This is Problem-Based Learning. Students don't answer questions about the oil boom — they step inside the problem as stakeholders in 1901 Beaumont, and the teacher guides rather than tells. The whole phase runs the problem-solving process named in §113.19(c)(23)(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.
🛢️ What really happened: Handbook of Texas · Spindletop Oilfield ↗ (§113.19(c)(6)).
Assign or let students choose a stakeholder. Each will reason from that person's point of view. Every role has something real at stake.
Your land sits over the oil field, and prospectors want to drill it. Do you sell, lease, or hold on to the farm your family has worked for years?
You came to strike it rich. You need land and leases fast — but prices are climbing by the hour. How far do you gamble?
You must weigh fast growth against order — water, streets, safety, and fairness. How do you keep the boom from breaking the town?
You came for a job on the derricks. You need housing, pay, and safety in a crowded, chaotic town. What do you need most?
Business is booming, but rents and prices are soaring and the crowds are hard to serve. How do you make the boom last for you?
The boom brings work and hope, but you also face discrimination in a segregated town. How do you claim opportunity fairly and safely?
Build three shared columns on chart paper. This defines the problem and plans the inquiry — the first moves of §113.19(c)(23)(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 1901; oil struck at Spindletop; thousands arrived; land prices soared; water is short). | Questions we must answer to help — How fast did the town really grow? Where would water and housing come from? Who won and who lost? What did other boomtowns do? |
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 Texas .gov / .org / .edu 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 · Beaumont ↗ · Portal to Texas History · Spindletop ↗ · Texas State Library · Oil exhibit ↗ · Texas Almanac · Oil & Texas ↗. Full list + how-to in the facilitator guide.
From their stakeholder's point of view, each group develops a recommendation for how the community should handle the boom so it helps the town and lasts — 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 boom looked from every side.
Connect to what actually happened & to the standards: Spindletop launched the Texas oil industry and sped the shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy — but the boom was followed by a bust as the field ran down, a pattern Texas would see again. Name the steps students just used — that is §113.19(c)(23)(B).
🛢️ Boom & bust: Handbook of Texas · Oil and Gas Industry ↗ · Texas Almanac · Oil & Texas ↗
Aligned to (not reproduced from) 19 TAC Ch.113 §113.19; effect sizes from Visible Learning MetaX. This scenario dramatizes real events from the 1901 Spindletop oil boom.