Whose Story Counts in Westward Expansion?
A fifth-grade team plans a unit on westward expansion using a pioneer family's diary that describes 'empty land' and abundant game, plus a photograph of a sod house. The team wants students to 'understand pioneer perseverance.' The class includes students whose families have lived in the region for generations, and the local tribal community has offered a speaker. The diary never mentions Native peoples; the photograph shows no people. The unit assessment asks students to list three hardships pioneers faced.
1. Evaluate the unit materials and the assessment. What is problematic about the plan as written?
Read the worked answer
The diary and photograph are legitimate sources, but the unit as written asks students to adopt one perspective. 'Empty land' is not a neutral description; it is a claim that erases the Native nations who lived there. The diary's silence about those nations is itself evidence to analyze. The assessment ('list three hardships') rewards recall of the settler narrative and cannot detect whether students understand perspective or sourcing.
The materials also risk harming students whose families or tribal community are represented as absent. The unit needs multiple sources and an assessment that asks about perspective, not just a list of hardships.
2. What should the team add, and how should the additions be used?
Read the worked answer
Add a treaty excerpt or land-cession map, a Native account such as an oral history, and a population or removal map. Use the invited speaker with preparation and clear norms, letting the speaker guide what is shared.
Teach sourcing questions with every document: Who made this? When? For what audience? What could this person see or not see? Pair the diary with a document about the same place and time so students compare rather than absorb one voice. This turns the diary into one piece of evidence rather than the truth.
3. How should the team revise the assessment so it still uses the diary but requires historical thinking?
Read the worked answer
Revise the prompt: 'The diarist calls the land empty. Using the map and the treaty, explain what the diary leaves out and one reason the author might have described it that way.'
This keeps the diary as evidence while requiring comparison and sourcing. In discussion, do not discard the diary; ask what it documents well (daily labor, weather, isolation) and what it cannot document (Native presence, diplomacy, removal). The rubric should score use of evidence and reasoning about perspective, not whether students list the 'right' hardships.