America: The Story of Us – Cities Video Guide

Students can identify the technological and social developments (steel-frame construction, the elevator, electric lighting) that enabled the rise of the American city.

Students can explain the role Jacob Riis's photography played in exposing tenement poverty and prompting sanitation reform.

Students can describe the causes of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and name at least two workplace-safety reforms that followed.

Assign the questions for students to complete while watching, since the worksheet's own instructions state the answers appear in chronological order with the video.

Use the two-page teacher key to check understanding right after the video rather than collecting the worksheet for later grading.

Pair the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory questions with a short discussion of present-day workplace-safety rules, since the worksheet already asks students to link the fire to modern reforms.

Historical note-taking — recording specific facts, names, and statistics while following a video's chronological narrative.

Cause-and-effect reasoning — connecting the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire to the safety reforms (sprinklers, outward doors, alarms) it produced.

Source-based reasoning — explaining how Jacob Riis's photography technique exposed conditions that were otherwise hidden from view.