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Lesson Plan - Gold Fever
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Learning Objective
Students will understand how the discovery of gold in California 175 years ago helped reshape the United States.
Text Structure
Cause and Effect
Content-Area Connections
U.S. History
Standards Correlations
CCSS: RI.3.1, RI.3.2, RI.3.3, RI.3.4, RI.3.5, RI.3.6, RI.3.7, RI.3.8, RI.3.10, L.3.4, SL.3.1
NCSS: Time, Continuity, and Change
TEKS: Social Studies 3.1
1. Preparing to Read
Watch a Video: The California Gold RushDiscuss: What risks did gold prospectors take when they headed to California?
Preview Words to KnowProject the online vocabulary slideshow and introduce the Words to Know.
Set a Purpose for ReadingAs students read, have them identify three ways the Gold Rush changed California.
2. Close-Reading Questions
1. The article says that after the Gold Rush, “the U.S. would never be the same.” Why? The Gold Rush caused California’s population to rise. This led to California becoming a state in 1850. And many people who came to seek gold, especially Chinese immigrants, later helped build America’s railroads. RI.3.3 Cause and Effect
2. What is meant by the phrase “gold fever” in the title? “Gold fever” was the dream of getting rich by finding gold. It is why many people made their way to California. RI.3.4 Determine Meaning
3. Why do you think people who went to California during the Gold Rush became known as forty-niners? “Forty-niners” refers to the year many of them went. A large number of gold prospectors headed to California in the year 1849. RI.3.1 Text Evidence
3. Skill Building
FEATURED SKILL: Reading Paired TextsUse the Skill Builder “Gold Rush Gear” to have students learn about some equipment used by prospectors.RI.3.9 Paired Texts
Multilingual Learners Use the Skill Builder “What I Learned” to assess comprehension. Sentence stems and other question formats help scaffold understanding.
Striving Readers Review the Words to Know slideshow. Then help students define and illustrate other domain-specific words in the article (sawmill, population, etc.).
Writing Extension Invite students to imagine themselves as figures involved with the Gold Rush, like James W. Marshall, a prospector, or a California hotel owner. Have them write journal entries describing what they see, hear, and experience.