Washington DC Academic Standards 5th Grade Social Studies Activities

DC.5. U.S. History and Geography: Westward Expansion to the Present

THE NEW NATION’S WESTWARD EXPANSION (1790–1860)

5.1. Students trace the colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s.

5.1.1. Describe the waves of immigrants from Europe between 1789 and 1850 and their modes of transportation into the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys and through the Cumberland Gap (e.g., overland wagons, canals, flatboats, and steamboats). (G, S)

5.1.3. Describe the process of the “internal slave trade” that saw Africans born in the United States sold into the southernmost states (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina) from more Northern states (Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland).

5.1.4. Name the states and territories that existed in 1850 and their locations and major geographical features (e.g., mountain ranges, principal rivers, and dominant plant regions). (G)

5.1.5. Demonstrate knowledge of the explorations of the trans-Mississippi West following the Louisiana Purchase (e.g., Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Sacagawea, Zebulon Pike, and John Fremont). (G)

5.1.7. Describe the experiences of settlers on the overland trails to the West (e.g., location of the routes; purpose of the journeys; the influence of the terrain, rivers, vegetation, and climate; life in the territories at the end of these trails). (G, S, E)

5.1.8. Relate how and when California, Texas, Oregon, and other Western lands became part of the United States, including the significance of the Texas War for Independence and the Mexican-American War. (G, M)

5.1.9. Describe the search for gold in California and how the Gold Rush moved east to places such as Colorado and the Dakotas. (G, S, E)

THE GROWTH OF THE REPUBLIC (1800–1860)

5.2. Students describe the emergence of a fledgling industrial economy.

5.2.1. Explain the expansion of the plantation system and slavery as the demand for cotton production grew. (G, S, E)

5.2.2. Describe the mechanization of cleaning cotton with cotton gin/textile industries. (E, I)

5.2.5. Identify the transportation innovations that led to westward settlements. (G, I)

5.2.6. Explain how and why young women and children join the paid labor force. (S, E)

5.3. Students describe the rapid growth of slavery in the South after 1800.

5.3.1. Describe how Southern colonists slowly altered their attitudes toward Africans, increasingly viewing them as permanent servants or slaves; the harsh conditions of the Middle Passage; the responses of slave families to their condition; and the ongoing struggle between proponents and opponents of slavery. (S)

5.3.2. Describe the contributions of enslaved and free Africans to the economic development of the colonies. (S, E)

5.3.3. Identify the characteristics of slave life and the resistance on plantations and farms across the South. (P, S)

5.3.4. Explain the significance of and consequences ensuing from the abolition of slavery in the Northern states after the Revolution, and of the 1808 law that banned the importation of slaves into the United States. (P, S)

5.3.5. Describe the impact of the cotton gin on the economics and culture of slavery and Southern agriculture. (E, I)

5.4. Students identify prominent people and movements for social justice in the United States, including:

5.4.6. Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and equality for women. (P, S)

5.4.7. Frederick Douglass, the Grimke sisters, and William Lloyd Garrison and the abolition of slavery. (P, S)

THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION (1860–1877)

5.5. Students summarize the causes and consequences of the Civil War.

5.5.1. Describe the extension of and controversy about slavery into the territories, including popular sovereignty, the Dred Scott decision, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. (P, S)

5.5.2. Explain the role of abolitionists, including reformers Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Martin Delany, and John Brown. (P, S)

5.5.3. Describe the emergence of Abraham Lincoln as a national political figure and the secession of Southern states. (P)

5.5.4. Identify Union and Confederate States at the outbreak of the Civil War, Yankees and Rebels (Blue and Gray), and the role of African American troops in the war. (G, P)

5.5.5. Describe the experience of the war on the battlefield and home front. (M, S)

5.5.6. Analyze the rationales for the Emancipation Proclamation and the emancipation of African Americans in Washington, DC. (P, S)

5.6. Students explain the successes and failures of Reconstruction.

5.6.1. Describe the physical and economic destruction of the South. (G, E)

5.6.2. Describe the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, DC. (P)

5.6.4. Describe the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, as well as African American political and economic progress. (P, E)

5.6.5. Analyze the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, black codes, vigilante justice, and Jim Crow laws. (P, E)

5.6.6. Analyze the emergence of African American self-help organizations, emigration to all-black towns in the West (e.g., the Exodusters), and the call for reparations by formerly enslaved leaders (e.g., Isaiah Dickerson, Callie House, and the ex-slave pension and mutual relief association). (P, S)

INDUSTRIAL AMERICA (1870–1940)

