Civic Literacy Essay for Week 30, Regents US History

Product description

From the author

Immigration

This Civic Literacy essay is based on a set of primary source documents. The question is designed to test a student's ability to work with historical documents. In analyzing the documents, students consider the source of each document and any point of view that may be presented. The language and images used in a document may reflect the historical context of the time in which it was created.

A recommended teaching practice for New York State Regents US History and Government is to train students to write one of these each ten weeks or so through the year. Teachers preparing students for the New York State Regents will find it difficult to train students to write these well if they wait until the end of the year! Each of the civic literacy essays authored by Innovation Assessments LLC are designed for different points in the year such that documents come from historical context usually under study.

Here is a blog article about teaching document-based essays that will be helpful.

Historical Context of this essay prompt:

E Pluribus Unum

Throughout United States history, many constitutional and civic issues have been debated by Americans. These debates have resulted in efforts by individuals, groups, and governments to

address these issues. These efforts have achieved varying degrees of success. One of these constitutional and civic issues is the tensions arising from different ethnic and religious groups forming a unified nation.

The product also includes passcodes to my own virtual classroom at Innovation. Give students the passcodes for access to review videos with embedded, auto-corrected questions.

Civic literacy essay formatted like the New York State US History and Government Regents exam.

Grading rubric on a scale of 100 as commonly used in New York State high schools.

Passcodes to online video review lessons for students.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Analyse six historical sources about immigration from 1790 to 1924, including a retrospective interview recorded in 1991, weighing the source of each and the point of view it carries
Write a document-based essay that describes the historical circumstances of an issue, explains the efforts made to address it and discusses the extent of their success
Bring outside knowledge of United States history alongside evidence drawn from at least four of the six documents, as the top scoring band requires

Teaching tips

Hand out the scoring page before students write: the top band asks for relevant information from at least four documents plus substantial outside information, which changes how students plan the essay
The author's stated practice is to run one of these essays about every ten weeks so students are not writing their first one in June; this file is the week thirty instalment
Check the three online task passcodes before promising them to a class, since the pages state that work cannot be saved and no activity record is kept in the scaled-down version

Skills covered

Sourcing and point of view — students are told to consider the source of each document, then work with a statute, a newspaper ad column, two political cartoons, a quota law and a recorded interview, all on the same issue.
Document-based essay writing — the task sets three linked demands, describe the circumstances, explain the efforts and discuss how successful they were, against defined meanings for each verb.
Using oral history as evidence — Schneider's account of fourteen days in steerage on the Rotterdam gives students a personal source to weigh against the legal documents.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

How can I help students prepare to write the essay?

Have students identify each source’s perspective and the evidence it offers about immigration. Then ask them to group relevant documents and connect those ideas with historical knowledge before drafting.