed, provide students time to set up an account and/or explore the tools on the platform.
[Slide 10] Facilitate audio recording.
- Distribute the Module 2 Recording handout.
- Read the instructions.
- Given your learning so far in this unit, consider how you would respond to the module driving question: How do dominant narratives about the past impact American society today?
- Include evidence from the sources you have examined throughout the unit.
- Use your handout to plan your audio response.
- Record and submit your response.
- Provide students time to complete their planning and recording.
- If you have time, you may wish to have students share their audio recordings in small groups or with the whole class.
Teacher Tip: Using Audacity To record the student podcasts, you will need a recording tool. Audacity is one free option you can use to easily record podcasts. Follow the links and guidance below, and make sure to explore your chosen tool before the lesson so you are ready to support students in their recording!
|
| Step 4: Meet in podcast teams | (20 min) |
Purpose: Students meet in their podcast teams to select a topic for their podcast. They reflect on what they know and what they still need to learn to complete their podcast project.
You might say: Now you will have the chance to meet in your podcast teams to select your topic and consider what you know and need to know to complete your podcast project. Think about what dominant narrative feels pressing to you to challenge, how you might want to inform people about the impact of a particular dominant narrative, what counternarratives you want to elevate, and what perspectives you want to hear from to expand your own understanding.
[Slide 11] Select topics.
- Place students in their podcast teams.
- Provide students time to discuss and do some cursory research on topics that interest them. Circulate to provide guidance.
[Slide 12] Complete Know & Need to Know charts.
- Distribute the Podcast Know & Need to Know handout.
- Provide teams time to complete their charts.
[Slide 13] Conduct a whip around share.
- Ask: What is one thing you still need to learn to complete your project?
- Invite one student to begin the whip around share, indicating the direction for the share. Allow students to respond in turn.
Teacher Tip: Sharing Podcasts Consider ahead of time how you will share the podcasts in Lesson 3.4. Work with your school’s administrator and technology coordinator to determine the best way to publish and share students’ podcasts. It might be as simple as emailing students an audio file or as powerful as adding the podcasts to the school’s website so people outside of the school community can also learn from the students’ work.Two good options for sharing within a class include uploading the podcast recordings to a Google Classroom Assignment or posting them on Flipgrid.To share out more broadly, podcasts can also be hosted on open platforms. From the New York Times “Project audio” lesson plan, here’s an example of how one teacher shares her class’s podcasts on SoundCloud. |
Unless otherwise noted, Together We Rise © 2024 by Educurious is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Module 3 Overview: Complicating the American Story
Module Overview
Module 3: Complicating the American Story
Together We Rise
Unit Driving Question
How can we amplify the untold stories of U.S. history?
Module Driving Question
How can we use podcasting to center voices that disrupt dominant narratives in U.S. history?
Module Overview
In this module, students create a podcast that helps to complicate the dominant narrative of U.S. history by amplifying the voices of those whose stories go untold and overlooked. In Lesson 3.1, students consider how to respectfully share stories. They work in their teams to research their topic and outline and draft their scripts. In Lesson 3.2, students revise their podcast script in preparation for recording their podcast after receiving peer feedback. Students work with their teams and use their podcast scripts to record and edit their podcasts. In Lesson 3.3, students showcase their final products. Afterward, they reflect on their podcasting experience and what they’ve learned about the power of media and narratives in shaping our understanding of U.S. history.
| Lesson 3.1: Plan Your Podcast (120 minutes) | |
Key Standards for Success Criteria D2.His.4.9-12D2.His.7.9-12CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.4 Success CriteriaBy the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
| In this lesson, students participate in a collaborative activity and discussion that aims to identify what they must consider when telling stories that are not their own. Working in project teams, they research the topic they’ve chosen and outline the content and flow of their podcast. Students work with their podcast teams to organize the story structure and outline their plan for the research they’ve conducted. Afterward, they will script their podcast. |
| Lesson 3.2: Podcast Studio Time (120 minutes) | |
Key Standards for Success Criteria D2.His.5.9-12D2.His.7.9-12CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2 Success CriteriaBy the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
| In this lesson, students revise their podcast script in preparation for recording their podcast. Students practice their podcast conversation with their team and give feedback to and receive feedback from two other teams. Then, students review the feedback they received and decide on revisions. Students work with their teams and use their podcast scripts to record and edit a coherent, structured, and clear podcast. |
| Lesson 3.3: Podcast Showcase (60 minutes) | |
Key Standards for Success Criteria D2.His.4.9-12D2.His.5.9-12D2.His.7.9-12CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.4 Success CriteriaBy the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
| In this final lesson, students showcase their final products. Afterward, they reflect on their podcasting experience and what they’ve learned about the power of media and narratives in shaping our understanding of U.S. history. |
| Module Assessments |
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| Vocabulary |
|
Unless otherwise noted, Together We Rise © 2024 by Educurious is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Lesson 3.1: Plan Your Podcast
Teacher Guide
Lesson 3.1: Plan Your Podcast
Together We Rise
Unit Driving Question:How can we amplify the untold stories of U.S. history?
Module Driving Question:How can we use podcasting to center voices that disrupt dominant narratives in U.S. history?
Learning Targets I can:
Purpose In this lesson, you will participate in a collaborative activity and discussion that aims to identify what we must consider when telling stories that are not our own. Working in project teams, you will research your topic and outline (i.e., storyboard) the content and flow of your podcast. You will work with your podcast team to organize your story structure and outline your plan using your research. You will script your podcast with your team. Lesson Steps
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Teacher Preparation Notes
| Pacing | |
| Lesson Timing: | 120 minutes |
| Standards | |
| D2.His.4.9-12: Analyze complex and interacting factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras.D2.His.5.9-12: Analyze how historical contexts shaped and continue to shape people’s perspectives.D2.His.7.9-12: Explain how the perspectives of people in the present shape interpretations of the past. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range of formal and informal tasks. |
| Lesson Resources | ||
| For Students | For Educators | Materials |
|
| Lesson Overview |
| In this lesson, students participate in a collaborative activity and discussion that aims to identify what they must consider when telling stories that are not their own. Working in project teams, they research the topic they’ve chosen and outline the content and flow of their podcast. Students work with their podcast teams to organize the story structure and outline their plan using the research they’ve conducted. Afterward, they will script their podcast. |
| Teacher Preparation |
|
Lesson Steps in Detail
| Step 1: Reflect on the benefits and responsibilities of storytelling | (10 min) |
Purpose: Students reflect on and discuss the considerations we must keep in mind when we are telling stories that are not our own. Then, they discuss the questions they should think through as they research and outline their podcasts in Steps 3 and 4.
You might say: For our final product, we will be recording podcasts in our project teams. In your podcast, you are going to highlight a group, person, or key event in U.S. immigration history. Most/some of us do not belong to the communities that we will be researching, so we must make sure that, through our storytelling, we are centering that community and not ourselves. There are responsible ways to tell stories that are not our own, but they require intentional reflection and planning. We’re going to do that reflection and planning right now.
[Slide 2] Reflect on your own story.
- Direct students to Part 1 of their Responsible Storytelling Reflection handout and read the directions out loud.
- Reflect on the following questions through the lens of your own identity.
- Think about some of the ways you personally identify. Out of all those identities, which two are the most important to you?
- Now, think about a person, fictional or real, who is the complete opposite of those two identities. How would you feel if they were in charge of telling your story?
- Keep thinking about this person who is different from you. How would you like them to tell your story? What would make you feel like your story was told well? What would make you feel like it was not told well?
- Connect it to our podcast. What are important things to consider when we are telling stories that are not our own?
[Slides 3–4] Participate in an active-listening exercise.
- Provide instructions for the partner-listening activity.
- Work with a partner to reflect on the identity questions you just answered.
- One person speaks at a time. The other person listens and asks prompting questions but does not share their own thoughts or opinions until it is their turn.
- Partner A will have 5 minutes to respond to any of the discussion questions from their handout. If there is a lull in their response, Partner B can ask one of the following questions.
- When you said ____, what did you mean?
- Can you elaborate on your statement about _______?
- Can you give an example to support your statement about _______?
- After 5 minutes, Partner B will have five minutes to respond to any of the discussion questions. If there is a lull in their response, Partner A can ask one of the above questions.
- After both partners have spoken, each partner has 3 minutes to reflect on and discuss one statement their partner made that stuck with them during the activity.
- I will keep time and let you know when it is time to switch.
[Slide 5] Debrief in podcast teams.
- Direct students to Part 2 of their handout and read the directions aloud.
- When it comes to other people’s stories, what is the importance of listening actively? How does listening actively allow us to center the speaker?
- What thoughts did your partner share about considerations we should keep in mind when telling other people’s stories? Make a list of thoughts from your whole team.
[Slide 6] Build a class list of considerations for storytelling.
- Invite podcast teams to share out the considerations they discussed.
- Record the considerations so that all students can see and reference them.
[Slide 7] Explore other possible podcast considerations.
- Use the list on the slide to acknowledge some of the considerations that we should keep in mind as we practice responsible storytelling.
- Invite students to identify any other considerations this discussion brought up in their minds that they have not yet shared.
Teacher Tip: Capture Class Thoughts (Anchor Chart) For this activity, you can have teams share out their collaborative lists of considerations and allow students to add anything they hear that they did not think of to their own lists. Alternatively, you can build a collaborative list of considerations in an anchor chart that students can continuously reference as they build out their final product. |
Teacher Tip: Podcast Project One-Pager You will find a project one-pager in your teacher materials. In Unit 1, students explored this resource as a class. If time allows, consider doing the same in this lesson. Otherwise, distribute this to students to make sure they are clear on all parts of their final product. Decide what dates you want to share with students for the due date section under deliverables. |
| Step 2: Research your podcast | (40 min) |
Purpose: Students use sources and documents from Module 2 to research and organize their ideas.
You might say: Now that we have reflected on how we can use podcasting as a tool to tell stories respectfully, we are going to continue researching. In your podcast teams, begin the research you’ll need to start outlining your podcast.
[Slide 8] Review research instructions.
- Direct students to Part 1 of their Podcast Planning handout and review the directions for research.
You might say: It’s important to note that you might need to do more research later on. As you outline, script, and record, you might determine that there is missing information that you want to include; that’s a normal part of the process of creating a podcast. In our upcoming lessons, you will have plenty of time to complete any research that you don’t complete today.
| Teacher Tip: Research Resources Depending on how you curated the sources for Module 2, students may have access to all the research resources, or this may be when you would provide the remainder of the resources. Additionally, if students choose a different topic or a personal topic, you may need to help guide them to research resources. Consider teaming up with your school’s librarian to help students navigate accessing and conducting research. |
| Step 3: Outline your podcast | (20 min) |
Purpose: Students outline their podcast by drawing on the list of considerations identified and the topic they selected in the last lesson.
You might say: Now, we are going to outline our podcast. The outline is used to make sure that as you create your podcast, the story you are trying to tell is well thought-out and flows in a captivating way.
[Slide 9] Review outline expectations and help students get started.
- Direct students to Part 2 of their Podcast Planning handout and review the directions as a class.
[Slide 10] Support students in sequencing their podcast content.
- Direct students to Part 3 of their handout, in which students sequence the content they have identified for their podcast.
- Provide students guidance on how much time they have for this outline.
- Provide students with information about conferences with you (if you are going to hold conferences).
Teacher Tip: Conferencing With Podcast Teams As students outline their podcasts, create a rotation schedule to conference with all teams. As you do so, you might ask them:
|
| Step 4: Explore different podcast structures and outlines | (20 min) |
Purpose: Students unpack the three main formats for podcast storytelling through a video and begin to outline their ideas using the circular order structure.
You might say: In a few days, we will be publishing our podcasts! We will have a publishing event to showcase our work and will spend the next few lessons preparing for that event. Up to now, you have been doing research and planning around what you want to present in your podcast. You have selected a story about a refugee community you want to highlight, identified a message of solidarity you want to create through your podcast, and created a general outline of the different parts of your podcast. Now, you must decide how you will structure all of this information. Podcasting is storytelling, and stories need an arc that takes an audience on a clear journey—but there are many ways to create a storytelling arc. We are going to unpack three different storytelling structures, and then you will choose one to use as a team.
[Slide 11] Play the PRX video “How to Write Scripts for Your Podcast” [3:58].
- After watching the video, ask students to reflect on the following questions:
- Ask: What is the speaker saying about “characters” in podcasting?
- Possible response: Every podcast needs to have characters. They can be individuals or groups of people, but to create a compelling podcast, you need to identify the characters whose story will drive the plot forward. The podcast should include elements of conflict the characters are facing and use the unpacking of that conflict to drive the story as well.
- Ask: What are three types of story structures that can be used in podcasting?
- Possible response: chronological order, circular order, and broken narrative.
- Ask: What are the pros and cons of each structure?
- Possible response: Chronological is easy to follow, and it highlights causes and effects easily for the listener. With circular, the story starts at the height of the conflict (the climax), then it takes us back to the beginning and goes in chronological order. With the story starting at the climax, the audience is hooked by the most engaging part of the story. A broken narrative is when the story is told using a lot of context, and events in the story are told out of order. In this structure, you tell the audience about something happening to your character(s), then give context about why it is happening. In chronological and circular structure, the “why” may not be established.
You might say: For this podcast, we will use the circular structure. Consider how you might best tell the story of your topic/group/person using this structure.
[Slide 12] Direct students to Part 4 of their Podcast Planning handout.
- Read the directions with students and provide any additional guidance needed for their work time.
[Slide 13] Facilitate a reflection on gaps in their podcast content.
- After students fill in the handout with their research, have them pause briefly to reflect on the following questions. Ask:
- As you are filling out your handout, are you noticing any gaps in your research?
- What information might you want to include that you have not thought of until now?
- How will your team fill in any research gaps?
You might say: Researching before outlining is very important. However, as we build out the structure of our story, it’s very normal to realize that there is more we want to include or parts that we might have missed when doing our initial research. It’s part of the process!
| Step 5: Script your podcast | (30 min) |
Purpose: In their teams, students choose their roles and create a script in preparation for their upcoming podcast practice and recording.
You might say: Now that you have determined how you will structure your podcast, it’s time to write your script. This script will be very detailed and help make sure you know exactly what to say when recording your podcast. Let’s go over what your script will look like together.
[Slide 14] Prepare students to begin writing their script.
- Project the Podcast Rubric and review the criteria for all five rows in the “Award-Winning Podcast Producers” column with students.
- Clarify for students the expected length of podcasts (i.e., how many words or pages of script equal how many minutes).
