LEARN NC

K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

If you were a pioneer on the Oregon Trail

http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=274

A lesson plan for Grade 2 English Language Arts, Visual Arts Education, and Social Studies

Provider: National Endowment for the Humanities

About this resource

Appropriate grades
2
Provider
National Endowment for the Humanities

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In this lesson, students compare imagined travel experiences of their own with the actual experiences of 19th-century pioneers. After creating, as a class, oral stories about contemporary cross-country journeys, students learn about the experiences of the emigrants who traveled on the Oregon Trail. They then create works of historical fiction in the form of picture books, drawing upon the information they have learned.

North Carolina Curriculum Alignment

Visual Arts Education (2001)

Grade 2

  • Goal 1: The learner will develop critical and creative thinking skills and perceptual awareness necessary for understanding and producing art.

Social Studies (2003)

Grade 2

  • Goal 3: The learner will analyze how individuals, families, and communities are alike and different.
    • Objective 3.02: Describe similarities and differences among families in different communities.
  • Goal 4: The learner will exhibit an understanding of change in communities over time.
    • Objective 4.03: Describe human movement in the establishment of settlement patterns such as rural, urban, and suburban.
  • Goal 5: The learner will understand the relationship between people and geography in various communities.
    • Objective 5.02: Describe the role of a geographer and apply geographic tools, such as maps, globes, compasses and photographs, in the understanding of locations and characteristics of places and regions.

English Language Arts (2004)

Grade 2

  • Goal 2: The learner will develop and apply strategies and skills to comprehend text that is read, heard, and viewed.
    • Objective 2.04: Pose possible how, why, and what if questions to understand and/or interpret text.
    • Objective 2.08: Interpret information from diagrams, charts, and maps.
  • Goal 3: The learner will make connections through the use of oral language, written language, and media and technology.
    • Objective 3.02: Connect and compare information within and across selections (fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama) to experience and knowledge.
    • Objective 3.04: Increase oral and written vocabulary by listening, discussing, and composing texts when responding to literature that is read and heard. (e.g., read aloud by teacher, literature circles, interest groups, book clubs).
  • Goal 4: The learner will apply strategies and skills to create oral, written, and visual texts.
    • Objective 4.04: Use oral communication to identify, organize, and analyze information.
    • Objective 4.06: Plan and make judgments about what to include in written products (e.g., narratives of personal experiences, creative stories, skits based on familiar stories and/or experiences).
    • Objective 4.08: Write structured, informative presentations and narratives when given help with organization.
    • Objective 4.09: Use media and technology to enhance the presentation of information to an audience for a specific purpose.