Westward Expansion
Case Study: Westward Expansion
Martin Quinn’s sixth-grade class is studying the great westward expansion in North America during the middle 1800s. Today’s lesson is about a typical journey west in a covered wagon. Mr. Quinn begins by projecting a 19th-century U.S. map on a screen at the front of the room. “Many people traveled by steamship up the Missouri River to the town of Independence,” he says, and he uses a pointer to trace the route on the map. “Then they continued west in a covered wagon until they reached their final destination—maybe Colorado, Oregon, or California.” He now shows several old photographs of people traveling in covered wagons and says, “A typical covered wagon was about 4 feet wide and maybe 10 or 12 feet long.” He has two students use masking tape to mark a 4-by-10-foot rectangle on the classroom carpet. “How much room would a wagon with these dimensions give you for your family and supplies?” The students agree that people would have to be quite choosy about what they brought with them on the trip west.
“All right,” Mr. Quinn continues, “let’s think about the kinds of things you would need to pack in your wagon. Let’s start with the kinds of food you’d want to bring and how much of each kind you should pack.” He divides the students into groups of three or four members each and has them brainstorm what might seem to be a reasonable grocery list. After a few minutes, he writes each group’s suggestions on the board.
At this point, Mr. Quinn clicks on an Internet link and projects an electronic copy of John Lyle Campbell’s pamphlet Idaho: Six Months in the New Gold Regions: The Emigrant’s Guide, published in 1864. “This pamphlet provided advice for a party of four men who might be traveling west to seek their fortunes in the quartz mining boom in Idaho.” The pamphlet lists many things that the students haven’t thought of and suggests much larger amounts than the students have estimated. For example, it recommends 12 sacks of flour, 400 pounds of bacon, 100 pounds of coffee, 15 gallons of vinegar, 50 pounds of lard, and “one good cow for milking purposes.”
“What do you think about the list?” Mr. Quinn asks. “Does it make sense?” The students have varying opinions: “Fifty pounds of lard—eeuuww, gross! Isn’t that stuff really bad for your arteries or something?” “We way underestimated our flour.” “I don’t understand why they needed to bring so much coffee.” “The cow’s a good idea, though.”
Mr. Quinn’s next question is, “Why did people need all of these things? Let’s talk about that for a bit.”
What specific instructional strategies does Mr. Quinn use to engage and motivate his students?
What strategies does he use to help them learn and remember the content of the lesson?
what you learned from the case study
how you would apply you learned from the case study as a future classroom teacher (Be specific. Would you use a similar strategy in your own classroom? Do you have ideas of other strategies you could use
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