- We have found that, on average, it takes 5–6 minutes to read aloud a 1,000-word script, depending on pauses and delivery speed.
- Direct students to Part 5 of their Podcast Planning handout, then review the directions and guidance with students.
[Slide 15] Provide students time to script.
- As students are working, have the following tips visible. You can refer students back to them as you support students during their work time.
- Work collaboratively (one person should not do all the writing).
- Make your story interesting.
- Decide if you need to do more research.
- Check the Podcast Rubric to see if you are meeting the criteria for award-winning podcast producers.
Teacher Tip: Make Sure Students Share Scriptwriting Tasks To avoid a situation in which one student does most (or all) of the work of writing the script, coach teams in collaboration. Each team member can write part of the script, offer ideas, and suggest revisions. For example, once the team members have an outline of the questions they will discuss in their podcast, each member can be assigned a part and be responsible for scripting the response. |
Teacher Tip: Dual Language Podcasts You can allow students to record their podcasts in their native language and include English subtitles, or to record using a mix of spoken and written languages. This can help newcomers and beginning multilingual learners engage with the content at grade level, while still practicing their speaking and writing skills. |
Unless otherwise noted, Together We Rise © 2024 by Educurious is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Lesson 3.2: Podcast Studio Time
Teacher Guide
Lesson 3.2: Podcast Studio Time
Together We Rise
Unit Driving Question:How can we amplify the untold stories of U.S. history?
Module Driving Question:How can we use podcasting to center voices that disrupt dominant narratives in U.S. history?
Learning Targets I can:
Purpose In this lesson, you will revise your podcast script in preparation for recording your podcast. You will practice your podcast conversation with your team and give feedback to and receive feedback from two other teams. Then, you will review the feedback you received and decide on revisions. You will work with your team and use your podcast script to record and edit a coherent, structured, and clear podcast. Lesson Steps
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Teacher Preparation Notes
| Pacing | |
| Lesson Timing: | 120 minutes |
| Standards | |
| D2.His.4.9-12: Analyze complex and interacting factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras.D2.His.5.9-12: Analyze how historical contexts shaped and continue to shape people’s perspectives.D2.His.7.9-12: Explain how the perspectives of people in the present shape interpretations of the past. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range of formal and informal tasks. |
| Lesson Resources | ||
| For Students | For Educators | Materials |
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| Lesson Overview |
| In this lesson, students revise their podcast script in preparation for recording their podcast. Students practice their podcast conversation with their team and give feedback to and receive feedback from two other teams. Then, students review the feedback they received and decide on revisions. Students work with their team and use their podcast script to record and edit a coherent, structured, and clear podcast. |
| Teacher Preparation |
|
Lesson Steps in Detail
| Step 1: Workshop your podcast | (30 min) |
Purpose: Students practice their podcasts with two other teams and give each other feedback on their scripts.
You might say: Now that we have researched, planned, and outlined our podcasts, it’s time to practice them. Your team has been working on a podcast script that lays out everything you will say in your podcast, exactly as you will say it during your recording session. You are going to go through two rounds of feedback on each other’s scripts. However, the teams you are paired with will not read your script; instead, they will watch you read your script as a team. This will enable them to provide feedback on how your story sounds aloud. It will also help you because, when you read your writing aloud, you can catch mistakes more quickly and easily. You’ll be able to make any changes needed before you record.
[Slides 2–4] Distribute the Podcast Feedback handout.
- Read instructions with students and provide any further guidance needed, including expectations for peer feedback. Talking points:
- You will participate in two rounds of feedback.
- You will fill out one feedback form for each team you are paired with and give it to them at the end of the feedback round.
- Between each feedback round, you will have three minutes to make quick edits to your script. These should be simple changes, like crossing out words that tripped you up or fixing grammatical errors.
- Each team member should have a copy of their script and a pen or pencil. As your teammates read their parts of the script, circle/underline/highlight anything that sounds off or might need to be edited.
- (Optional) Provide further guidance if needed, like how long they have for each round and how they will know it’s time to stop and to move on. If possible, provide timers to help students stay on track.
Teacher Tip: “The Right Length” Rubric Guidance The rubric includes a row about “delivery.” In this section of the rubric, students are asked to make their podcast “just the right length.” We wanted to leave this open for you to decide what the right length might be, given the amount of time students have to complete their podcast in your class. We suggest guiding students to create a podcast that is 4–6 minutes long, but you should choose the length given your class’s needs. |
| Step 2: Revise your podcast | (20 min) |
Purpose: Students review the notes they took on their scripts during feedback rounds, along with the Podcast Feedback handouts they received from their peers, to revise their podcast script.
You might say: Now that you have participated in the feedback rounds, you have a lot of notes to review with your team! Review the notes your team took as you all read your script, along with the ones on the Podcast Feedback handouts that your peers completed for you.
[Slide 5] Facilitate a reflection and prioritization of peer feedback.
- Invite teams to discuss the following questions in their teams as they reflect on their feedback. Ask:
- What feedback did we receive that we can address quickly and right away?
- What feedback did we receive that would require us to rewrite a major part of our script? How should we address this feedback?
- What feedback did we receive that would require us to add an entirely new part to our podcast? How do we plan to address this feedback?
- Invite teams to share out up to three changes they are making based on peer feedback.
[Slide 6] Invite students to reflect on the project rubric.
- Distribute copies of the Podcast Rubric. Instruct students to read through the rubric as a team and reflect on the following question: What do we still need to complete or revise to make sure that our podcast is meeting the rubric expectations for an award-winning podcast?
- Invite teams to share out up to three changes or additions they are making to ensure they are meeting project expectations, based on the rubric. They can also share which recommendations from the rubric they plan to keep in mind as they record (tone, language, etc.).
| Step 3: Record your podcast | (20 min) |
Purpose: Students record their podcasts.
You might say: The time has come to record our podcasts. You will be working in your teams to record your podcast using the script you have finalized and practiced.
[Slide 7] Record podcasts!
- Give students some guidance on what they should expect as they record their podcasts. Talking points:
- Be ready by the recording space three minutes before your recording time.
- Make sure each team member uses a copy of the podcast script.
- (Optional) Add any other guidance on what students should expect as they record their podcasts.
Teacher Tip: Recording Clear Audio Students will be using WeVideo for their audio recordings. See the following for more tips on how to use WeVideo to record audio. These are also included in the student-facing resource handout.Consider the following best practices to support students in creating a clear audio file:
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Teacher Tip: Using Audacity To record the student podcasts, you will need a recording tool. Audacity is one free option you can use to easily record podcasts. Follow the links and guidance below, and make sure to explore your chosen tool before the lesson so you are ready to support students in their recording!
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Teacher Tip: Sharing Podcasts Consider ahead of time how you will share the podcasts in Lesson 3.3. Work with your school’s administrator and technology coordinator to determine the best way to publish and share students’ podcasts. It might be as simple as emailing students an audio file or as powerful as adding the podcasts to the school’s website so people outside of the school community can also learn from the students’ work.Two good options for sharing within a class include uploading the podcast recordings to a Google Classroom Assignment or posting them on Padlet. |
| Step 4: Use flexible time | (20 min) |
Purpose: Some student teams may need more time to record; others may be ready to move on to the editing stage if they know how to use the technology. Students may also use this time to plan for the publishing event if needed.
You might say: Once you finish recording, you have some flexible time to work. You may need more time to re-record parts of your podcast. If your team has finished recording and you are satisfied with your podcast—congratulations! You can use the remaining time to edit your podcast. You can also use this time to continue planning for our publishing event.
[Slide 8] Student teams ready to begin editing their podcast. Remind students to check the Podcast Rubric one last time to be sure they are meeting all criteria for an award-winning podcast. Offer students the following guidance and monitor teams, providing support as needed. Talking points:
- Make sure your podcast is just the right length.
- Check volume levels.
- Cut unnecessary parts and errors.
- Smooth out transitions.
- Reduce background noise.
- Add music and sound effects.
- Check Podcast Rubric one last time to be sure you are meeting all criteria for Award-Winning Podcast Producers.
Unless otherwise noted, Together We Rise © 2024 by Educurious is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Lesson 3.3: Podcast Showcase
Teacher Guide
Lesson 3.3: Podcast Showcase
Together We Rise
Unit Driving Question:How can we amplify the untold stories of U.S. history?
Module Driving Question:How can we use podcasting to center voices that disrupt dominant narratives in U.S. history?
Learning Targets I can:
Purpose In this final lesson, showcase your final products. Then, reflect on your podcasting experience and what you’ve learned about the power of media and narratives in shaping our understanding of U.S. history. Lesson Steps
|
Teacher Preparation Notes
| Pacing | |
| Lesson Timing: | 60 minutes |
| Standards | |
| D2.His.4.9-12: Analyze complex and interacting factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras.D2.His.5.9-12: Analyze how historical contexts shaped and continue to shape people’s perspectives.D2.His.7.9-12: Explain how the perspectives of people in the present shape interpretations of the past. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range of formal and informal tasks. |
| Lesson Resources | ||
| For Students | For Educators | Materials |
|
| Lesson Overview |
| In this final lesson, students showcase their final products. Afterward, they reflect on their podcasting experience and what they’ve learned about the power of media and narratives in shaping our understanding of U.S. history. |
| Teacher Preparation |
|
Lesson Steps in Detail
| Step 1: Share your podcast with your community | (30 min) |
Purpose: Students listen to their own and their peers’ podcast recordings. They reflect on the stories and messages of each podcast.
You might say: It’s time to celebrate and share all of the hard work we have done to create our podcasts. You will reflect on your own podcast and the podcasts created by your peers, and then we will have a community discussion on what we learned in this unit and through this process.
[Slide 2] Invite students to complete their peer reflections.
- Distribute copies of the Podcast Reflection handout.
- Prompt students to begin by reflecting on the podcasts that their peers created. Provide directions on what podcasts they should listen to and how, and how much time they have for their peer reflections using the guidance provided in the Teacher Preparation section of this Teacher Guide.
[Slide 3] Personal podcast reflection. Direct students to Part 2 of their Podcast Reflection handout and inform them that they will now reflect on their own podcast. Provide guidance on how much time they have for these personal reflections.
Teacher Tip: Ideas for Sharing Podcasts With Youth and Community Our module driving question asks us to consider how we can use podcasts to disrupt dominant narratives in U.S. history. This creates a great opportunity for students to share their projects with community members, especially youth in their school community. Consider the following ideas to share the work you’ve been doing with others:
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Teacher Tip: Managing Audience Questions and Feedback You may choose to invite parents and outside guests to this lesson, or share student podcasts with other students, parents, and outside guests.When students share their work at an event attended by parents, school staff, other students, outside experts, and/or community members, the audience may need support for asking good questions. Some people may not know what questions to ask or may ask questions that are too challenging or complicated—or even inappropriate. For example, someone might ask students to comment on an aspect of history they did not study, or ask about a sensitive personal or political topic, or ask a question in a way that your students find difficult to understand or answer.If one of these questions arises, you can reframe it for students or ask the audience member to clarify it. For some questions, you may even have to say something like, “That’s a good question, but it’s not something we can answer,” or other words to that effect. Consider providing the audience with a handout with suggestions for the kinds of questions they might ask of students, such as, “What was the most important thing you learned?”, “What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?”, and “Could you explain more about….?”Audience feedback is good for students to hear and can be a valuable part of your assessment strategy. However, guests may tend to offer only general praise, not specific feedback, and typically don’t want to sound too critical. Distribute one copy of the Podcast Rubric per team presenting to any outside guests, so they can orient to the project and use the rubric to provide feedback. |
| Step 2: Participate in a community discussion | (20 min) |
Purpose: Students engage in a whole-class discussion of the lessons they learned about the power of media and narratives in shaping our understanding of U.S. history through this unit and the podcast-recording process.
You might say: Now that we have listened to some podcasts created by our class and reflected on these recordings individually, let’s open it up to a community discussion. We will start by sharing what we learned from the podcasts we listened to, and then we will talk about what we learned in this unit as a whole.
[Slide 4] Invite students to participate in a community discussion.
- Remind students that they are working on the discussion skill “support ideas with evidence.”
- You can work through some or all of the following discussion questions together. Encourage students to reference notes from their Podcast Reflection handout as they reflect and respond.
- What new information did you learn today through podcasts about Americans whose stories are often missing from the dominant American narrative?
- What surprised you as you were listening to podcasts today? What captured your attention?
- Do you have any shoutouts you want to give to other teams about their podcasts?
- Given our work, how can we use podcasting to amplify untold stories?
- What is the most important thing you would want someone to take away from your podcast?
| Step 3: Reflect on the unit driving question | (20 min) |
Purpose: Students individually reflect on the unit driving question and display their reflections on a class anchor chart.
You might say: We are going to close out this unit by reflecting on key ideas of the unit and the question that has been guiding our learning throughout: How can we amplify the untold stories of U.S. history? You will reflect on this question individually on a sticky note. When you are done, you will post your sticky note on our class anchor chart, and then I will read some of our reflections aloud.
[Slide 5] Invite students to reflect on the unit. Invite students to discuss the following questions.
- How do media and narratives shape our understanding of the American story?
- Why do you think it is important to hear from and listen to untold or overlooked American stories?
[Slide 6] Display unit driving question.
- Distribute sticky notes and give students time to individually reflect on the question.
- Then, invite students to post their sticky notes on an anchor chart with the question written on it.
- Read some of the reflections aloud.
Teacher Tip: Timeline Extension Pack You will find a timeline extension pack at the end of this lesson. Read through this teacher-facing document for more guidance on creating a classroom timeline to support student chronological reasoning when learning history thematically. You will find a timeline extension pack at the end of each unit. |
Unless otherwise noted, Together We Rise © 2024 by Educurious is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:21.500366
|
Module
|
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"author": "Lesson Plan"
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/76012/overview
|
Learning Domain: Civics
Standard: (US) Analyze how a claim on an issue attempts to balance individual rights and the common good
Learning Domain: Economics
Standard: (US) Analyze the influence of the US government?s taxation, creation of currency, and tariffs in the past or present
Learning Domain: History
Standard: (US) Explain and analyze how individuals and movements have shaped United States history (1763-1877)
Learning Domain: History
Standard: (US) Analyze and interpret historical materials from a variety of perspectives in United States history (1763-1877)
Learning Domain: History
Standard: (US) Analyze multiple causal factors to create positions on major events in United States history (1763-1877)
Learning Domain: Social Studies Skills
Standard: Analyze positions and evidence supporting an issue or an event
Learning Domain: Social Studies Skills
Standard: Create and use research questions to guide inquiry on an issue or event
Learning Domain: Social Studies Skills
Standard: Evaluate the breadth, reliability, and credibility of primary and secondary sources to determine the need for new or additional information when researching an issue or event
Learning Domain: Social Studies Skills
Standard: Engage in discussion, analyzing multiple viewpoints on public issues
Learning Domain: Social Studies Skills
Standard: Analyze multiple factors, make generalizations, and interpret sources to formulate a thesis in a paper or presentation, while observing rules related to plagiarism and copyright
Learning Domain: Social Studies Skills
Standard: Use appropriate format to cite sources within an essay, presentation, and reference page
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 5 topic or subject area.
