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Interactive Suffrage Timeline Lesson Plan

Guiding Questions

  • How did democratic participation expand in the United States?

Objectives

  • Students will place major suffrage events on a collaborative timeline.
  • Students will classify the events as expanding or restricting voting rights.

Student Resources:

Teacher Resources:

  • Interactive Timeline of Suffrage Teacher Resource, printed and cut
  • Sticky notes or markers
  • Long butcher paper, string, or another method to create a physical timeline across a classroom wall
  • (Optional Extension) Pre-made “event cards” with suffrage-related events (or students can create them)

Anticipate

  • Glossary terms: Terms used in this lesson for pre-teach opportunities or vocabulary support:
    • suffrage, property-owner, amendment, progressivism
  • Before class begins, create a wall timeline with four major sections:
    • Early Republic
    • Early Nineteenth century
    • Reconstruction
    • Post-World War II

Teacher note: Flex the timeline format to fit your classroom. Clothes pins on a string, magnets on a whiteboard, or sticky tack on a blank wall all work well.

Engage

Two Truths and a Lie

  • Share three statements and ask students to guess which one is the lie:
    • Some states have laws that remove voting rights from people convicted of certain crimes.
    • Every adult citizen in the U.S. has always had the right to vote.
    • Federal and state governments share responsibility for setting voting eligibility standards.
  • Correct answer: #2 is the lie.
  • Use this to launch into a short explanation: “As we’ll see today, the right to vote hasn’t always been guaranteed-or permanent. Let’s look at how it’s been gained, lost, and changed over time.”

Explore

Timeline Creation:

  • Each student or pair receives a piece of the Timeline of Suffrage.
    • There are era titles, descriptions, images, and primary sources in the document with 16 pieces for students to work with (excluding era labels).
  • Students analyze their piece of the timeline briefly (or research if needed,) then:
    • Place it on the class timeline in the correct area.
    • Classify it as expansion or restriction using color-coding.
      • Use a color-coding system that works for your classroom, depending on the timeline method you chose.
      • For example: If using a clothes pin timeline, you could have two different colored pins for students to use. Red for restriction and green for expansion.
    • Add a sticky note explaining who was affected and how.

Gallery Walk and Analysis:

  • Students circulate and view the full timeline.
  • On their handout, they note:
    • Two major expansions
    • Two major restrictions
    • One event that surprised them
    • A pattern they noticed across time

Optional Activity: Additional discussion questions

  • Were there moments of progress followed by setbacks?
  • Who benefited most from expansions? Who suffered most from restrictions?
  • How is the principle of consent of the governed related to the right to vote?
    • Consent of the Governed means: The power of government comes from the people.

Assess & Reflect

  1. Written Response:
    • Write a paragraph to respond to the statement “Has expanding suffrage increased representation and consent for all?”
      • Support it with 2-3 pieces of evidence from the timeline.

AND/OR

  • Concept Map
    • Create as an example a concept map (or bubble map) on the board as an example for students.
      • Many examples of concept maps exist online. A simple example concept map could group school lunch options by days of the week, or animals by type.
    • Ask students to create their own concept map using keywords from the suffrage interactive timeline.
      • For example: The center circle may say “suffrage.” Circles around it radiating out might say, “women” “black men” “18 to 20-year-olds” and “people that don’t own property.” Each of those circles might have additional circles radiating out from them listing primary sources or eras in which each group gained suffrage.

 

Extend (Optional)

  • Prepare event cards (or let students research/create them), such as:
    • 1790 Naturalization Act
    • Jacksonian-era voting reforms
    • Fifteenth Amendment
    • Poll taxes/literacy tests
    • Nineteenth Amendment
    • Indian Citizenship Act
    • Voting Rights Act
    • Shelby v. Holder (2013)
    • Voter ID laws
  • Have students add the events they have researched to the interactive timeline.