This is Problem-Based Learning. Students don't answer questions about the range — they step inside the problem as stakeholders, and the teacher guides rather than tells. The whole phase runs the problem-solving process named in §113.15(c)(22)(B).
Read the narrative aloud. Read it once for the story, then again for details students will need.
First reaction (not answers yet): what did you notice? What do you wonder? Keep it open — the point is to pull students into the problem.
📚 The real fence fights: Handbook of Texas · Fence Cutting ↗ (§113.15(c)(8)).
Assign or let students choose a stakeholder. Each will reason from that person's point of view. Every role has something real at stake.
You fenced miles of range and the water to keep your herd alive through the drought. Why is your fence fair — and what would you give up to keep the peace?
You own cattle but no land of your own. The new fences shut you off from the grass and the creek. How can you still earn a living?
You fenced your fields with barbed wire so cattle won't ruin your crops. What do you need to protect your family's work?
You want cattle and cotton moving to market on your trains. Which fences help business, and which get in the way?
Your children walk to the creek and the schoolhouse. The new fences block both. What must change for your family to be safe?
You must write a rule the whole community can live with. How do you balance fences, water, roads, and fairness?
Build three shared columns on chart paper. This defines the problem and plans the inquiry — the first moves of §113.15(c)(22)(B).
| 💭 Hunches | ✅ Know (from the text) | ❓ Need to know |
|---|---|---|
| Our guesses about what is happening and what might help. | Facts we can point to in the story (it's 1883; there's a drought; barbed wire fenced the range and the water; fences were cut; a lawmaker has come). | Questions we must answer — Who owns the water and the trails? What did Texas actually do about fence-cutting? How can ranchers, farmers, and small cattlemen all earn a living here? |
Turn “Need to know” into the H of KWHL: How will we find out? (which sources, whom to ask). Record it — this is the class's research plan.
Groups pursue their “Need to know” questions using vetted sources (see the facilitator guide for suggested public-domain Texas sources). Students gather and use valid information, applying the source routine they practiced in Phase 2. Keep filling the Learned column of KWHL as answers come in.
Teacher-as-guide moves: answer a question with a question; point to a source, not the answer; ask “How do you know?” and “Whose view is missing?”
📚 Investigation sources: Handbook of Texas · Fence Cutting ↗ · Barbed Wire ↗ · Portal to Texas History ↗ · National Archives · barbed-wire document ↗. Full list + how-to in the facilitator guide.
From their stakeholder's point of view, each group develops a recommendation for how the community and the state should settle who can fence the range — and defends it with evidence. Assessment happens throughout the process, not only here (the reasoning is the point).
Groups present an 8-part problem/solution brief (poster, slides, or spoken):
Close the loop — the evaluate step of the problem-solving process. Discuss across roles so students hear how the same problem looked from every side.
What actually happened: the fence-cutting fights spread across Texas, so in 1884 the state made cutting fences a crime — but also required gates in long fences and banned fencing land that wasn't yours. Barbed wire, windmills, and railroads ended the open range for good. Name the six steps students just used — that is §113.15(c)(22)(B).
📚 How it turned out: Handbook of Texas · Fence Cutting ↗ · Barbed Wire ↗
Aligned to (not reproduced from) 19 TAC Ch.113 §113.15; effect sizes from Visible Learning MetaX. This narrative is a teaching fiction based on the era.