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Draw on information from multiple print or digital sources, demonstrating the ability to locate an answer to a question quickly or to solve a problem efficiently.
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Integrate information from several texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.
Learning Domain: Speaking and Listening
Standard: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above.)
Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Conduct short research projects that use several sources to build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic.
Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Apply grade 5 Reading standards to informational texts (e.g., “Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text, identifying which reasons and evidence support which point[s]”).
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 4���5 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 5 topic or subject area.
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Draw on information from multiple print or digital sources, demonstrating the ability to locate an answer to a question quickly or to solve a problem efficiently.
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Integrate information from several texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.
Learning Domain: Speaking and Listening
Standard: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others�۪ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1���3 above.)
Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Conduct short research projects that use several sources to build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic.
Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Apply grade 5 Reading standards to informational texts (e.g., "Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text, identifying which reasons and evidence support which point[s]"").
Cluster: Range of Reading and Complexity of Text.
Standard: By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Cluster: Key Ideas and Details.
Standard: Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.
Cluster: Craft and Structure.
Standard: Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 5 topic or subject area.
Cluster: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas.
Standard: Draw on information from multiple print or digital sources, demonstrating the ability to locate an answer to a question quickly or to solve a problem efficiently.
Cluster: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas.
Standard: Integrate information from several texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.
Cluster: Range of Writing.
Standard: Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
Cluster: Production and Distribution of Writing.
Standard: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above.)
Cluster: Research to Build and Present Knowledge.
Standard: Conduct short research projects that use several sources to build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic.
Cluster: Research to Build and Present Knowledge.
Standard: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Cluster: Research to Build and Present Knowledge.
Standard: Apply grade 5 Reading standards to informational texts (e.g., “Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text, identifying which reasons and evidence support which point[s]”).
Cluster: Comprehension and Collaboration.
Standard: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:21.583225
|
Teaching/Learning Strategy
|
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/76012/overview",
"title": "Grade 8 Inquiry: Road to Revolution",
"author": "Lesson Plan"
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|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/78470/overview
|
Education Standards
Podcasts
Presentation Tools Suggestions
What is a Theme?
12th Grade Literature: Everyman
Overview
12th Grade, Everyman play, character and theme analysis.
Analysis (Character)
1. As links sometime don't work, for a variety of reasons, make sure you have other options to use instead.
2. Character analysises are best done between 2 and 3 pages, but this can be adjusted depending on class needs.
3. Decide how class discussion should be conducted (flipgrid, online discussion boards, etc.)
Subject/Grade Level: 12th/English 4
Standards: 12.3.R.3, 12.7.W.1
Objectives: Students will be able to identify specific character types and be able to conduct a formal analysis over them.
Materials Needed:Everyman, Anonymous
Analysis (Character)
1. Students will either choose to read, listen or watch Everyman, written by Anonymous.
2. Afterwards, students will pick one of the following characters:
- Everyman
- Death
- Good-Deads
- Five-Wits
- Strength
- God
- Confession
- Beauty
- Discretion
- Fellowship
- Goods
- Cousin
- Kindred
- Doctor
- Messager
2. Once they have choosen their character, students will need to gather information on them, such as background, phsyical and character traits, and how they influence the plot. (See Five Elements)
3. Students, after deciding their thesis statement, will begin writing their analysis.
4. Once they have a finished product, students will then get to decide how they wish to present their analysis.Optionsinclude but are not limited to: podcasts, Youtube or. traditional presentations.
5. Class discussion, and QAs, will follow once all the presentations are completed and seen.
Analysis (Theme)
Subject/Grade Level: 12th/English 4
Standards: 12.3.R.3, 12.7.W.1
Objectives: Students will be able to identify specific literary themes and conducted a thorough analysis over them as well as understand the many different ways technology can be used.
Materials Needed: Everyman, Annoymous
Analysis (Theme)
1. Once students have either read, listened, or watched Everyman, they will pick one of the play's themes from a list. (Themes include but are not limited to: personification, morality, death, sin, human nature, salvation, religion)
2. Once students have picked their theme, they need to conduct a close examination (look for recurring images, make note of literary tools and how they connect to the theme, and find specific instances where the theme is seen at. They will then write a short paper (no more than 2 pages) over this.
3. Once students have completed their papers, they shall be placed in a group with other students who selected the same theme. From there, each group must combine their knowledge and ideas then pick a unique way to present this information. The use of technology is encouraged but creativity is a must.
4. Each group must present their research and findings in their choosen way.
5. Class discussion, and QAs, will follow once all the groups are done.
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:21.611667
|
Reading
|
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/78470/overview",
"title": "12th Grade Literature: Everyman",
"author": "Homework/Assignment"
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|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/122559/overview
|
Canon and notation
Canon and notation
Overview
1. What is notation?
2.what are the qualities of good notation?
3.what is octave device?
4.what is sector device?
5.what is empty digit?
6.what is emptying digit?
7.what is Mnemonics?
8.what are different types of mnemonics used in library classification.write with suitable example
1.what is notation?
2.what are the qualities of good notation?
3.what is octave device?
4.what is sector device?
5.what is empty digit?
6.what is emptying digit?
7.what is Mnemonics?
8.what are different types of mnemonics used in library classification write with suitable example.
1.what is notation?
2.what are the qualities of good notation?
3.what is octave device?
4.what is sector device?
5.what is empty digit?
6.what is emptying digit?
7.what is Mnemonics?
8.what are different types of mnemonics used in library classification write with suitable example.
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:21.631408
|
12/04/2024
|
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/122559/overview",
"title": "Canon and notation",
"author": "ARPITA HALDER"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/122524/overview
|
Models of Information seeking behaviour
Overview
Models of Information seeking behaviour
Models of Information seeking behaviour
Information seeking behaviour models offer valuable insights into how individuals search for and utilize information. By understanding these models, we can enhance our own information seeking practices and make more informed decisions in an increasingly complex information landscape. Information-seeking behavior pertains to the methods employed by individuals to acquire the information they require. This process involves identifying all potential sources of information and choosing the most suitable one among them. Such behavior is motivated by the user's desire to fulfill a specific objective or need. There are some of the information seeking behaviour models are described below-
6.1 Wilson’s Models of Information seeking behaviour
Information seeking behavior models are designed to analyze the ways in which users seek and search for information. The initial model was introduced by T. D. Wilson in 1981, who is often referred to as the pioneer in the field of information seeking behavior. This model aims to delineate the various aspects that users engage with during their information-seeking activities. It illustrates that information seeking behavior emerges as a response to a user's perceived information need. The process begins with the user's request for information from various sources and systems, whether formal or informal. The outcome of this seeking behavior can lead to either success or failure; if the user successfully locates the desired information, it is subsequently utilized, shared, or disseminated to others. Conversely, if the user's needs remain unmet, the search process recommences. The model emphasizes the role of interpersonal interactions in information seeking, highlighting the processes of information exchange and transfer. Wilson's model serves as a comprehensive representation of information seeking behavior, detailing how information needs develop and outlining the fundamental steps involved in the search process.
This model of information-seeking behavior is founded on two principal assertions. Firstly, it posits that the need for information is not a fundamental requirement but rather a secondary one that emerges from more basic needs. Secondly, to locate the information necessary to fulfill this need, users must confront specific obstacles. Information needs develop within individuals due to their personal situations, social roles, and the environments in which they reside. This model, developed in 1994, integrates various elements of Ellis's framework and highlights the physiological, emotional, and cognitive requirements that drive information-seeking behavior. Additionally, the factors that give rise to information needs may also serve as barriers to an individual's quest for information.
2.2 Krikelas Model
Krikelas (1983) posits that an individual identifies a need based on their surrounding environment. The person acknowledges a gap in their knowledge that necessitates resolution to address a particular issue, prompting them to seek information from various sources. These sources may include human contacts, information systems, or other resources. The outcome of this search may either be successful or unsuccessful; in the event of failure, the individual may repeat the process (Hayden n.d.). Krikelas (1983) defines information as any stimulus that alleviates uncertainty. An information need arises from the awareness of this uncertainty in the individual's personal or professional life. Furthermore, Krikelas categorizes information seeking into immediate short-term needs and long-term deferred requirements. The endeavor to fulfill a perceived need manifests as information-seeking behavior. However, Krikelas (1983) notes that unconscious needs do not always result in subsequent action.
2 Dervin’s Sense-Making Model:
Brenda Dervins‟ sense making theory developed in 1983 its not simply a model; she defines it as „a set of assumptions, a theoretic perspective, a methodological approach, a research methods and a practice designed to cope up with information perceived as, …‟a human tool designed for making sense of a reality assumed to be both chaotic and orderly.‟
The sense-making model comprises four primary components. The first element is the situation in time and space, which refers to the circumstances that give rise to the need for information. The second element, the gap, illustrates the disparity between the current contextual situation and the desired outcome. The outcome itself represents the results of the sense-making process, which aims to diminish the gap between the existing situation and the desired outcome (Wilson, 1999). Strategies serve as the means to bridge this gap. It is posited that various forms of information behavior can be viewed as sense-making strategies, which individuals employ to comprehend or maintain understanding in a chaotic environment. To bridge the gap, individuals may seek information, enabling them to adjust their internal perceptions to align more closely with what is termed 'external reality.' Alternatively, they may modify 'external reality' to better reflect their own perspectives. For example, an individual might endeavor to alter their community's perception of what is deemed 'true' or 'acceptable'; this could be pursued by a researcher proposing a new theory or by someone facing accusations. In such cases, disseminating or contesting information may represent effective information behavior. Depending on personal motivations, an individual might generate information to construct a bridge or to reduce the gap. Conversely, avoiding information could be interpreted as a method of disregarding the gap or as a means of keeping it minimal.
6.3 Ellis’sModel of Information Seeking Behaviour
Ellis's model of information-seeking behavior outlines a series of stages that users typically follow when searching for information. This model describes the methods employed by users to locate and utilize information. The stages are defined as follows: 1. Starting: This stage involves selecting sources to find the required information, which may include consulting knowledgeable individuals. 2. Chaining: This refers to the process of pursuing leads such as citations, footnotes, and bibliographies derived from initial information sources. 3. Browsing: This stage is characterized by semi-directed or semi-structured searching, which includes reviewing tables of contents, title lists, and subject headings, all of which are considered forms of basic browsing. 4. Differentiating: In this stage, users distinguish between the sources they have found based on the nature and quality of the information they provide. 5. Monitoring: This involves staying informed or conducting current awareness searches, which includes regularly checking for updates from various sources such as journals, newspapers, conferences, and magazines. 6. Extracting: This stage entails the selective identification of pertinent material within an information source, focusing on the most relevant information and extracting data that meets the user's needs. 7. Verifying: This involves assessing the accuracy of the information gathered by cross-referencing it with various sources. 8. Ending: This final stage can be described as 'tying up loose ends' through a concluding search. It signifies the completion of the information-seeking process, at which point the user feels satisfied with the information acquired. The strength of this model lies in its foundation on empirical research, having been validated through numerous studies. It is essential that the Starting stage initiates the process, while the Ending stage signifies its conclusion. Additionally, it is reasonable to assert that Verifying serves as a penultimate stage, with Extracting following specific search behaviors such as Browsing. This distinction highlights that Extracting is not of the same nature as Browsing, Chaining, or Monitoring. Furthermore, it implies that Differentiating plays a critical role in the overall process.
6.4 Kuhlthou’s Model of Information Seeking Behaviour
Kuhlthaus' model is best characterized as a phenomenological framework rather than a cognitive one. This model comprises a series of stages designed to facilitate the acquisition of necessary information, which include Initiation, Selection, Exploration, Formulation, Collection, and Presentation. The first stage, Initiation, marks the moment when an individual acknowledges the need to commence a task. During this phase, the individual often experiences significant anxiety and uncertainty, realizing their limited knowledge on the subject. The second stage, Selection, involves the user becoming somewhat aware of the area of interest or topic they wish to investigate. Although the individual feels a reduction in anxiety, uncertainty persists as the primary focus remains ambiguous. The third stage, Exploration, occurs when the user identifies a topic about which they possess some knowledge. As exploration progresses, the user's anxiety and uncertainty diminish. In the fourth stage, Formulation, the user selects a specific topic for deeper investigation and research. The subsequent stage, Collection, entails gathering relevant information through various research tools, which provides a clearer direction for the inquiry and enhances the user's confidence. The sixth stage, Presentation, involves compiling all gathered data and information into a cohesive final report that encapsulates the entire information-seeking process. Success in this stage leads to a sense of satisfaction, while failure to obtain the necessary information can result in significant disappointment. The final stage of the model, Assessment, focuses on the user's self-evaluation, fostering a sense of achievement and heightened self-awareness. The various stages of Kuhlthaus' model are illustrated through a flow diagram as follows:
5 Foster’s Non-Linear Model The continuous examination of emerging concepts and their interrelations resulted in the formation of clusters encompassing behaviors, intervening factors, and contextual elements. These concepts were categorized into three primary groups: Opening, Orientation, and Consolidation, around which further analysis was conducted to refine definitions, functions, information requirements, and the relevant contexts associated with them. The revised model of interdisciplinary information-seeking is depicted through three fundamental processes and three tiers of contextual interaction. The subsequent sections will commence with the outer layers of the diagram and progress towards the core processes of Opening, Orientation, and Consolidation, concluding with a comprehensive summary of the entire model
Johnson's Model comprises seven elements categorized into three main headings, as proposed in 1987. The primary process is depicted as flowing from left to right. The four elements classified under the antecedents are further divided into two subcategories: background factors and personal relevance. The background factors encompass demographics and personal experiences, while the personal relevance factors include salience and beliefs. The second category, Information Carrier Factors, pertains to the characteristics and utilities of the information channels chosen and utilized by seekers. The final category addresses information-seeking actions.
