Lesson Plan

Reshaping American Society: How did Immigration and Urbanization Affect America in the mid 1800s?

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From the Know-Nothings to the Bible Riots, immigration and urbanization changed the face of America in the middle of the 1800s. Using documents that range from immigrant experiences to renderings of violent conflict between immigrants and nativists, scholars describe the effects of these trends, as well as the reform movement. A final assessment asks pupils to write a newspaper article describing how life changed during the period. 

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CCSS: Designed
Instructional Ideas
  • Offer as a quick way to cover the issues involved in urbanization and immigration in the 1800s
  • Great to use as a capstone project on immigration and urbanization
Classroom Considerations
  • Activity is lengthy, but it's easy to adapt to fit a shorter window of time
Pros
  • Activity is comprehensive and has a rich variety of documents
  • Scaffolded analysis activities make individual exercises easily adaptable to a variety of class members
Cons
  • None