5.7. Students explain the various causes and consequences of the Second Industrial Revolution.

5.7.1. Explain the rapid growth of cities and trans-Atlantic transportation systems. (G, E)

5.7.2. Identify sources of new immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, China, Korea, and Japan, with particular attention to the role that Chinese and Irish laborers played in the development of the Transcontinental Railroad. (G)

5.7.4. Analyze the formation of unions. (P, E)

5.7.5. Describe the United States as the land of opportunity versus a growing sense of protectionism and nativism. (P, S)

5.7.6. Outline child labor and working conditions. (S)

5.7.7. Identify major goals of the Progressive Era (e.g., attacking racial discrimination, child labor, big business, and alcohol use). (P, S)

5.7.8. List important technological and scientific advances. (E, I)

5.8. Students describe the nation’s growing role in world affairs.

5.8.3. Explain the Cuban-Spanish-American War and interventions in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. (P, M)

5.8.5. Identify the reasons for American entry into World War I. (P, M)

5.9. Students describe the African American exodus from the segregated rural South to the urbanized North.

5.9.1. Describe racial and ethnic tensions and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the South. (S)

5.9.2. Describe the emergence of the black “intelligentsia” during the Harlem Renaissance (e.g., “U” Street Corridor in Washington, DC; various poets, artists, musicians, and scholars). (S, I)

5.9.3. Analyze the contributions of the Jazz Age. (S, I)

5.9.4. Describe economic opportunities in industrial Northern cities and Washington, DC. (E)

5.10. Students describe what happened during the global depression of the 1930s and how the United States responded.

5.10.1. Describe the stock market crash of 1929. (E)

5.10.2. Describe the mass unemployment within the country. (S, E)

5.10.4. Identify and explain the New Deal programs under FDR. (P)

5.10.5. Analyze increased importance of the federal government in establishing economic and social policies to combat societal problems. (P, S, E)

WORLD WAR II (1939–1945)

5.11. Students describe the main events of World War II and how the Allies prevailed.

5.11.1. Describe fascism in Germany and Italy, including Nazism and attacks on Jews, gypsies, and others. (P, S)

5.11.2. Describe the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. (G, M, P)

5.11.3. Interpret the important domestic events that took place during the war (e.g., economic growth, internment of Japanese Americans, and changing status of women and African Americans). (S, E)

ECONOMIC GROWTH AND REFORM IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICA (1945–PRESENT)

5.12. Use geographic tools to locate and analyze information about people, places, and environments in the United States.

5.12.1. Locate the United States, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi and Rio Grande rivers, the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and the Rocky and Appalachian mountain ranges. (G)

5.12.2. Identify the 50 states and their capitals and identify the year that each one became part of the Union. (G)

5.12.3. Locate and identify major geographic regions in the United States (e.g., Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest) and how regional differences in climate, types of farming, populations, and sources of labor shape their economies and societies. (G, E)

5.12.5. Locate and identify the climate, major physical features, and major natural resources in each region. (G)

5.14. Students describe the key events and accomplishments of the Civil Rights movement in the United States.

5.14.1. Describe the proliferation of the Civil Rights movement of African Americans from the churches of the rural South to the urban North. (G, P)

5.14.2. Explain the role of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). (P)

5.14.3. Identify key leaders in the struggle to extend equal rights to all Americans through the decades (e.g., Mary McLeod Bethune, Ella Jo Baker, César Chávez, Frederick Douglass, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, Charles Houston, Martin Luther King Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Carlos Montes, Baker Motley, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Reies López Tijerina). (P)

5.14.6. Explain the growth of the African American middle class. (P, E)

5.16. Students identify major waves of immigration and demographic changes in U.S. history and describe the diverse nature of American people and their contributions to American culture.

5.16.1. Identify indigenous peoples in different areas of the country (e.g., Navajo, Seminoles, Sioux, Hawaiians, and Inuit). (G, S)

5.16.2. Describe the lives of African Americans, including an explanation of their early concentration in the South because of slavery, the Great Migration to Northern cities in the 20th century, and ongoing African immigrant groups (e.g., Ethiopians, Nigerians, and Ghanaians), and where they have tended to settle in large numbers. (G, S)

5.16.3. Describe the major European immigrant groups who have come to America, locating their countries of origin, and where they have tended to settle in large numbers (e.g., English, Germans, Italians, Scots, Irish, Jews, Poles, and Scandinavians). (G, S)

5.16.4. Describe the major Asian immigrant groups who have come to America in the 19th and 20th centuries, locating their countries of origin and where they have tended to settle in large numbers in certain regions (e.g., Koreans, Chinese, and Vietnamese). (G, S)