8. Choo’s (1998) Behavioral Model of Information-Seeking on the Web Choo et al.'s (1998) behavioral model of information-seeking on the Web should be classified as an information retrieval model. Although the title implies a focus on behavior, the model incorporates numerous elements akin to Aguillar’s (1967) modes of environmental scanning. Choo synthesized and expanded upon Aguilar’s modes and Ellis’s information-seeking behavior model to create a novel behavioral framework for information-seeking on the Web. He delineated four primary modes of information-seeking: undirected viewing, conditioned viewing, informal search, and formal search. As a hybrid model that draws from the works of Ellis (1989) and Aguillar (1967), the Behavioral Model of Information-Seeking on the Web illustrates the importance of employing diverse methods for data collection. It also holds the potential for further development or application to other information-seeking endeavors, such as information searches. Consequently, the model offers a structured approach to analyze the interplay between information needs, search strategies, and search tactics.
Leckie’s Model (1996) focuses on professionals such as engineers, doctors, and lawyers. This model comprises six interconnected factors, represented by arrows that flow downward from the top. While five of these factors are unidirectional, one is bidirectional. In this framework, the factor labeled 'work role' facilitates the execution of 'tasks.' The completion of these tasks generates an information need. The model illustrates information-seeking behavior as a bidirectional arrow marked 'information is sought.' The factor known as 'outcomes' represents the final result, linking the factors 'source of information,' 'awareness of information,' and 'information is sought' through feedback arrows.
References:
1. Garg, M. & Kurukshetra University. (2016). Information Seeking Behaviour Models: A Brief Introduction. In International Journal of Library and Information Studies (Vols. 6–1). https://www.ijlis.org/articles/information-seeking-behaviour-models-a-brief-introduction.pdf
2. Models of Information Seeking Behavior – Library Use and User Studies. (n.d.). https://ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in/lisp15/chapter/models-of-information-seeking-behavior/
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:21.657116
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12/03/2024
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/122524/overview",
"title": "Models of Information seeking behaviour",
"author": "RUMKI AKHTAR"
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/121971/overview
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Corgi Heredity
Overview
In this unit, students will explore inheritance and variation of traits. They will understand the growth of organisms and how organisms inherit traits and why there are variations in traits of offspring.
Corgi Co-organize your learning
CorgiCo-organize your learning |
Unit & Lesson Plans
Heredity
Subject: Science
Grade level: Middle School (Grade 6-8)
Guides: Comparison, Question Exploration, Cause & Effect
Standards: NGSS, Common Core - ELA
Introduction
Thank you for your interest in Unit & Lesson Plans for the Corgi application!
The units and lessons that follow are intended to be used in conjunction with Corgi, a free, digital tool developed with the principles of Universal Design for Learning.
Each unit is aligned to national and/or state standards such as the Next Generation Science Standards or the Common Core Standards.
Table of Contents
What is included in this Unit?
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Lesson 1: Asexual and Sexual Reproduction
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Lesson 2: Genetic Variation in Sexually Reproducing Organisms
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Lesson 3: Role of Genes in Making Protein Molecules
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Unit Plan
Unit Synopsis
In this abbreviated unit, students will explore inheritance and variation of traits. They will understand the growth of organisms and how organisms inherit traits and why there are variations in traits of offspring.
Learning Goal
Students will understand the relationship between asexual reproduction and sexual reproduction, and how sexual reproduction promotes genetic variation in offspring. Students will also be able to explain the role of genes in making molecules and how mutations affect organisms.
Main Ideas
- Asexual reproduction and sexual reproduction are both methods of creating offspring, but are different in the number of parents and chromosomes required, as well as traits of offspring.
- During sexual reproduction, each parent contributes one chromosome to form an offspring. The new gene combination results in the offspring having traits that are different from their parents.
- Protein molecules are essential to an organism because they are used for its structure and function as well as to regulate its body’s tissues and organs.
- A mutation is a structural change to a gene and the new variation of the trait may be harmful, beneficial or neutral to the organism.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards:
MS-LS3. Students who demonstrate understanding can develop models to describe why structural changes to genes may affect proteins and describe asexual and sexual reproduction.
Disciplinary Core Ideas:
LS1.B: Growth and Development of Organisms
Organisms reproduce, either sexually or asexually, and transfer their genetic information to their offspring (secondary to MS-L3S-2).
Genes are located in the chromosomes of cells, with each chromosome pair containing two variants of each of many distinct genes. Each distinct gene chiefly controls the production of specific proteins, which in turn affects the traits of the individual. Changes (mutations) to genes can result in changes to proteins, which can affect the structures and functions of the organism and thereby change traits (MS-LS3-1).
Variations of inherited traits between parent and offspring arise from genetic differences that result from the subset of chromosomes (and therefore genes) inherited (MS-LS3-2).
In sexually reproducing organisms, each parent contributes half of the genes acquired (at random) by the offspring. Individuals have two of each chromosome and hence two alleles of each gene, one acquired from each parent. These versions may be identical or may differ from each other (MS-LS3-2).
In addition to variations that arise from sexual reproduction, genetic information can be altered because of mutations. Though rare, mutations may result in changes to the structure and function of proteins. Some changes are beneficial, others harmful, and some neutral to the organism (MS-LS3-1).
Common Core State Standards:
ELA/Literacy - SL.8.5. Integrate multimedia and visual displays into presentations to clarify information, strengthen claims and evidence, and add interest.
What is included in this Unit?
Several key pieces are included to help you build your own unit or support a unit you have already created.
Each lesson in this unit contains:
- Essential question for students
- Key terms
- Resources
- Corgi guide
- Universal Design for Learning (UDL) suggestions
If you are interested in more structured units, you can explore the Corgi Unit library. Some of the other units contain the above mentioned components as well as a step by step scaffolding that follows the 5E model of science instruction. Please note that we do our best to maintain correct links to resources and materials. If a specific link is no longer working, please don't hesitate to contact us at corgi@cast.org.
Lesson Plans
| Lesson 1 | Asexual & Sexual Reproduction | Comparison Guide |
| Lesson 2 | Genetic Variation in Sexually Reproducing Organisms | Cause & Effect Guide |
| Lesson 3 | Role of Genes in Making Protein Molecules | Question Exploration Guide |
| Lesson 4 | Mutations | Cause & Effect Guide |
Methods of Assessment
Option A: Use your district’s current curriculum and suggested assessment designed to consider learner variability.
Option B: Select self-assessments, peer assessments, writing assignments, exams, etc. that allow students to reflect on their learning and demonstrate their understanding.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework for teaching and learning that guides the design of inclusive, accessible, and challenging learning environments. The framework is grounded in three principles:
- Design multiple means of engagement
- Design multiple means of representation
- Design multiple means of action and expression
CAST’s UDL Guidelines were developed to support practitioners to apply these three principles to practice.
While this unit was not explicitly designed through a UDL lens, UDL can be used as a tool to reduce existing barriers and increase access to the unit learning goal as well as to individual lesson goals. Below is an overview of how UDL might be applied to this unit. We’ll also offer more specific ideas for applying UDL at the end of each of the lessons associated with this unit.
Anticipate Potential Barriers
The UDL framework can support educators to reframe their understanding of barriers: from locating barriers within individual students to locating barriers within the design of the learning environment. Here we brainstorm potential barriers that learners may encounter in the design of the unit. Please note that these are just examples to get you thinking about the potential barriers in your own unique context.
Are there barriers to engagement? (connection to students’ lives, location, grouping, noise level, etc.)
The design of the unit/lessons may need to do more to spark students’ curiosity based on their unique interests, goals, and contexts. The design may need to better emphasize why the topics are meaningful and important to explore. The design may also need to more fully support students to make connections to their own lives, communities, and questions they care about.
While variation among organisms may be a familiar concept for students, the factors that contribute to this variation may be unfamiliar. Teachers can scaffold this by thinking about examples of organisms that are relatable to their specific context.
Are there barriers to the representation of content? (oral, written, etc.)
These lessons consist of multimedia presentations with text, graphics, videos, and infographics. Some videos may need captions, or some captions don’t turn on automatically. The videos may also need a written transcript so students can follow along for key ideas, vocabulary, and note-taking. Finally, several of the lessons contain non-interactive PDFs that do not allow students to highlight or make comments.
Are there barriers to action and expression? (writing, speaking, planning, etc.)
While the Corgi guides embed multiple options for students to share their ideas (text, images, and speech-to-text), it is important to anticipate barriers to students being able to express their ideas in other associated activities.
Address Learner Variability
Here we brainstorm ways to address the potential barriers described above. Again, please note that these approaches to reducing barriers and increasing access to the learning goals are just examples to get you thinking. We know that every context is unique.
How will you address barriers to engagement?
The Engagement Guidelines prompt us to consider the following questions when addressing barriers to engagement:
- Are there options for choice, relevancy, and minimizing distractions?
- Are there options for sustaining effort and persistence?
- Are there options for supporting and developing self-regulation and self-assessment?
Barriers to learners’ engagement and multiple pathways to engage students will be addressed through the supplementary resources, survey questions, and videos throughout each lesson.
With regard to the anticipated barriers around supporting students to find meaning and relevance, consider creating spaces for students to make connections to their own lives, their communities, and issues that they care about. For example, students can examine variation among organisms that matter to them: different types of plants, their favorite animals, or people they know or admire. Finding everyday examples of variability that students can observe and analyze will help them gain a deeper understanding of how and why organisms change and grow.
We encourage you to collaborate with your students and co-design ways to address other barriers to engagement that may emerge throughout this unit.
How will you address barriers to representation?
The Representation Guidelines prompt us to consider the following questions when addressing barriers to representation:
Do these options address the anticipated barriers?
- Are there options for audio/visual/display of info?
- Are there options to access language, math, and symbols?
- Are there options to build background knowledge, construct meaning, and generate new understandings?
The supplementary resources and videos have been constructed to offer multiple ways of representing information as well as the mixed media within each lesson/activity.
With regard to captions that don’t turn on automatically, support students to learn how to use and turn on/off the closed caption option. Also, transcripts of the videos should be made available for students.
With regard to the anticipated barriers around the lack of captions and transcripts, consider transcribing tools like Otter.ai, rev, and Express Scribe. Further, free screen readers such as TextHelp Read & Write, ChromeVox, or NVDA can assist students with online articles. Finally, to reduce the barriers associated with non-interactive PDFs, consider free PDF tools such as Bit.ai and Jotform.
We encourage you to collaborate with your students and co-design ways to address other barriers to representation that may emerge throughout this unit.
How will you address barriers to action and expression?
The Action and Expression Guidelines prompt us to consider the following questions when addressing barriers to acting on ideas and communicating:
- Are there options for physical action?
- Are there options for multiple communication tools?
- Are there options for varying levels of support?
- Are there options for goal setting, strategy development, and self-monitoring?
The Action and Expression Guidelines can offer ideas for embedding varied ways for learners to communicate ideas, share understandings, and work toward goals in the associated activities throughout this unit.
With regard to the anticipated barriers around physical action and physical space, consider encouraging learners to find learning spaces that work best for them (e.g. a quiet space, a space with natural lighting, etc.) and spaces that offer room to move or stand.
We encourage you to collaborate with your students and co-design ways to address other barriers to action and expression that may emerge throughout this unit.
Review the following link for a complete interactive overview of the UDL Guidelines.
Lesson 1: Asexual and Sexual Reproduction
Essential Question
What are similarities and differences between asexual and sexual reproduction?
Key Terms
Asexual reproduction
Chromosome
Mitosis
Meiosis
Offspring
Sexual reproduction
Suggested Resources
Video: Reproduction (An Introduction)
Website: Investigating Reproductive Strategies
Video: GCSE Biology - Sexual vs Asexual Reproduction - What is Asexual Reproduction? #46
Handouts: Asexual and Sexual Reproduction Handout.pdf
Sample Corgi Guide: Comparison - Asexual and Sexual Reproduction (To be able to view the guide you must be logged in to Corgi)
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Here we brainstorm potential barriers that learners may encounter in the design of the lesson. Please note that these are just examples to get you thinking about the potential barriers in your own unique context.
Potential barrier:
- Anticipating the barrier: The introductory reproduction video has a lot of dense material in it.
- Addressing the barrier: Reviewing and chunking the video beforehand will be useful in aiding students to synthesize the material. Teachers may also consider a guided notes handout for viewing important points of this video.
Potential barrier:
- Anticipating the barrier: The ‘Investigating Reproductive Strategies’ website and handout are intended for teachers to use with their class. This is not an exploratory website for students to go through.
- Addressing the barrier: Teachers will have to explore the site and pull specific activities for students to engage with.
Potential barrier:
- Anticipating the barrier: TheAsexual and Sexual Reproduction Handout.pdf is a nice concept check activity; however, it is very sparse in its directions
- Addressing the barrier: Teachers may want to add some stronger directions and might encourage students to engage with the handout as a partner/group activity.
Lesson 2: Genetic Variation in Sexually Reproducing Organisms
Essential Question
How does sexual reproduction promote genetic variation of traits in the offspring?
Key Terms
Allele
Chromosome
Genetic variation
Gene
Offspring
Suggested Resources
Video: What is Variation?
Website: The Gene Scene
Video: Genetics 101 (Part 3 of 5): Where do your genes come from?
Website: Genetic Variation | National Geographic Society
Sample Corgi Guide: Cause & Effect - Genetic Variation in Sexually Reproducing Organisms (To be able to view the guide you must be logged in to Corgi)
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Here we brainstorm potential barriers that learners may encounter in the design of the lesson. Please note that these are just examples to get you thinking about the potential barriers in your own unique context.
Potential barrier:
- Anticipating the barrier: The Gene Scene website and handout are intended for teachers to use with their class. This is not an exploratory website for students to go through.
- Addressing the barrier: Teachers will have to explore the site and pull specific activities for students to engage with.
Potential barrier:
- Anticipating the barrier: The Genetics 101 (Part 3 of 5): Where do your genes come from? video has a lot of dense material in it.
- Addressing the barrier: Reviewing and chunking the video beforehand will be useful in aiding students to synthesize the material. Teachers may also consider a guided notes handout for viewing important points of this video.
Potential barrier:
- Anticipating the barrier: The Genetic Variation | National Geographic Society module is a series of micro lessons created by National Geographic. They are short and manageable for all students, and they interact well with all accessibility tools. However, the quantity of micro lessons may feel overwhelming to some students.
- Addressing the barrier: Teachers may want to pick and choose which lessons are used for core content and which may be used for enrichment. Or, teachers may want to support students to pick and choose based on their interests and curiosities.
Lesson 3: Role of Genes in Making Protein Molecules
Essential Question
Why are protein molecules essential to an organism and the role genes play in making them?
