Resources

Student Resources:

• End of Reconstruction Essay
• Legacy of Reconstruction Primary Source Set
• Legacy of Reconstruction Handout
• Seven Sticky Notes
• Highlighter

Teacher Resources:

• The End of Reconstruction Timeline Formative Assessment

Facilitation Notes

• Teachers will need to precut The End of Reconstruction Timeline formative assessment.

Engage

• Ask students to imagine a neighboring city that wants to redesign its park. The city wants the park to have all the coolest playground equipment, the best sports fields and courts, and the safest materials. Ask students to help the city think of all the ways the project might not work out in the way it is planned. (Examples may include disagreements over how to accomplish the plan, money running out, support for the project ending during building, people not taking care of the park once it is finished, the upkeep being too expensive, and it is not possible to make everyone happy.)
• Transition: Tell students “The park is a local example of building something positive and you were able to think of many ways it might not work out. Now try to imagine the issues that would arise when trying to rebuild the whole nation after something as serious as the Civil War. Reconstruction was a tough period in our history when the government was doing work to rebuild the nation and dealing with many opinions. Today we are going to look at some issues and events that led to the end of the period we know as Reconstruction.”

Explore

• Hand out The End of Reconstruction Essay and read through it as a class.
• Hand out highlighters and sticky notes.
• Briefly introduce the primary sources and let students know how they will be accessing these sources as they read the essay again on their own.
  • Show students the primary sources and read the captions but let them investigate the sources themselves.
• As students read the essay again, they should highlight a line or two from the essay they feel fits best with each primary source. Then, summarize the highlighted line(s) on each of their sticky notes.
• As students finish, have them put their essays away, leaving only their summarized sticky notes visible.

Scaffolding Note: You may choose to hang the primary sources around the room, allowing students to move freely to each source as needed, post them on your LMS for students to view them on a device, or print them off for students to use at their desk individually.

Assess & Reflect

• From these seven sticky notes, students combine to narrow down from seven to five “events” for their End of Reconstruction Timeline formative assessment. Instruct students to take their seven sticky note summaries and combine any commonalities. Then, on the formative assessment Timeline, students will write their five “events” that led to the end of Reconstruction.
  • Collect these from students to review. Have students put their sticky notes on the back of their essays, or you can collect those as well.