① Surface · Build the knowledge

Phase 1 — Build the knowledge

Before students can reason about which reform to take up, they need the raw material: the words, the movements, and the timeline. These three activities are fast and front-loaded — the goal is acquisition, not yet analysis.

🎯 By the end of Phase 1 students can use the key vocabulary, name the major reform movements of the mid-1800s and what each wanted, explain how religion and American ideals helped spark reform, and place the key events of the 1830s–1850s on a timeline.

Vocabulary & feedback · d 0.62§113.20(c)(24)

1 · Word bank & vocabulary sort

Introduce and let students sort the unit vocabulary. Sort twice: first by “words about a cause” vs. “words about a tactic,” then by student-invented categories (feedback on their reasoning).

Word	Student-friendly meaning
reform	an effort to change society to make it better or more fair
abolition	the movement to end slavery
abolitionist	a person who worked to end slavery
suffrage	the right to vote
temperance	the movement to reduce or ban the drinking of alcohol
convention	a large meeting called to plan action or make demands
petition	a signed request asking government to act (a peaceful tactic)
civil disobedience	refusing to obey a law you believe is unjust, on purpose and peacefully
Second Great Awakening	a religious revival of the early 1800s that urged people to improve themselves and society
stakeholder	anyone who is affected by a decision or has something at stake

📚 Background: Library of Congress · Reformers & Crusaders ↗ — put the vocabulary next to the people and movements of the era.

Jigsaw method · d 0.92§113.20(c)(24), (c)(25), (c)(29)(A)

2 · Jigsaw reading — The age of reform

Split the class into four expert groups, each studying one topic below, then re-mix into home groups where every topic is represented. Each expert teaches their group. (Jigsaw is one of the highest-leverage surface moves precisely because students must teach.)

🧩 Use the ACE Powered Jigsaw Organizer — experts capture their notes on it before teaching their home group: open the organizer ↗. New to running a jigsaw? See the teacher guides in the facilitator guide.

Sources for each expert group (free, reputable; confirm access through your district — links open in a new tab):

A · Abolition — ending slavery

Abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Sojourner Truth demanded an immediate end to slavery. They used newspapers, speeches, petitions, and their own testimony to move the nation. Treat this movement — and the enslaved people at its heart — with honesty and gravity.

📄 NPS · Frederick Douglass (Frederick Douglass NHS) ↗
📄 Library of Congress · Slavery before the Civil War ↗

B · Women's rights & Seneca Falls

In July 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and others held the first women's-rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York, and issued the Declaration of Sentiments — demanding equal rights, including the vote.

📄 NPS · The First Women's Rights Convention (Women's Rights NHP) ↗
📄 National Women's History Museum · Elizabeth Cady Stanton ↗

C · Other reforms — temperance, schools, prisons

Reformers also worked to reduce alcohol (temperance), build free public schools, and improve the treatment of prisoners and people in asylums — often led by figures like Horace Mann and Dorothea Dix.

📄 Library of Congress · Reformers & Crusaders ↗
📄 Library of Congress · National Expansion & Reform, overview ↗

D · The roots of reform — faith & ideals

The Second Great Awakening taught that people could improve themselves and society, and reformers pointed to the nation's own ideals — “all men are created equal” — to argue that reality must be made to match them.

📄 Library of Congress · National Expansion & Reform, overview ↗
📄 National Women's History Museum · Lucretia Mott (faith & reform) ↗

Check for understanding: each home group writes one sentence answering “Name one reform movement, what it wanted, and one reason reform swept the nation in the mid-1800s.”

Direct instruction · d 0.56§113.20(c)(24), (c)(29)(D)

3 · Timeline & map — reform on the move, 1830s–1850s

Give students a U.S. map plus a short list of reform-era events. Have them place the events on a class timeline and mark on the map where key moments happened (for example, Seneca Falls, New York; the paths of the antislavery press in the Northeast). Then connect the events to the movements: which cause does each belong to? Introduce North vs. slaveholding South as students see why some reforms were welcomed in some places and fiercely resisted in others.

Event (sample)	About when	Which movement?
Garrison launches The Liberator	1831	Abolition
Common-school & asylum reform grows	1830s–1840s	Education · prison/asylum reform
Seneca Falls Convention & Declaration of Sentiments	1848	Women's rights
Temperance petitions peak	1840s–1850s	Temperance

Quick write: “In ______ (year), reformers working for ______ took the action of ______, because ______.”

🗺️ Timeline & sources: LoC · National Expansion & Reform, 1815–1880 ↗ · National Archives · DocsTeach topics ↗

✅ Surface check before moving on: can every student use the words reform, abolition, suffrage, and temperance correctly, name the major reform movements and what each wanted, and explain one reason reform spread in the mid-1800s? If yes, go deep. If not, reteach — the problem in Phase 3 depends on it.

Unit home Phase 2 — Deep ›

Aligned to (not reproduced from) 19 TAC Ch.113 §113.20; effect sizes from Visible Learning MetaX. This scenario dramatizes the real reform movements of the mid-1800s.