Key Terms
Molecule
Organism
Gene
Protein
Suggested Resources
Video: What are genes? | Animation | Minute to Understanding | The Jackson Laboratory
Website: How Do Cells Make Proteins? | PBS LearningMedia
Video: Protein Synthesis (Updated)
Video: What is an Allele? Quick Definition
Sample Corgi Guide: Question Exploration - Role of Genes in Making Protein Molecules (To be able to view the guide you must be logged in to Corgi)
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Here we brainstorm potential barriers that learners may encounter in the design of the lesson. Please note that these are just examples to get you thinking about the potential barriers in your own unique context.
Potential barrier:
- Anticipating the barrier: The Protein Synthesis (Updated)video can be quite complex due to length and subject matter.
- Addressing the barrier: This video will need guided notes and chunking for main ideas for students to synthesize the information.
Lesson 4: Mutations
Essential Question
What causes a mutation and how does it affect an organism?
Key Terms
Mutation
Egg and sperm
Fetus
Suggested Resources
Website: ‘A Mutation Story’
https://ca.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/tdc02.sci.life.gen.mutationstory/a-mutation-story/
Video: Mutations in Biology
Sample Corgi Guide: Cause & Effect - Mutations
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Here we brainstorm potential barriers that learners may encounter in the design of the lesson. Please note that these are just examples to get you thinking about the potential barriers in your own unique context.
Potential barrier:
- Anticipating the barrier: The terms “beneficial,” “harmful,” and “neutral” can be subjective
- Addressing the barrier: Facilitate a conversation about the challenges of these terms, and how changes to organisms are classified as “beneficial,” “harmful,” or “neutral” (and by whom)
- For example, the “Mutant and Proud” subsection of this blog post about X-Men explores some of the underlying values that influence how mutations are perceived
Potential barrier:
- Anticipating the barrier: Although the biological definition of mutation states that these can have “positive,” “neutral,” or “harmful” effects on organisms, the word mutation tends to have a negative social connotation.
- Addressing the barrier: As a class, brainstorm or research representations of mutations that have positive outcomes or characteristics
Potential barrier:
- Anticipating the barrier: Conversations around human gene editing can promote ableist beliefs and messages that portray disability as something that needs to be "fixed" or "cured" as opposed to part of the natural variation of the human experience. Disability is often central to many disabled individuals' identities, and their perspectives are often excluded in these conversations.
- Addressing the barrier: Students can explore this TedTalk from Alice Wong, and teachers can refer to resources from the Disability Rights and Heritable Genome Editing: Resources for Teaching and Learning website for background.
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oercommons
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2025-03-18T00:36:21.717322
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Unit of Study
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/121971/overview",
"title": "Corgi Heredity",
"author": "Lesson"
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https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/62074/overview
|
Around the World in 80 Minutes
Overview
Use Google Expedition Kits to explore various places around the world!
Program Plan
Around the World in 80 Minutes
Audience: 3rd-6th grade
Length of program: 1.5 hours
Introduction (20 mins)
- Introduce self
- Introduce program: Welcome to our Around the World in 80 minutes program
- We are going to travel the world and visit lots of cool places.
- Where are some of the places you have traveled?
- Let kids give some answers
- Probe if necessary about different options
- Today, we are going to travel all around the world
- Use Google Maps to point out each location we’re going to
- Have map set so you can see as much of each continent as possible
- Point out each location
- What are some things that might be different when we get to these places?
- Do you think they’ll all speak the same language?
- Food
- Clothes
- How they go to school
- What they do for fun?
- Read: This is How We Do It
London (25 mins)
- Our first stop today is London, England
- Get in your plane seat, prepare for your 7 hour flight
- Woohoo, now we’re in England!
- Does anyone know what language they speak in England?
- English!
- What do you think their most popular sport is?
- Football (soccer)
- Rugby
- Use Google Earth
- Show Big Ben
- Big Ben is the nickname for the clock tower
- It was made in 1859
- Show London Eye
- This is a giant ferris wheel
- It’s one of the tallest ferris wheels in the world
- How tall do you think it is?
- 443 ft tall
- It opened in 1999
- Buckingham Palace
- This is where the royal family live
- Who are the royal family?
- Queen Elizabeth II
- Prince Philip
- Prince William
- Prince Harry
- This is the place we’re actually going to visit. Are you guys ready?
- Use Google Expedition
- Okay, on the table behind you, stand up and walk to the table to get a pair of goggles. There are enough for everyone
- Some things to keep in mind when you are using these, it’s going to look so real, you’re going to forget where you are. So, try to stay in one place so you don’t walk into a wall or another person.
- Direct everyone to put them up to eyes, walkthrough palace stuff that we can walk through.
- When finished: Okay, go ahead and put the goggles back on the table
- Activity
- Get everyone’s attention
- Ask to sit down where they are
- Okay, now we have 10 minutes to do 2 things
- We are going to learn a traditional British hand game! And we’re going to get our photos taken in front of Buckingham Palace
- Game:
- How many of you have played a hand game like concentration before?
- This game is similar, it is called A Sailor Went to Sea
- Put people in groups and let them practice
- As you practice, I’m also going to tap some of you on the shoulder to get your photo taken, once you’re done, you can go back to practicing.
- http://funclapping.com/song-list/a-sailor-went-to-sea/
- Green Screen Photo
- As kids are playing the game, invite small groups up to get their photo taken
- After they’ve had their photo taken, stamp their passport books.
Transition
- If you can hear me…
- Ask everyone to go sit down in front of room where we started.
China (25 mins)
- Alright, we are going to fly from London to China
- Show on Google Map
- You are entering a country of 1.379 billion people
- (The United States only has 325.7 million people)
- More people speak Mandarin (a form of the Chinese language) than any other language in the world.
- It is home to one of the world’s oldest civilizations
- That means they have a very long history, and lots of historical buildings and stuff
- The Great Wall of China is 13,170.696 mi long.
- Google Earth
- Palace Museum
- Switch to Google Street View
- This was a palace for Emporers from 1430-1912
- It is almost 600 years old...can you imagine standing in a 600 year old building?
- It is now a museum, with lots of ancient Chinese artifacts inside.
- Great Wall of China
- It is 13,171 miles long
- It was built over hundreds of years to protect China from invaders.
- While some parts of it are still in good condition, a lot of it has started to fall apart.
- Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum
- Click on the picture to get the image of the terracotta army
- This is one of my favorite things to look at from China because it houses the terracotta army.
- They were put there as part of the tomb for one of the Chinese emperors.
- It is thought that they were meant to protect the emperor in the afterlife.
- Google Expedition
- Direct everyone to go back to the Google Expedition Kits
- Walk through Great Wall of China
- Activity
- Direct everyone to put back Google Expeditions, and sit down in place
- Explain that we’re going to learn a game from China as well, and take a picture at the Great wall of China
- Has anyone ever played Rock, Paper, Scissors?
- This game is actually known all around the world, in some places, people use different objects, but there are variations of it in many places.
- But, it started in China. Today, even in China, there are a lot of different versions because there are so many languages spoken in China and it’s such a big place.
- The version we’re going to play is called:
- Jiandao = rock
- Shitou = paper
- Bu = scissors
- Have kids practice saying the words, and have them written down somewhere
- In Plastic Displayer (print this out)
- Just like last time, as you play, I’m going to tap groups on the shoulder to get their picture taken on the green screen.
- Round everyone up to go sit back in front.
United Arab Emirates (25 mins)
- Do you know what language they speak?
- Arabic
- UAE is home to the city of Dubai which has the tallest building in the world
- It is called the Burj Khalifa. It is 2,722 ft tall
- People of 200 different nationalities live in UAE
- Lots of different cultures mix together here.
- They have a real dinosaur fossil in the heart of the Dubai Mall...imagine going to the mall and finding a real fossil!
- Google Earth
- Show a couple of the places, zoom in so the kids can see it better.
- Google Expeditions
- Walk kids through the Burj Khalifa
- Activity
- Pass out golf pencils and worksheets based on the first letter of their names to practice writing in Arabic
- http://www.iqragames.com/arabic-letter-formation/
Conclusion
What was your favorite place that we visited today?
Where else would you like to travel?
Show a couple of books to find more information about these places.
Materials:
- Passport template:
- https://www.studenthandouts.com/00/199807/passport-outside-cover.pdf
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:21.753755
|
01/31/2020
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/62074/overview",
"title": "Around the World in 80 Minutes",
"author": "Johanna Doty"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/88278/overview
|
Education Standards
100th Day of School
Overview
Students will bee able to celebrate the 100th day of school by bringing in a project representing it. They will also fill out a chart that has 100 blank squares for them to fill in.
1st grade 100th day of school activities
Students will complete a chart where they will count to 100. This will be an activity that they will know how to do, because it will be something that they will be woking on in math previously. We will work on this acitvity during our math time. They will be able to ask for help if they need it.
The next thing that they will do is come to school with something that they created at home to represent the 100th day of school. I will show them some examples that they can do along with sending home a paper to their parents with examples listed along with other criteria about the project.
https://www.weareteachers.com/celebrate-100th-day/
Additional Activities
Two of the center activities I've used the last few years on the 100th day of school are Race to 100 and 100 Grid Number Puzzles.
Race to 100
Materials: 2 dice, 200+ craft sticks, 20 rubber bands, sentence frame
Players: 2 or more
1. Players take turns. For each turn, a player rolls the dice and picks up the appropriate number of craft sticks.
2. Every time a player has 10 sticks, s/he bundles them with a rubber band. When a player has 10 bundles of 10 sticks each, s/he puts a rubber band around them to make a large bundle of 100. After each turn the player must say, "I have __ tens and __ ones. I have ___ sticks in all" (I have this sentence frame written on a card).
3. The game ends when one player reaches 100. Each player then counts his/her total number of craft sticks and records the number.
100 Grid Number Puzzles: Ahead of time photocopy some completed 0-100 number grids on card and laminate. I try to copy each one on a different colored card to make it easier to manage at clean-up time. Cut up the grids in different ways. Students work in the center with a partner to put a puzzle back together. This activity creates lots of good talk as partners discuss where the pieces should go. It is also a good indicator of student's understanding of place value!
The 100th Day crown is another activity kids can make using two dice per student (if helpful) to make their sets of 10.
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:21.785122
|
11/23/2021
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/88278/overview",
"title": "100th Day of School",
"author": "Julie Dameron"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/122736/overview
|
Vocabulary Control
Overview
Vocabulary management highlights its significans in maintaining uniformity, precision and availablity in information systems ,library and databases. It serves as a fundamental approach in structuring and accessing information effectivly.
What is Vocabulary control?
In oral or written discourse, vocabulary control is a technique used to manage and regulate the complexity as well as suitability of technological vocab.It refers to the choice of particular words and expressions that enhance clarity while make the text accessible and relatable to the target audience.
Vocabulary control offers several benefits in various contexts, including:
Language Learning:
Simplified comprehension: With fewer new words, students can concentrate on the general meaning instead of getting mixed up.
Enhanced vocabulary acquisition: Multiple iterations of a predefined vocabulary provide the learners with the ability to grasp and integrate new words more effectively.
Increased confidence: With the possession and use of a small vocabulary, learners feel more confident.
Technical Writing:
Improved clarity: in using technical jargon it is observed that the words used are limited to ensure the meaning and therefore avoid misunderstanding.
Enhanced accessibility: Technical documents can be made understandable to more people by using simpler language.
Reduced ambiguity: Controlled vocabulary eliminates ambiguity and confusion in technical instructions.
Translation:
The accuracy and rather consistency: Through the usage of a controlled vocabulary, translators can guarantee that the translated text captures the essence of the original text hence being consistent with it.
Reduced errors: The fewer words there are to translate, the less chance there is for translation error.
Controlled vocabulary to be specific can better the efficiency of translations through sparing the time that one would otherwise spend in selecting words.
Writing for Children:
Acquisition of a more accessible vocabulary: A controlled vocabulary enables children to understand more stories and learn more new ideas.
Higher engagement: With simpler language, authors can better retain children's interest and curiosity about the story.
Vocabulary development: Controlled vocabulary exposure helps children expand their vocabulary and enhance their language skills.
What is the need of controlling Vocabulary of IR ?
Information retrieval (IR) systems need vocabularies to index, search for, and retrieve information relevant to their targets. Vocabularies are important for several reasons:
Access to Knowledge: It enables users to retrieve pertinent information quickly from the enormous databases, libraries, or internet, thus facilitating access to knowledge.
Decision Making: Whether in personal life or the workplace, accurate information is vital to make informed decisions.
Efficiency: IR systems enhance the search for information, which saves time and effort, particularly in handling enormous datasets.
Research and Innovation: Researchers depend on effective IR in order to retrieve existing knowledge that may inspire new ideas and innovations.
Personalization: In the context of AI, advanced systems have the capability to modify the results based on your previous preferences, making the information retrieved more relevant.
Data Management: In the data explosion, Information Retrieval helps manage and organize that information so it is more usable and accessible.
What are the tools of vocabulary control?
Vocabulary control tools serve to organize and standardize terms in information retrieval and management. The following are some of the important tools:
Thesauri: Collections of terms and their synonyms that help users find related concepts. They often show hierarchical relationships (broader, narrower terms).
Taxonomies: Hierarchical structures that aid in classifying terms, thereby facilitating better information organization.
Ontologies: Ontologies provide much richer context for information retrieval by defining relationships between concepts. They are also more complex than taxonomies.
Controlled vocabularies: these are lists of standardized terms in particular fields used for purpose of fostering consistency during indexing and Retrieval.
Metadata Standards: Specifications, such as Dublin Core and MARC, that establish how data should be arranged and described to make it accessible.
Faceted Classification: Being in the form of Faceted Classification, such information gets organized in multiple categories or dimensions enabling users to filter/ refine their searches on different factors.
Keyword Lists: Predefined lists of keywords that pertain to a specific field, which enhance search engine optimization and provide consistency.
These tools enhance the accuracy and recall of information retrieval systems, thereby facilitating the process for users to locate pertinent content.
What is classaurus ?
Classaurus is a vocab control tool that acts as a hybrid of a thesaurus and classification system. The purpose of such a device is to help organize data while at the same time facilitating recalling relevant information. Generally, Classaurus allows its users to specify how terms relate to each other, usually including features that support both hierarchical and associative relationships.
Features of Classaurus:
Term Relationships: Defines how terms relate to each other, which helps users understand context and find related concepts.
Standardization: Keeps the consistency of terminology between the documents and databases which will in turn reduce the ambiguity in searches.
