5th Grade CLR Resources

Teach Lesson 1. 

Launch: Add a third prompt, “How do you think the Nez Perce felt about the US government taking more of their land from them? 

EXPERIMENT WITH THE MODULE LISTENING GOAL: After 2nd video, focus on some details to launch into what life in the South looked like.

*Do Lesson 1B, 1C, and 1D below. Please note–It will be about 2-3 days of additional lessons BEFORE continuing with Module 3 Lesson 2. 

SLIDE DECK FOR THESE LESSONS: Grade 5 Module 3.1B, C, D 

Content Framing Question: How did slavery become a common practice in the United  States and what was it like? 

Welcome:

Yesterday we revisited Nez Perce and talked about their experience at war with the US Government. We talked about how the Nez Perce felt about the US government taking more of the Nez Perce’s land from them. Answer in your reflection journal: Why do you think the US acted this way toward the Nez Perce people? What are ways that the US Government has prioritized economic interest over people?

Launch: 

Introduce the following vocabulary words:

Thrive: To grow and develop in an all-inclusive way

Community: a social group sharing the same location, needs, and interests

Enslaver: a person who takes away another person’s freedom, holds them captive, and controls their actions, including making them perform work without pay

Enslaved person: a person who is seen as the property of another and is forced to obey them against their will

Notice and Wonder T chart of images from "Born on the Water" that shows thriving culture in Africa. Students either make their own in their knowledge journals, or complete this one as a group

What does a thriving community look like? What is necessary for a thriving community?

Have students in small groups analyze the one picture from Born on the Water to focus on thriving African communities. Pass out one image to each group. 

Learn:

TASK:  Read aloud “1619 Project: Born on the Water” Learning Ally Link

Instructions: Never done this? Log in through Clever, search for Born on the Water and add it to your bookshelf. Once it’s there, click “Read now,” you’ll have to download it, then you can play it.

If you want more information, here’s the Born on the Water Educator Guide 

Tell your class, “We’re going to read a book together called Born on the Water. It’s the story of how many Africans were brought to the United States by force. It’s not a nice story, but it’s an important part of our history that we have to be able to talk about.”

Play the book and scroll to keep the page on the pictures.

Land:

Exit ticket asking students how they can better answer the content framing question: “How did slavery become a common practice in the United States and what was it like?” AND what questions they may have. Address that it’s a big topic and they may have lots of questions/wonderings. Compliment them if they have a mature conversation about this

Deep Dive Vocab:  Cover the word abolitionists and emphasize that there were people who knew slavery was wrong and were fighting to end it. 

Lesson 22 uses the words aliens, as it is in the book The River Between Us to describe “enemy aliens in your house” (page 77). Discuss the denotation of that word, and the synonyms foreigner and outsider are included.  

Use the updated lesson, (found in "Teacher Resource Pack" --> Content Updates on Great Minds), not the print edition. 

After the 9th TDQ, between the two teacher notes, the teacher guide tells you to read and define the following words. 

Vocab on page 129 In The River Between Us: 

• Quadroon (ch. 12)  - ¼ Black by descent (OFFENSIVE) 

• Octoroon (ch.12) - ⅛ Black by descent (OFFENSIVE)

Please do not say the racial classification terms aloud as written in the teacher guide. However, students will need a clear explanation of their meaning within historical context.

These labels come from systems rooted in enslavement and racial hierarchy. They were used to classify people by fractional amounts of African ancestry and to justify discrimination, including the idea that even a small amount of Black ancestry determined a person’s legal status and rights.

When students encounter these terms in the text, define them in context rather than as neutral vocabulary. For example:

“These were historical labels used during enslavement and segregation to rank people by ancestry. They were part of racist systems and are not terms we use today.”