② Deep · Connect & organize

Phase 2 — Connect & organize

Now students take the facts from Phase 1 and relate them: weighing costs against benefits, questioning real sources from more than one point of view, and building a claim from evidence. Deep learning is where knowledge becomes usable — the bridge to the problem.

🎯 By the end of Phase 2 students can organize the opportunities, dangers, and effects of heading west, read a primary source for its point of view, and defend a claim with evidence — the exact moves the problem will demand.

Concept mapping · d 0.64§113.16(c)(7)(A–C), (c)(8)(A/B)

1 · Costs-and-benefits concept map

Build a class concept map with “Heading west in 1846” in the center. On the left, cluster the opportunities (why a family might go); in the middle, the dangers and costs; and on the right, the effects on Native peoples whose homelands the trails crossed. Then draw cause → effect arrows: what happened because so many families made this choice?

Opportunities (the pull)	Dangers & costs	Effects on Native peoples
rich, cheap farmland	a months-long, risky journey	strangers crossing their homelands
a fresh start & more land	disease, weather, river crossings	pressure on land, water & buffalo
joining family & neighbors	leaving everything familiar behind	lost homelands as settlement grew

Talk move: draw an arrow from any opportunity or cost to an effect and say the cause-and-effect sentence aloud. Point out how families adapted to and modified the environment along the way — this rehearses §113.16(c)(8)(A/B).

Elaboration & organization · d 0.72§113.16(c)(23)(A,B,E)

2 · Primary-source analysis — read for point of view

Give pairs two short (district-approved) primary sources that show different points of view — for example a brief pioneer trail-diary excerpt describing the hopes and hardships of the journey, and a source reflecting a Native nation's perspective on the wagons crossing their homeland. Use a four-question source routine:

Source: Who made this, when, and why?
Observe: What do you actually see or read? (facts only)
Point of view: Whose story does it tell — and whose is missing?
Question: What does it make you want to find out?

Credibility check (c)(23)(B): is this a first-hand record or someone's later opinion? How do we know? Compare how the same journey looks from the wagon seat and from the homeland the wagons cross.

📚 Primary sources & analysis tools: LoC · Getting Started with Primary Sources ↗ · LoC · Analyzing Photographs & Prints (PDF) ↗ · NPS · People of the Oregon Trail (settler & Native perspectives) ↗ · DocsTeach · Westward Expansion documents ↗ · LoC · Encounters at a Cultural Crossroads ↗

Argumentation · d 0.86§113.16(c)(23)(G,H), (c)(25)(E)

3 · Structured claim — a warm-up argument

A low-stakes rehearsal of the reasoning the problem needs. Have students take a side with evidence, using a claim–evidence–reasoning frame. Then have them state the other side's strongest point (civil discourse).

Warm-up claim: “Our family should / should not go west because ______.” Give your claim, one piece of evidence from Phase 1 or the sources, and your reasoning.

Sentence stems (ELPS support): “My claim is ______.” · “My evidence is ______.” · “This matters because ______.” · “Someone who disagrees might say ______, but ______.”

Note: keep this a practice argument about the general choice. The specific family's decision belongs in Phase 3, where students hold stakeholder roles — including the perspective of a Native nation on the route.

✅ Deep check before the problem: can students name an opportunity and a cost of heading west, read one source for its point of view, and state a claim with evidence? Those three abilities are exactly what Phase 3 will ask them to transfer.

‹ Phase 1 — Surface Phase 3 — Transfer ›

Aligned to (not reproduced from) 19 TAC Ch.113 §113.16; effect sizes from Visible Learning MetaX.