User-Friendly Interface: Often designed to be intuitive, allowing users to easily navigate through categories and find relevant terms.
Flexibility: Applicable to a wide variety of domains or subjects, hence relevant to diverse areas, including library science and information management.
What are the differences between natural language and artificial language ?
Constructed languages, also called artificial or planned languages, are the languages that have been carefully developed by people. Contrary to natural languages which over time change due to their usage, artificial languages do not grow organically but are developed for predetermined objectives.
Natural languages: They are native languages which have evolved over the course of centuries and are based on human interactions. Spoken and written by the people in their daily lives hence bound into the cultures and histories of the communities that use them.
Natural Languages
Organic evolution: Developed over time through human interaction.
Complex structures: Have intricate grammars, large vocabularies, and subtle nuances.
Cultural significance: Deeply rooted in the cultures and histories of the communities that use them.
Examples: English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Hindi.
Artificial Languages
Designed: Created by humans with specific goals in mind.
Simplified structures: Often have simpler grammars and vocabularies than natural languages.
Specific purposes: Designed for tasks like programming, international communication, or artistic expression.
Examples: Esperanto, Klingon, Loglan.
| Feature | Natural Languages | Artificial Languages |
| Organic | Organic | Human Created |
| Structure | Complex | Simple |
| Purpose | Human Communication | Specific Goals |
| Examples | English, Hindi | Fortran ,Java |
|
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:21.808612
|
12/07/2024
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/122736/overview",
"title": "Vocabulary Control",
"author": "Moumita Saha"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/93164/overview
|
Bobby's Lost Toy
Overview
This work, “Bobby’s Lost Toy", is a derivative of “The Lost Toy" authored by Sam Beckbessinger, illustrated by Amy Slatem, used under CC-BY-4.0.
The text for the adapted story “Bobby’s Lost Toy” was written by a team of educators during a short course on “Application of Open Educational Resources” in May 2022. The course was developed and delivered by the USAID LAC Reads Capacity Program and hosted by the University of the West Indies, Jamaica.
About this book
Curriculum References
This story can be used to enhance the delivery of lessons in the Jamaican National Standards Curriclum (2018).
Example: Grade 1 Language Arts (page 160)
Strand: Comprehension
- Attainment Targets:
- Read for meaning, fluency and enjoyment of texts, using a variety of clues to gain information and identify ideas and events
- Use deduction and inference to interpret information and ideas and to predict outcomes
- Objective:
- Restate or recall information presented in texts
- Suggested Teaching and Learning Activity:
- Students will observe as teacher engages in a think aloud activity demonstrating how to recall/restate details from text read then ask and answer clarifying questions.
A child has lost a favorite toy.
The child is so sad.
Will some kind strangers help?
Click on the arrow below to download and read the book.
Credits
Instructor Notes
Curriculum References
This story can be used to enhance the delivery of lessons in the Jamaican National Standards Curriclum (2018).
Examples:
Grade 1, Term 2, Unit 2 "Things in the Home"
- Focus Question 2: How do I care for the things in the home and use them safely? (page 98)
Grade 1 Language Arts
- Comprehension Strand (page 160)
“Bobby’s Lost Toy” is licensed under CC-BY-4.0 by Schontal Moore, Ashmin Sharma, Lois Golding, Winsome Francis, Suzanne Small, Judith Wilson, Janet Williams, Melanie Jones, Helen Harrison, Carlotta Joseph-Rose, Cherise Cotterell and Melody Williams (2022).
Narration by Suzanne Small
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:21.832812
|
Melody Williams
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/93164/overview",
"title": "Bobby's Lost Toy",
"author": "Reading"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/88647/overview
|
Extinction and De-extinction
Overview
Why do some organisms go extinct? What impact do humans play in the extinction of animals? What can we do about it? If something is extinct is it truly gone forever?
These are some of the major questions that conservation biologists are currently asking. Extinction is when a species no longer has any living members in the wild or in captivity. Extinction can happen for a number of reasons including habitat loss, overhunting, and climate change. Mass extinction is widespread extinction across many species. Right now, we are experiencing the sixth mass extinction event on Earth and it has been primarily caused human activity. Conservation biologists have been hard at work coming up with solutions to prevent extinction of organisms at risk, however, extinction still occurs. But does it have to be permanent?
This module walks students through the major processes that cause extinction, what strategies conservation has used so far to prevent extinction, what de-extinction is, and what consequences de-extinction may have through the use of videos, research, and a class debate.
Introduction
Why do some organisms go extinct? What impact do humans play in the extinction of animals? What can we do about it? If something is extinct is it truly gone forever?
These are some of the major questions that conservation biologists are currently asking. Extinction is when a species no longer has any living members in the wild or in captivity. Extinction can happen for a number of reasons including habitat loss, overhunting, and climate change. Mass extinction is widespread extinction across many species. Right now, we are experiencing the sixth mass extinction event on Earth and it has been primarily caused human activity. Conservation biologists have been hard at work coming up with solutions to prevent extinction of organisms at risk, however, extinction still occurs. But does it have to be permanent?
Engage: What is Extinction?
Watch these videos about extinction:
What are your reactions? What ideas do you have to prevent extinction?
Explore: Endangered Animals and Preventing Extinction
If students are working in groups, they can work together to do this research.
What can we do??
Conservation biologists work to prevent the extinct of endangered species in the wild today. Use the graphic organizer below and use the internet to do research about 2 endangered species that you are interested in and what strategies conservation biologists use to protect these species.
| Organism Name | Location | Current Population Size | Major Threats | Conservation Strategies |
| Giant Panda | Native to China | 1,864 in the wild | Habitat loss; low birth rates | Creation of natural reserves; Government protection status |
If you can't find any conservation strategies that are being used to help out the organism(s) that you are researching, suggest ideas for what may help that species!
Explain: De-extinction
For this portion, have students work in groups of at least 4 so that after each student finishes doing research on one of the organisms, they can share what they learned with their group and get information about the other organisms.
So we did the best we could, but organisms are still going extinct! But does extinction have to be permanent?
Scientists are currently conducting research on de-extinction in an attempt to revive species that have already gone extinct. Watch the videos and read the articles below about one of the four species that have efforts to bring them back from extinction! Work with your peers to get information about the other organisms after you finish. As you watch and read, take notes in this graphic organizer.
| Organism Name | How did it go extinct? | Reasoning for de-extinction | Progress |
| Passenger Pigeon | |||
| Wooly Mammoth | |||
| Tasmanian Tiger | |||
| Gastric-brooding Frog |
Read this!
‘The de-extinction club’: Could we resurrect mammoths, Tassie tigers and dinosaurs?
Watch this!
CHOOSE ONE:
Passenger Pigeon:
Woolly Mammoth:
Read: A New Company With a Wild Mission: Bring Back the Woolly Mammoth
Tasmanian Tiger:
Gastric-brooding Frog:
Elaborate: Ethics of De-extinction
Suggestions for how to facilitate debate:
Split class into two groups: "de-extinction is ethical and worthwhile to study" and "de-extinction is not ethical and not worthwhile to study". Groups can be assigned by the teacher or choosen by the students themselves. Each team has to construct their opening argument, evidence to use for rebuttals, 2 questions to give to the other team, and a closing statement. Students should use the two graphic organizers from earlier in the lesson to help with collecting evidence but they are also free to do more research to support their arguments.
Order of the debate:
1. Opening argument from "de-extinction is ethical and worthwhile to study" team
2. Rebuttal from opposing team
3. Opening argument from "de-extinction is not ethical and not worthwhile to study" team
4. Rebuttal from opposing team
5. Questioning back and forth between teams (this can take as long as you want)
6. Closing statement from "de-extinction is not ethical and not worthwhile to study" team
7. Closing statement from "de-extinction is ethical and worthwhile to study" team'
For very large classes, have two smaller debates and let the other half of class be an audience for the debate and assess the student participating in the debate.
Now that you have learned about conservation strategies to prevent extinction and the new science of de-extinction, it is time for you to evaluate the pros and cons of each method. With your peers, you will have debate around the question:
Is de-extinction ethical and should we continue researching it?
In preparation for the debate, as a team create:
- An argument defending your side
- Have 3 pieces of evidence to support your statement either from the videos and readings you have done before or from further research
- 2 questions for the opposing team
Once you have that material...it is debate time!
Evaluate: Final Thoughts
Great job with the debate! Now it is time for you to take what you have learned throughout this lesson and what you have learned from listening to your peers to make a final statement about extinction and de-extinction. Write a short answer response to one of the prompts below:
- Should resources be dedicated to de-extinction efforts?
- What role should humans have in response to the extinction of other species?
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:21.858864
|
Activity/Lab
|
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/88647/overview",
"title": "Extinction and De-extinction",
"author": "Genetics"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/123082/overview
|
Information Seeking Behaviour Model
Overview
Information seeking behaviour models are frameworks that describe how people find information to meet their needs.
Information Seeking Behaviour Model
Information Seeking Behaviour Model
Introduction : Information can be understood as data that has been processed, contributing to decision-making, enhancing our understanding, sharpening our cognitive abilities, and ultimately elevating the societal standing of a nation. Information-seeking behavior pertains to the exploration of techniques and approaches utilized by an individual or how one traverses diverse resources to fulfill their information needs.
What is Information seeking behaviour model.
The concept of Information Seeking Behaviour within the realm of Information Science can be broadly articulated as the actions undertaken and channels utilized by an individual upon recognizing their information requirements and the following application of the acquired information. Some of the major models are: wilson’s Model of information seeking behavior, Dervin’s sense making theory, Ellis’s behavior model of information.
1. Wilson’s model of information seeking behavior
Fig :1. Wilson’s Model of Information seeking behavior (1981)
Models of information-seeking behavior are specifically focused on the searching and seeking habits of users. This pioneering model, introduced by T. D. Wilson—often hailed as the father of information-seeking behavior—in 1981, delineates the various domains that a user navigates during the information search process. It distinctly illustrates that the behavior of seeking information emerges from a user's perceived need for information. The quest for information initiates with the user’s engagement with a range of information sources and systems—whether formal or informal. This pursuit culminates in one of two outcomes: success or failure. If the user successfully retrieves the information, it is then utilized, shared, and disseminated among others; however, if the search yields no satisfactory results, the process of seeking recommences. The model emphasizes the role of other individuals in the seeking process via mechanisms of information exchange and transfer. Wilson's model can be characterized as a comprehensive representation of information-seeking behavior, illustrating how an information need manifests and outlining the straightforward steps taken to locate it.
Wilson’s Second Model of Information Seeking Behavior:
Fig. 2. Wilson’s Model of Information seeking behavior (1994).
This model of information-seeking behavior is grounded in two primary propositions: first, that the need for information is not an essential need, but a derivative one that emerges from more fundamental requirements; and second, that to locate the information necessary to fulfill that need, the user must confront specific obstacles. Information needs develop within users due to personal situations, social roles, and the environment in which they exist. This framework was developed in 1994, integrating various aspects of Ellis’ model. It also highlighted the physiological, emotional, and cognitive requirements that stimulate information-seeking behavior. The elements that contribute to the emergence of information needs can simultaneously present as obstacles to an individual's search for information.
2. Ellis’sModel of Information Seeking Behaviour
Ellis presented characteristics of information-seeking behaviors rather than stages. By using the term ‘staging,’ he suggests that these behaviors don’t necessarily unfold in a linear fashion; rather, the specific conditions surrounding the information-seeking endeavors of the seeker at any given moment shape the resulting pattern (Ellis 1989). These characteristics include:
• Initiating: this signifies the commencement of information
• Linking: Utilizing references as bridges between diverse materials to pinpoint appropriate information sources.
• Exploring: semi-guided or semi-structured searching
• Differentiating: Identifying the information sources based on their relevance
• Tracking: Employing various sources to stay updated or engaged in current awareness searching
• Selecting: explicitly pinpointing and extracting the pertinent material from an information source
• Validating: Examining the correctness of the acquired information
• Concluding: Wrapping up by resolving any outstanding issues through a final search.
3. Kuhlthou’s Model:
The Kuhlthau model enhances Ellis's framework by linking specific stages of the information-seeking process with the related emotions, cognitions, and behaviors, as well as the suitable information tasks. This connection between emotions, cognitions, and behaviors distinctly showcases Kuhlthau’s viewpoint as experiential rather than purely intellectual.
. The stages of information seeking behavior as per kuhlthou’s model are:
1. Initiation
2. Selection
3. Exploration
4. Formulation
5. Collection
6. Presentation
Commencement: An individual realizes a gap in knowledge or comprehension, leading to prevalent feelings of uncertainty and apprehension.
Selection: A broad subject, theme, or challenge is pinpointed, with initial uncertainty often shifting to a fleeting sense of hope and a willingness to embark on the quest.
Investigation: Encountering conflicting, contradictory information, uncertainty, confusion, and skepticism often escalate.
Development: A concentrated viewpoint emerges, coupled with an increase in confidence as uncertainty begins to diminish.
Gathering: Relevant information related to the focused perspective is compiled, with uncertainty fading as engagement and enthusiasm for the endeavor intensify.
Conclusion: The inquiry reaches its end with a newfound understanding that empowers the individual to articulate their insights to others or apply what they’ve learned in some manner.
Users engage in the information retrieval process in a comprehensive manner, influenced by a blend of thoughts, emotions, and actions. According to his framework, the information-seeking journey from the users’ viewpoint can be envisioned as a series of decisions influenced by four primary factors: task, time, interest, and availability. During this pursuit of information, the user is focused on the task at hand, the time constraints, personal curiosity, and the extent of time available. This process of searching is described as an uncertainty principle in the realm of library and information services. Uncertainty manifests as a cognitive state that often leads to emotional symptoms like anxiety and diminished self-assurance. For instance, the initial phase of this process is marked by feelings of ambiguity, vague and broad contemplations regarding the problem area, and is linked with the pursuit of foundational information. The user tries to acknowledge a need for information. Furthermore, their task involves pinpointing and refining the general subject of the search; exploring or looking for information related to that general subject; developing and concentrating on a more specific aspect within the subject; gathering relevant data on the focused area; and ultimately concluding the information search.
4. Dervin’ model
Dervin’s sense-making theory has evolved over many years and should not be viewed merely as a model for information-seeking behavior. Dervin defines it as a collection of assumptions, a theoretical lens, a methodological framework, a set of research techniques, and a practice oriented towards understanding information perceived as... a human instrument crafted to interpret a reality thought to be both chaotic and systematic. Dervin was one of the pioneering scholars to articulate the sense-making approach and apply it to the requirements of the ordinary individual. His methodology encompassed a series of conceptual foundations and corresponding methodologies for evaluating how people interpret their environments and how they utilize resources for addressing challenges.
