Learning Standard 1: Chronology and Cause. Students will understand the chronological order of historical events and recognize the complexity of historical cause and effect, including the interaction of forces from different spheres of human activity, the importance of ideas, and of individual choices, actions, and character.

• Students understand cause and effect, the relations between events.
• Students understand multiple causes, how forces from different spheres of life can cause or shape an event.
• Students understand the power of ideas behind important events.
• Students recognize the importance of individual choices, action, and character.

Learning Standard 8: Places and Regions of the World. Students will identify and explain the location and features of places and systems organized over time, including boundaries of nations and regions; cities and towns; capitals and commercial centers; roads, rails, and canals; dams, harbors, and fortifications; and routes of trade and invasion.

• Students map the historical migrations of the American people.

English Language Arts Composition Strand
Learning Standard 19: Students will write compositions with a clear focus, developing the composition with logically related ideas and adequate supporting detail.

Learning Standard 20: Students will select and use appropriate genres, modes of reasoning, and speaking styles when writing for different audiences and rhetorical purposes.

Learning Standard 21: Students will demonstrate improvement in organization, content, paragraph development, level of detail, style, tone, and word choice (diction) in their compositions after revising them.
Learning Standard 22: Students will use knowledge of standard English conventions to edit their writing.

English Language Arts Literature Strand

Learning Standard 9: Students will identify the basic facts and essential ideas in what they have read, heard, or viewed.

Identify basic facts and ideas in what they have read, heard, or viewed, drawing on such strategies as recalling genre characteristics, setting a purpose, generating essential questions, and clarifying ideas by rereading and discussing.

Learning Standard 11: Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of theme in literature and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.
Identify themes in fictional and nonfictional works, and relate them to personal experience or to the experiences of others.

Massachusetts Instructional Technology Competencies

Basic Skills and Operations

Select and utilize appropriate applications (e.g., word processing programs, database, spreadsheet, multimedia, web browser) for a variety of classroom projects.

Social, Ethical, and Human Issues

Work cooperatively and collaboratively with peers when using technology in the classroom.

Identify ethical and legal behaviors when using technology in the classroom and describe personal consequences of inappropriate use.

Technology Communication Tools

Gather and analyze information using telecommunications.

Routinely and efficiently use online information resources to meet needs for collaboration, research, publications, communications, and productivity

Technology Research Tools

Use content-specific tools to locate, evaluate, and collect information from a variety of sources.

Collaborate with peers, experts, and others to contribute to a content-related knowledge base by using technology to compile, synthesize, produce and disseminate information, models, and other creative works.

Teachers will ask students to imagine they would travel with their family for a 4-month trip in a van. It would be through the remote wilderness and there would be no place to stop for food or supplies. What would they take along? Rank it by importance. Compare to other students in the class. What would be similar/different to the items the pioneers took with them? (Supply a list for comparison.)

Have students view episode one of the video: The Oregon Trail.

Discuss the reasons why so many went west.

Explain first assignment: To brainstorm phrases with your group that would have convinced settlers to move West: Rivers filled with fish, gold under every rock…Then create an advertisement to place in an 1800s newspaper to convince the settlers to move West.

1. Students will watch video.
2. Students will create advertisement using persuasive writing techniques to lure settlers into traveling West.
3. Students will complete a teacher created "Trail Hunt" utilizing information from the web site: The Oregon Trail at http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/Oregontrail.html
4. Students will participate in literature circles reading one of the following books: Bound For Oregon by Jean Van Leeuwen and James Watling, Facing West: A Story of the Oregon Trail by Kathleen V. Kudlinski and James Watling, Rachel's Journal: The Story of a Pioneer Girl by Marissa Moss.
5. Students will view Episodes 2-4 of the video.
6. Students will create a map of the trail including at least ten trail sites utilizing information from http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/Sites.html
7. Using the Internet sites, students will research one trail landmark from the following: Craters of the Moon: Idaho, Independence Rock: Wyoming, Devil's Gate: Wyoming, South Pass, Wyoming, Barlow Road: Oregon, Scott's Bluff: Nebraska, Chimney Rock: Nebraska, Fort Laramie: Wyoming, courthouse Rock: Nebraska, Alcove Springs: Kansas, Fort Bridger: Wyoming, and create a postcard that might have been sent from that site to a friend back east. Students will mark the site on their trail map.
8. Students will listen to chapters shared by the teacher from the book: A Pioneer Sampler: Daily Life in 1840 by Barbara Greenwood, and complete the associated activities.
9. Students will participate in teams in the computer center using the simulation Oregon Trail.
10. Students will write a daily diary about their travels on the Oregon Trail. (See the sample student activity, Jane Holden's Diary.) Students will read about hardships on the trail: http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/Hardships.html and include their own examples in their diaries. Students will take turns accessing the computer to word process their diary entries every few days.
11. Students will read the actual diary entries on the Internet site http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/00.n.dairies.html and compare these to their own experiences.
12. Students will use the information in William Porter's diary (MS Excel) to choose a month in 1848, calculate the total and average number of miles traveled in that month, as well as the total and average daily expenses utilizing a spreadsheet. http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/00.n.dairies.html
13. Students will write a travel guide for the Oregon trail based upon their Internet research, videos, reading in the literature circles, and class activities.
14. Students will create a database during computer lab and compare travel in Travel Then and Now (MS Excel). They will include these categories: transportation, roads, food, shelter, guides, time to travel, entertainment, dangers, and mileage.
15. Students will complete the discussion questions and activities from the Teacher's Guide at http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/teacherguide.html
16. Students will reflect about the personal qualities possessed by the pioneers and the impact of the Oregon Trail on U.S History in an essay

• materials for activities, postcards, and old newspaper article
• list of actual supplies families might take on the trail
• A Pioneer Sampler: Daily Life in 1840 by Barbara Greenwood
• Bound For Oregon by Jean Van Leeuwen and James Watling
• Facing West: A Story of the Oregon Trail by Kathleen V. Kudlinski and James Watling
• Rachel's Journal: The Story of a Pioneer Girl by Marissa Moss
• The Way West: Journal of a Pioneer Woman by Amelia Stewart Knight, Michael McCurdy
• Daily Life in a Covered Wagon by Paul Erickson
• If You Traveled West in a Covered Wagon by Ellen Levine
• How Would You Survive in the American West? By Jacqueline Morley, David Dalsriy

• Application software for word processing and spreadsheets
• Oregon Trail curriculum-based software
• Internet URLs:
  • http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/Oregontrail.html
  • http://www.beavton.k12.or.us/greenway/leahy/ot/landmarks.htm
  • http://www.connectingstudents.com/ot/
  • http://octa-trails.org/

1. Understanding and mastery of social studies concepts will be assessed through evaluation of the diary content, table, postcard, essay, travel guide, map, poster, and student discussion. The diary, travel guide, and essay will be assessed by rubric.
2. Writing objectives will be teacher-assessed by writing checklist and self-assessed by the student for the essay, diary, and travel guide.
3. Technology skills will be assessed for correctness according to the content and format of the completed spreadsheet, table, and Trail Hunt. Teacher observation will also assess computer usage skills.
4. Reading skills will be assessed by the daily responses in literature circles and on daily assignments.