Phase 3 — Meet the problem

⛔ Gate check: only open this phase once students have finished Surface and Deep. This is where they transfer everything they built into a real, messy decision.

This is Problem-Based Learning. Students don't answer questions about expansion — they step inside the problem as stakeholders, and the teacher guides rather than tells. The whole phase runs the problem-solving process named in §113.20(c)(31)(B).

Problem-solving teaching · d 0.61§113.20(c)(6), (c)(31)(B)

Step 1 · Meet the Problem

Read the narrative aloud. Read it once for the story, then again for details students will need.

It is 1845, and "Manifest Destiny" is in the air. Newspapers declare it is the nation's destiny to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and thousands of families are already packing wagons for the long trail west.

But every step west is a decision with a price. The United States has just annexed Texas — and Mexico calls it an act of war. Pushing on to the Pacific means risking war with Mexico for California and the Southwest, and settling the Oregon question with Britain.

The West is not empty. Native nations have lived on these lands for generations, and tens of thousands of Mexican citizens live in the borderlands the U.S. wants. Expansion moves onto their homelands. And behind it all sits the question no one can escape: will the new territories be free or slave? Every acre gained reopens the fight between North and South.

You are a citizen and a leader in 1845. The nation is deciding how far, and how, to expand. The choices you make will shape millions of lives — and may push the country toward a war with itself.

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 stakes: DocsTeach · Westward Expansion ↗ · National Archives · Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ↗

Multiple perspectives · d 0.75§113.20(c)(21), (c)(23)

Step 2 · Take a stakeholder role

Assign or let students choose a stakeholder. Each will reason from that person's point of view. Every role has something real at stake, and no role can win alone — that is the whole point. Treat the roles of Native and Mexican people with the gravity of real homelands lost, not as a game.

🌾 Settler family seeking land

You want a farm and a fresh start in the West. What draws you on, and what are you willing to risk — or take from others — to get there?

🧭 Northern opponent of expanding slavery

You fear every new territory will become a slave state and tip power to the South. Should the nation expand at all if it spreads slavery?

🌱 Southern planter wanting new territory

Your economy depends on enslaved labor, and you want new slave states. Where is your line — and what does expansion mean for your region's power?

🏔️ Member of a Native nation

This is your homeland, and expansion threatens it. What is at stake for your people, and what do you demand of a government moving onto your land?

🏘️ Mexican resident of the borderlands

You live in the land the U.S. wants. If it is annexed or ceded, you may become a foreigner on your own land. What rights and protections must you insist on?

🏛️ Member of Congress weighing war & union

You must decide whether to risk war, how to admit new territory, and how to keep the union from splitting over slavery. What terms could hold the country together?

Problem-based learning · d 0.53§113.20(c)(31)(B), (c)(29)(B)

Step 3 · Hunches → Know → Need-to-Know

Build three shared columns on chart paper. This defines the problem and plans the inquiry — the first moves of §113.20(c)(31)(B).

💭 Hunches	✅ Know (from the text)	❓ Need to know
Our guesses about how far the nation should expand — and what terms each side would accept.	Facts we can point to (it's 1845; Texas is annexed; war with Mexico is likely; Native nations & Mexican residents live in the West; every territory reopens slavery).	Questions we must answer to propose fair terms — How did the U.S. gain the Mexican Cession, and at what cost? What did the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo promise Mexican residents? What was the Wilmot Proviso? How did expansion lead to the Compromise of 1850 and toward civil war?

Turn "Need to know" into the H of KWHL: How will we find out? (which sources, whose perspective to read). Record it — this is the class's research plan.

Transfer strategies · d 0.75§113.20(c)(29)(A,C,D)

Step 4 · Inquiry & investigation

Groups pursue their "Need to know" questions using vetted sources (see the facilitator guide for suggested public-domain 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 interest does that serve — and whose voice is missing?"

📚 Investigation sources: DocsTeach · Westward Expansion ↗ · DocsTeach · The Wilmot Proviso ↗ · DocsTeach · The Compromise of 1850 ↗ · Library of Congress · National Expansion & Reform ↗. Full list + how-to in the facilitator guide.

Weigh & choose · d 0.75§113.20(c)(6), (c)(31)(B)

Step 5 · Propose & defend the terms

From their stakeholder's point of view, each group develops a proposal for whether and how the nation should expand — and on what terms — and defends it with evidence and with the trade-offs behind it. Connect their proposals to the real outcomes: the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (which promised Mexican residents rights the U.S. often failed to honor), the Wilmot Proviso (which tried and failed to bar slavery from the cession), and the Compromise of 1850 (which held the union together only briefly). Name the human cost honestly — to Native nations, to Mexican residents, and to enslaved people. 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):

Title & group members (and your stakeholder role)
What is the problem the nation must solve in 1845?
Why is it a problem — and for whom?
Who are the stakeholders, and what does each want?
Options we considered (advantages & disadvantages of each)
Our proposed terms for expansion — and the trade-offs behind them
The evidence and sources behind it
How we'd know if our terms were just — and whether they could hold the union together

Evaluation & reflection · d 0.75§113.20(c)(7), (c)(21), (c)(31)(B)

Step 6 · Debrief & metacognition

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 did expansion gain — and who paid for it? The nation reached the Pacific and gained enormous land and resources; the cost fell on Native nations who lost homelands and on Mexican residents who lost land and rights.
What was left unresolved? Slavery in the territories was not settled — the Wilmot Proviso failed, the Compromise of 1850 only delayed the crisis, and sectionalism deepened toward civil war (§113.20(c)(7)).
Whose voices were left out? Name them plainly — Native nations, whose consent was never sought; Mexican residents, whose treaty rights went unhonored; and enslaved people, whose futures were bargained over the territories they would never choose.
Transfer: where else does this problem-solving process fit — a decision your class, school, or community must reach when growth for some means loss for others?

Connect to today & to the standards: big national decisions are still made by weighing competing goods and real human costs. Name the six steps students just used — that is §113.20(c)(31)(B).

🧑‍🏫 Facilitator guide & sources ✅ Assessment pack

‹ Phase 2 — Deep Unit home

Aligned to (not reproduced from) 19 TAC Ch.113 §113.20; effect sizes from Visible Learning MetaX. This scenario dramatizes the real debates over westward expansion in the 1840s.