Nevertheless, sense-making is operationalized through four interconnected elements: a context in time and space, which highlights the disparities between the current context and the desired state; an outcome, representing the results of the sense-making process; and a bridge, serving as a mechanism to connect the current situation, a gap bridged, and the outcome. Dervin has illustrated these elements in the form of a triangle: context, Gap/Bridge, and outcome.
In context to information usage, it can foster an inquiry approach that can uncover the characteristics of a problematic scenario, the degree to which information services can alleviate uncertainty, confusion, or any related issues, as well as the nature of the results stemming from information utilization.
Conclusion:
The frameworks surrounding information behavior concentrate on the subtle processes occurring in the everyday experiences of individuals within specific contexts and social environments that might shape users' information conduct. The frameworks established by Ellis and Kuhlthau emphasize the various tasks involved in the information-seeking journey. Dervin's Sense-making model and Cheuk Wai-Yi's Information seeking and utilizing process framework facilitate the examination of how individuals comprehend and address cognitive gaps to interpret their surroundings. Grasping the sense-making process is highly pertinent to investigating the information behavior of consulting engineers as they strive to acquire pertinent information that may aid in resolving issues.
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:21.880370
|
12/15/2024
|
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"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/123082/overview",
"title": "Information Seeking Behaviour Model",
"author": "Moumita Saha"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/93912/overview
|
Education Standards
Content Vocabulary Notes
Formative Assessment
Google Slides
Infographic "Refugees"
Infographic "Who are the Homeless"
Matching Game
Power Point Slides
Analyze & Apply Author Tools in Informative Text
Overview
This lesson focuses on the vocabulary and skills students need to define, identify, discuss and apply a variety of informative writing techniques. The texts in this lesson are infographics related to marginalized people. Students are asked to apply the techniques they learn to an informative text of their own.
Analyzing & Applying Author Tools in Informative Text
Step by step instructions are embedded in the speaker notes below each slide.
LESSON DESCRIPTION
Analyzing & Applying Author Tools in Informative Text
Author of the Lesson: Paige Myers
Lesson Summary/Overview: This lesson guides students to develop the vocabulary, syntax and skills to engage in a written or spoken analysis of how authors implement certain techniques in informative writing. The theme of the texts in this lesson could be described as Family & Fate or Marginalized People.
LESSON GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
Alignment and Objectives
Content Standards:
| IB Programme | Common Core | ELP |
|---|---|---|
| Analysis and evaluation - To what extent does the candidate analyze and evaluate how textual features and/or authorial choices shape meaning?Language - How clear, varied and accurate is the language? How appropriate is the choice of register and style? (“Register” refers, in this context, to the candidate’s use of elements such as vocabulary, tone, sentence structure and terminology appropriate to the analysis). | RI.3 - Analyze how the author crafts an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between themW.6 - Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically. | ELP 1 - construct meaning from oral presentations and literary and informational text through grade-appropriate listening, reading, and viewingELP 3 - speak and write about grade-appropriate complex literary and informational texts and topics |
Content Objectives: Language Objectives:
| IB Programme | Common Core | ELP |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
Supporting Academic Language
Language Functions: Define, identify, analyze, discuss
Language Modalities: Reading and writing or speaking
Vocabulary:
- Academic vocab: Author, tool, text, text feature, to define, to notice, to identify, to discuss, to impact, infographic
- Content vocab: Title, photograph, illustration, bulleted list, chart/graph, hyperlink, keywords, heading, and subheading
Syntax or Sentence Structure(s):
I noticed ______________________________.
I identified a ______________________.
I think the author uses a __________________ because _______________________________.
I think that _____________________________ impacts the reader by ____________________.
(tool) (impact)
In the infographic ________________, __________ uses ______________________
(Title) (Author) (Tool)
because ________________ ______________________________________________.
(Impact on the reader)
For example, ___________________________________________________________.
(Example of the tool)
This is important because _______________________________________________.
(Connection to world or self)
LESSON PREPARATION
Considerations
Prerequisite Knowledge and Skills:
- Students will have varied knowledge of the list of “tools”, but they will be familiar to students who have had prior language arts instruction.
- Students have varied L1s and language levels.
- Students will have varied knowledge of and personal connection to the topics of the infographic we will discuss in class (homelessness, refugees).
Instructional Materials
Resources, Materials, and Technology required or recommended for the lesson:
Materials
- Smartphones or chromebooks/laptops are necessary for Quizlet Live and helpful for digital note-taking
- Sticky notes are helpful for vocabulary activity, but not required. Students could write directly on the paper if there are enough copies for each student.
Slides
DocumentsVocabulary
- Author’s Tools Notes
- Academic Vocabulary Notes
- Tools Quizlet for Quizlet Live
- Tools/Impact Cards for group vocabulary activity
Infographics
Formative Assessment
*Students could write on a separate piece of paper or speak about their ideas
Learning Supports
Socio-emotional supports: The texts for this lesson are related to family experiences that are relevant to students in diverse communities. The lesson asks students to make connections to themselves or to the world.
Cultural & Linguistic Responsiveness: The texts for this lesson are related to family experiences that are relevant to students in diverse communities. The texts in this lesson are related to marginalized people. The lesson asks students to make connections to themselves or to the world.
Accessibility: Frontloading academic and content language, gradual release, visual directions, making use of L1, sentence stems, student choice, differentiated product
Instructional Supports
Differentiation: Content is differentiated through leveled sentence frames and leveled essential questions. Product is differentiated by language modality (students can either speak or write about their ideas).
L1 Supports: Students can translate academic and content vocabulary to their L1. Student’s L1 is utilized in a translanguaging opportunity during the group vocabulary activity.
L2 Development (by level):
Level 1: Define
Level 2: Define, identify
Level 3: Define, identify, analyze
Level 4: Define, identify, analyze, discuss
Level 5: Define, identify, analyze, discuss, apply
LESSON PROCEDURES
Lesson 1: Anticipatory Set/Motivation/Hook and Guided Instruction (Teacher-to-Student Joint Responsibility)
Time: 45 mins
Teacher Does/Students Do: Students take notes about definitions of academic and content vocabulary. Students play a formative assessment game using Quizlet to interact with the vocabulary.
- Sample academic vocabulary: author, tool, text, text feature, to notice, to identify, to discuss, to impact, infographic
- Sample content vocabulary: photograph, illustration, bulleted list, chart/graph, hyperlink, keywords, heading, and subheading
Step by step instructions are embedded in the slide deck (slides 1 - 22).
Lesson 2: Group Application (Student-to-Student Joint Responsibility)
Time: 60 mins
Teacher Does/Students Do: In pairs, students identify author tools on posters around the school and report back to the class using sentence frames if needed. In small groups, students identify author tools on the infographic “Refugees: What do you know about them” and report back to the class with sentence frames if needed.
Step by step instructions are embedded in the slide deck (slides 23 - 31).
Lesson 3: Group Application (Student-to-Student Joint Responsibility)
Time: 45 mins
Teacher Does/Students Do: In small groups, students play a matching game to connect author tools to their impact on the reader. Students report back to the class using sentence frames if needed. As a class, students add the impact to their vocabulary notes.
Step by step instructions are embedded in the slide deck (slides 32 - 52).
ASSESSMENTS
Lesson 4: Formative Assessment
Content:
- Students can identify author tools such as photograph, illustration, bulleted list, chart/graph, hyperlink, keywords, heading, and subheading
Language:
- Students can discuss how author tools such as photograph, illustration, bulleted list, chart/graph, hyperlink, keywords, heading, and subheading impact the reader
Step by step instructions are embedded in the slide deck (slides 53-63).
Lesson 5: Plans for Summative Assessment
Content:
- Students can apply author tools such as photograph, illustration, bulleted list, chart/graph, hyperlink, keywords, heading, and subheading to a presentation about a topic of their choice
Language:
- Students can develop the topic with relevant details such as a photograph, illustration, bulleted list, chart/graph, hyperlink, keywords, heading or subheading in a presentation about a topic of their choice (in their L1 or L2)
Step by step instructions are embedded in the slide deck (slides 64-70).
EXTENSIONS
Ideas for Key Assignments, Extensions, and Adaptations for Online Learning Environments:
Extensions - Consider using Lesson 5 as an extension assignment rather than a summative assessment. Step by step instructions are embedded in the slide deck (slides 64-70). This assignment could be adapted for a specific topic. Some ideas would be presenting on important authors, presenting on historical events that may connect to a text the class will be reading, or presenting more information about a different marginalized group.
Adaptations for Online Learning - There are multiple games other than QuizletLive that students can play to study the vocabulary on Quizlet. This lesson could be adapted to utilize a Digital Interative Notebook on Google Slides.
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oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:21.931968
|
Reading Informational Text
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/93912/overview",
"title": "Analyze & Apply Author Tools in Informative Text",
"author": "Language, Grammar and Vocabulary"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/58045/overview
|
Adding Integers
Overview
This lesson is on adding integers in Math. First it starts with the model using integer chips, then using the rule. It finishes with examples the students work on independently.
Introduction
Adding Rule
Practice Adding Integers
Teacher shows how to use integer chips first, then goes into describing the rule using SADS. Teacher and students work through problems as a practice together. Students work the last problems on their own to check their understanding.
1. -5 + (-9) =
2. -6 + 3 =
3. 9 + -(5) =
4. 13 + (-9) =
5. -14 + (-20) =
6. -6 + (-5) + 3 =
Student Practice
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:21.948062
|
09/13/2019
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/58045/overview",
"title": "Adding Integers",
"author": "Heather Boykin"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/123009/overview
|
Inclusion poster
Overview
Who is the poster for? Educators of many kinds, parents & children aged 10-14.
• Where might it be used? Schools, at home, health clinics, children’s clubs, religious groups etc.
• Is it enough for children to learn the messages? The messages are designed to be ‘doorways’ to
discussion & action. They are for children to understand & use, not just to memorise.
• Why are the faces of the people on the poster multi-ethnic? Children for Health has a global
audience, so we use multi-ethnic faces on our posters.
Inclusion poster
Who is the poster for? Educators of many kinds, parents & children aged 10-14.
Where might it be used? Schools, at home, health clinics, children’s clubs, religious groups etc.
Is it enough for children to learn the messages? The messages are designed to be ‘doorways’ to discussion & action. They are for children to understand & use, not just to memorise.
Why are the faces of the people on the poster multi-ethnic? Children for Health has a global
audience, so we use multi-ethnic faces on our posters.
How do I use the messages? Be creative! Focus on one topic for a week, month or term!
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:21.965838
|
12/13/2024
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/123009/overview",
"title": "Inclusion poster",
"author": "Clare Hanbury"
}
|
https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/123133/overview
|
Corgi Natural Selection and Adaptation
Overview
In this unit, students will explore how natural selection and adaptation affect biological evolution and diversity. They will understand how natural selection leads to predominance of certain traits, characteristics of natural and artificial selection, and the impacts of environmental changes on the distribution of traits in a species.
Corgi Co-organize your learning
CorgiCo-organize your learning |
Unit & Lesson Plans
Natural Selection and Adaptation
Subject: Science
Grade level: Middle School
Guides: Question Exploration, Comparison, Cause & Effect
Standards: NGSS, Common Core - ELA
Introduction
Thank you for your interest in Unit & Lesson Plans for the Corgi application!
The units and lessons that follow are intended to be used in conjunction with Corgi, a free, digital tool developed with the principles of Universal Design for Learning.
Each unit is aligned to national and/or state standards such as the Next Generation Science Standards or the Common Core Standards.
Each lesson utilizes the 5E Instructional Model to guide implementation.
Table of Contents
What is included in this Unit?
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Lesson 1: Natural Selection and Adaptation
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Lesson 2: Natural Selection & Artificial Selection
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Lesson 3: Distribution of Traits in a Species
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Unit Plan
Unit Synopsis
In this 3-lesson unit, students will explore how natural selection and adaptation affect biological evolution and diversity. They will understand how natural selection leads to predominance of certain traits, characteristics of natural and artificial selection, and the impacts of environmental changes on the distribution of traits in a species.
Learning Goal
Students will understand biological evolution and diversity and how natural selection leads to the predominance of certain traits in a population and suppression of others. They will also understand that natural and artificial selection both describe the process for selecting genetic traits, and that over generations environmental changes affect the distribution of traits in a species.
Main Ideas
- Natural selection is a key mechanism of biological evolution and diversity, where certain traits are dominant and others are suppressed.
- Natural and artificial selection both describe the process for selection of genetic traits, but are different in how and why genetics are selected.
- Over generations, adaptation through natural selection leads to changes in the distribution of traits in a species.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards:
MS-LS4. Students who demonstrate understanding can construct an explanation based on evidence that describes how genetic variations of traits in a population increase some individuals’ probability of surviving and reproducing in a specific environment, gather and synthesize information about technologies that have changed the way humans influence the inheritance of desired traits in organisms, and use mathematical representations to support explanations of how natural selection may lead to increases and decreases of specific traits in populations over time.
Disciplinary Core Ideas:
Natural selection leads to the predominance of certain traits in a population, and the suppression of others. (MS-LS4-4)
In artificial selection, humans have the capacity to influence certain characteristics of organisms by selective breeding. One can choose desired parental traits determined by genes, which are then passed onto offspring. (MS-LS4-5)
Adaptation by natural selection acting over generations is one important process by which species change over time in response to changes in environmental conditions. Traits that support successful survival and reproduction in the new environment become more common; those that do not become less common. Thus, the distribution of traits in a population changes. (MS-LS4-6)
Common Core State Standards:
ELA/Literacy - SL.8.5. Integrate multimedia and visual displays into presentations to clarify information, strengthen claims and evidence, and add interest.
What is included in this Unit?
Several key pieces are included to help you build your own unit or support a unit you have already created.
Each lesson in this unit contains:
- Essential question for students
- Key Terms
- Resources
- Lesson narrative that follows the 5E model of science instruction
- Corgi guide
- Universal Design for Learning (UDL) suggestions
This unit includes a step by step scaffolding that follows the 5E model of science instruction. Please note that we do our best to maintain correct links to resources and materials. If a specific link is no longer working, please don't hesitate to contact us at corgi@cast.org.
Lesson Plans
| Lesson 1 | Natural Selection and Adaptation | Question Exploration Guide |
| Lesson 2 | Natural Selection & Artificial Selection | Comparison Guide |
| Lesson 3 | Distribution of Traits in a Species | Cause & Effect Guide |
Methods of Assessment
Option A: Use your district’s current curriculum and suggested assessment designed to consider learner variability.
