Trail of Tears Stations – Lesson Plan
Guiding Questions
- How did the acquisition of new territories impact the nation’s growth and development?
- How did westward expansion impact Native American tribes, and what were the consequences of these interactions?
Objectives
- Students will describe how U.S. expansion affected Native American communities.
- Students will analyze primary sources to explain the consequences of westward expansion.
Resources
Student Resources:
- Trail of Tears: Stations Response Sheet Handout
Teacher Resources:
- Printed primary source excerpts for each station
Facilitation Notes
There are four stations for this lesson. In a large class, teachers may want to make two or three sets of stations to facilitate smaller groups. Hang the station’s primary sources ahead of time or set them up at tables.
Engage
- Display a map of the United States and ask students to point out Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
- Then ask students to identify Oklahoma and ask students “What challenges might people face walking that distance without modern transportation, limited access to food, and feeble shelter?”
Explore
- Distribute the Trail of Tears: Stations Response Sheet Handout and read through the background information as a class.
- Divide class into small groups and let each group know at which station to begin. Give students roughly 6-7 minutes at each station. Students complete the corresponding section of their response sheet at each station.
- Once students have visited all the stations, bring the whole class back together.
Assess & Reflect
- Reflection Questions:
- Ask students the following questions:
- What surprised you most from the stations?
- How did U.S. growth come at a cost for Native tribes?
- In what ways was expansion both beneficial and harmful?
AND/OR
- DBQ Skill Development
- Have students write a thesis to answer the prompt: How did U.S. westward expansion impact Native American tribes, and in what ways was this expansion both beneficial and harmful?