Option B: Select self-assessments, peer assessments, writing assignments, exams, etc., that allow students to reflect on their learning and demonstrate their understanding.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework for teaching and learning that guides the design of inclusive, accessible, and challenging learning environments. The framework is grounded in three principles:
CAST’s UDL Guidelines were developed to support practitioners to apply these three principles to practice.
While this unit was not explicitly designed through a UDL lens, UDL can be used as a tool to reduce existing barriers and increase access to the unit learning goal as well as to individual lesson goals. Below is an overview of how UDL might be applied to this unit. We’ll also offer more specific ideas for applying UDL at the end of each of the lessons associated with this unit.
Anticipate Potential Barriers
The UDL framework can support educators to reframe their understanding of barriers: from locating barriers within individual students to locating barriers within the design of the learning environment. Here we brainstorm potential barriers that learners may encounter in the design of the unit. Please note that these are just examples to get you thinking about the potential barriers in your own unique context.
Are there barriers to engagement? (connection to students’ lives, location, grouping, noise level, etc.)
The design of the unit/lessons may need to do more to spark students’ curiosity based on their unique interests, goals, and contexts. The design may need to better emphasize why the topics are meaningful and important to explore. The design may also need to more fully support students to make connections to their own lives, communities, and questions they care about.
Are there barriers to the representation of content? (oral, written, etc.)
These lessons consist of multimedia presentations with text, graphics, videos, and infographics. Some videos may need captions, or some captions don’t turn on automatically. The videos may also need a written transcript so students can follow along for key ideas, vocabulary, and note-taking. Further, the content shares mathematical and scientific notation and complex mathematical relationships that may also act as barriers to students engaging with the ideas. Finally, several of the lessons contain non-interactive PDFs that do not allow students to highlight or make comments.
Are there barriers to action and expression? (writing, speaking, planning, etc.)
While the Corgi guides embed multiple options for students to share their ideas (text, images, and speech-to-text), it is important to anticipate barriers to students being able to express their ideas in other associated activities.
Address Learner Variability
Here we brainstorm ways to address the potential barriers described above. Again, please note these approaches to reducing barriers and increasing access to the learning goals are just examples to get you thinking. We know every context is unique.
How will you address barriers to engagement?
The Engagement Guidelines prompt us to consider the following questions when addressing barriers to engagement:
- Are there options for choice, relevancy, and minimizing distractions?
- Are there options for sustaining effort and persistence?
- Are there options for supporting and developing self-regulation and self-assessment?
Barriers to learners’ engagement and multiple pathways to engage students will be addressed through the supplementary resources, survey questions, and videos throughout each lesson.
With regard to the anticipated barriers around supporting students to find meaning and relevance, consider creating spaces for students to make connections to their own lives, their communities, and issues that they care about. For example, students could explore the school yard to find examples of natural selection or adaptation.
We encourage you to collaborate with your students and co-design ways to address other barriers to engagement that may emerge throughout this unit.
How will you address barriers to representation?
The Representation Guidelines prompt us to consider the following questions when addressing barriers to representation:
- Are there options for audio/visual/display of info?
- Are there options to access language, math, and symbols?
- Are there options to build background knowledge, construct meaning, and generate new understandings?
The supplementary resources and videos have been constructed to offer multiple ways of representing information as well as the mixed media within each lesson/activity.
With regard to captions that don’t turn on automatically, support students to learn how to use and turn on/off the closed caption option. Also, transcripts of the videos should be made available for students.
With regard to the anticipated barriers around the lack of captions and transcripts, consider transcribing tools like Otter.ai, rev, and Express Scribe. Further, free screen readers such as TextHelp Read & Write, ChromeVox, or NVDA can assist students with online articles. Finally, to reduce the barriers associated with non-interactive PDFs, consider free PDF tools such as Bit.ai and Jotform.
We encourage you to collaborate with your students and co-design ways to address other barriers to representation that may emerge throughout this unit.
How will you address barriers to action and expression?
The Action and Expression Guidelines prompt us to consider the following questions when addressing barriers to acting on ideas and communicating:
- Are there options for physical action?
- Are there options for multiple communication tools?
- Are there options for varying levels of support?
- Are there options for goal setting, strategy development, and self-monitoring?
The Action and Expression Guidelines can offer ideas for embedding varied ways for learners to communicate ideas, share understandings, and work toward goals in the associated activities throughout this unit.
With regard to the anticipated barriers around physical action and physical space, consider encouraging learners to find learning spaces that work best for them (e.g. a quiet space, a space with natural lighting, etc.) and spaces that offer room to move or stand.
We encourage you to collaborate with your students and co-design ways to address other barriers to action and expression that may emerge throughout this unit.
Review the following link for a complete interactive overview of the UDL Guidelines.
Lesson 1: Natural Selection and Adaptation
Essential Question
How does natural selection impact biodiversity on Earth?
Key Terms
Predominance
Suppression
Biodiversity
Genetic Variations
Resources
Video: What is Natural Selection?
Website: ‘Defender: Natural Selection’ https://www.nationalgeographic.org/interactive/defender-natural-selection/
Video: Competition and Natural Selection | Evolution | Biology | FuseSchool
Handouts: A Population of Butterflies Going through Natural Selection
Sample Corgi Guide: Question Exploration - Natural Selection and Adaptation (To be able to view the guide you must be logged in to Corgi)
Lesson Narrative
Engage:
The instructor shares the agenda, learning goal, and assessment criteria with the class.
The instructor shares a link to a blank Corgi Question Exploration Guide to each student via email or Google Classroom.
The class reviews the Question Exploration Guide steps together.
The instructor introduces the essential question and key terms to the class and directs each student to complete Steps 1 and 2 in their guides.
The instructor invites students to share their background knowledge and facilitates a whole-class discussion using the prompts:
- What do you know about natural selection?
- What do you know about biodiversity?
- How does survival and reproduction impact natural selection?
- How does time and adaptation affect natural selection?
The instructor shares the video What is Natural Selection?with the class.
The instructor divides the class into groups of 3 to 4 students. In small groups, the students complete Step 3 of the guide by applying their understanding from the video.
Explore:
Option A: Use your district’s current curriculum and suggested activities designed to consider learner variability.
Option B: Use supplemental articles, online simulations or experiments, jigsaw routines, visual thinking routines, etc., to explore.
The instructor invites students to interact with ‘Defender: Natural Selection,’ helping students to build their own understanding through common experiences and build vocabulary for whole group discussion.
The instructor reconvenes the class to recap the exploration and invites students to share their findings.
Explain:
To develop an understanding of how natural selection leads to the predominance of certain traits in a population and suppression of others, the instructor shows the video Competition and Natural Selection | Evolution | Biology | FuseSchool and posts the following inquiries for students to independently explore:
- Explain the three basic principles of natural selection.
- What is the inevitable outcome of natural selection?
To further enhance students’ understanding, ask students to review the handout, A Population of Butterflies Going through Natural Selection, and direct them to either independently or in small groups of 2 to 3 complete the Corgi Guide, ‘Question Exploration’ with their new understanding.
Elaborate:
Use the Corgi presentation feature to create a slide deck and have learners present their thinking to reinforce new understanding.
Evaluate:
Option A: Use your district’s current curriculum and suggested assessment designed to consider learner variability.
Option B: Select self-assessments, peer assessments, writing assignments, exams, etc., that allow students to reflect on their learning and demonstrate their understanding.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Below is an overview of anticipated potential barriers and learner variability design questions for this lesson specifically.
- Students could have trouble accessing the ‘Defender: Natural Selection’ activity, either due to technology barriers or screen navigation tools. A similar or alternative activity should be considered.
- The lesson makes use of video. Students should be made aware of how to use and turn on/off the closed caption option. Also, transcripts of the videos should be made available for students.
- The infographic A Population of Butterflies Going through Natural Selection is listed as a .png file and its content does not respond to screen readers. As an alternative, convert the infographic into a powerpoint slide with selectable text. For reference, review the steps found in this presentation from California State University Northridge.
Lesson 2: Natural Selection & Artificial Selection
Essential Question
Why might natural selection and artificial selection impact the environment in different ways?
Key Terms
Offspring
Organism
Breed
Selective breeding
Genetic modification
Resources
Video: Science Today: From Wild Wolves to Man's Best Friend | California Academy of Sciences
Website: ‘Elaborate: Comparing Natural Selection and Selective Breeding’ https://www.texasgateway.org/resource/natural-selection-and-selective-breeding
Video: Why are there so many types of apples? - Theresa Doud
Handouts: Process of Selection of Traits
Sample Corgi Guide: Comparison - Natural Selection & Artificial Selection (To be able to view the guide you must be logged in to Corgi)
Lesson Narrative
Engage:
The instructor shares the agenda, learning goal, and assessment criteria with the class.
The instructor shares a link to a blank Corgi Comparison Guide with each student via email or Google Classroom.
The class reviews the Comparison Guide steps together.
The instructor introduces the essential question and key terms to the class and directs each student to complete Steps 1 and 2 in their guides.
The instructor invites students to share their background knowledge and facilitates a whole-class discussion using the prompts:
- What do you know about offspring?
- What do you know about artificial selection?
The instructor shares the video Science Today: From Wild Wolves to Man's Best Friend | California Academy of Scienceswith the class.
The instructor divides the class into groups of 3 to 4 students. In small groups, the students complete Steps 3 and 4 of the guide by applying their understanding from the videos.
Explore:
Option A: Use your district’s current curriculum and suggested activities designed to consider learner variability.
Option B: Use supplemental articles, online simulations or experiments, jigsaw routines, visual thinking routines, etc., to explore.
The instructor invites students to interact with ‘Elaborate: Comparing Natural Selection and Selective Breeding,’ helping students to build their own understanding through common experiences and build vocabulary for whole group discussion.
Explain:
To develop an understanding of the relationship between natural selection and artificial selection, the instructor directs each student to watch the video Why are there so many types of apples? - Theresa Doud and posts the following inquiries for students to independently explore:
- Why are there so many types of apples?
- How does natural selection and artificial selection play a role in the types of apples?
To further enhance students’ understanding, the teacher directs the students to review Process of Selection of Traits to understand the process of trait selection, cementing vocabulary and redirecting misconceptions. The teacher directs students, either independently or in small groups of 2 to 3, to complete the Corgi Guide, ‘Comparison’ with their new understandings.
Elaborate:
Use the Corgi presentation feature to create a slide deck and ask learners to present their thinking.
Evaluate:
Option A: Use your district’s current curriculum and suggested assessment designed to consider learner variability.
Option B: Select self-assessments, peer assessments, writing assignments, exams, etc., that allow students to reflect on their learning and demonstrate their understanding.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Below is an overview of anticipated potential barriers and learner variability design questions for this lesson specifically.
- Students could have trouble accessing the ‘Elaborate: Comparing Natural Selection and Selective Breeding’ activity, either due to technology barriers or screen navigation tools. A similar or alternative activity should be considered.
- The lesson makes use of video. Students should be made aware of how to use and turn on/off the closed caption option. Also, transcripts of the videos should be made available for students.
- The infographic Process of Selection of Traits is listed as a .png file and its content does not respond to screen readers. As an alternative, convert the infographic into a powerpoint slide with selectable text. For reference, review the steps found in this presentation from California State University Northridge.
Lesson 3: Distribution of Traits in a Species
Essential Question
How does the environment influence populations of organisms over multiple generations?
Key Terms
Industrial Revolution
Adaptation
Resources
Video: INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION | Educational Video for Kids.
Video: Air pollution in a historical perspective
Video: Story Time: A Very Special Moth
Handout: Environmental Changes Affect Distribution of Traits of Peppered Moth
Handout: Peppered Moth Simulation
Website: Peppered Moths | Natural Selection Game
Sample Corgi Guide: Cause & Effect - Distribution of Traits in a Species (To be able to view the guide you must be logged in to Corgi)
Lesson Narrative
Engage:
The instructor shares the agenda, learning goal, and assessment criteria with the class.
The instructor shares a link to a blank Corgi Cause & Effect Guide with each student via email or Google Classroom.
The class reviews the Cause & Effect Guide steps together.
The instructor introduces the essential question and key terms to the class and directs each student to complete Steps 1 and 2 in their guides.
The instructor invites students to share their background knowledge and facilitates a whole-class discussion using the prompts:
- What do you know about the effects of environmental changes on distribution of traits in a species?
- How can environmental changes affect certain populations over time?
The instructor shares the video INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION | Educational Video for Kids. for a brief history of the industrial revolution and workers’ rights, or shares the videoAir pollution in a historical perspective for a brief history of pollution with the class.
The instructor divides the class into groups of 3 to 4 students. In small groups, the students discuss their understandings from the video.
Explain:
To develop an understanding of how environmental changes caused by the Industrial Revolution affect the Peppered Moth population, the instructor shows the video Story Time: A Very Special Moth.
The instructor directs each student to review the handout, ‘Environmental Changes Affect the Peppered Moth,’ and posts the following inquiries for students to explore:
- Why did the white Peppered Moth decrease in number during the Industrial Revolution?
- Why did the white Peppered Moth increase in number during the Clean Air Act of 1956?
The teacher directs them to either independently or in small groups of 2 to 3 to complete the Corgi Guide, ‘Cause & Effect’ with their new understandings.
Elaborate:
Use the Corgi presentation feature to create a slide deck and direct learners ro present their thinking.
Evaluate:
Option A: Use your district’s current curriculum and suggested assessment designed to consider learner variability.
Option B: Select self-assessments, peer assessments, writing assignments, exams, etc., that allow students to reflect on their learning and demonstrate their understanding.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Suggestions
Below is an overview of anticipated potential barriers and learner variability design questions for this lesson specifically.
- The lesson makes use of video. Students should be made aware of how to use and turn on/off the closed caption option. Also, transcripts of the videos should be made available for students.
- The infographic ‘Environmental Changes Affect the Peppered Moth’ is listed as a .png file and its content does not respond to screen readers. As an alternative, convert the infographic into a powerpoint slide with selectable text. For reference, review the steps found in this presentation from California State University Northridge.
- As an alternative or extension to learning, students can use the Peppered Moth Simulation activity: Peppered Moth Simulation and Peppered Moths | Natural Selection Game to make connections and identify the relationships between environmental impacts and adaptations.
|
oercommons
|
2025-03-18T00:36:22.028776
|
Lesson Plan
|
{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/123133/overview",
"title": "Corgi Natural Selection and Adaptation",
"author": "Lesson"
}
|
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