Closing the Frontier Rubric

I am tired of fighting.... Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I shall fight no more forever!"

                                                                          Chief Joseph, 1877

Associated Pages

1. Closing the Frontier
2. Student blogs

1. Understand the significance of settling the West to the development of our country.
2. Understand how technological advances fueled expansion and development
3. Recognize the human and environmental impacts of western settlement
4. Describe government policies addressing “the Indian problem”
5. Appreciate the settling of the West from a native perspective.
6. Acknowledge the multicultural contributions of all who participated in settling the West
7. Recognize the motives of miners, ranchers, homesteaders and Native Americans

1. Understand how industrialization transformed agriculture, mining, and ranching. (6.4)
2. The student understands various perspectives on federal Indian policy, westward expansion, and the resulting struggles. (6.4A)

1. Identify and compare the attitudes and policies toward Native Americans by government officials, the U.S. Army, missionaries, and settlers.
2. Compare survival strategies of different Native American societies during the "second great removal."
3. Explain the provisions of the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 and evaluate its effects on tribal identity, land ownership, and assimilation.
4. Evaluate the legacy of 19th-century federal Indian policy.
5. Explain the political, social, and economic roots of Populism and distinguish Populism from earlier democratic reform movements.
6. Analyze the Populists' Omaha Platform of 1892 as a statement of grievances and an agenda for reform.
7. Evaluate the successes and failures of Populism.

Essential Questions

1. Why did many whites who claimed sympathy for the Indians believe that the best way to help them was to destroy their cultures and assimilate them into white society? And how were those who did assimilate treated by white society once they did? By their own people?
2. Were efforts to assimilate native peoples ultimately successful or not? Did native resistance and cultural survival efforts ultimately succeed or fail?
3. Why do we romanticize this time period that was so often so bloody, harsh and cruel?
4. Which of the following had the biggest impact on settling the West: Transcontinental railroad, Dawes Act, Homestead Act or barbed wire? Evaluate each and defend your one choice.
5. How was the Battle of the Little Big Horn the “last hurrah” for armed resistance by natives? Was this the end of resistance?
6. Who won the “free silver” debate and what was the point of it?
7. Who were the populists, where did they come from, what did they want, did they achieve anything, and whatever happened to them?

Performance tasks See course syllabus

Learning plan

1. Closing the Frontier

   1. The Massacre at Sand Creek
   2. Custer's Last Stand
   3. The End of Resistance
   4. Life on the Reservations
   5. The Wounded Knee Massacre

2. Western Folkways

   1. The Mining Boom
   2. The Ways of the Cowboy
   3. Life on the Farm
   4. The Growth of Populism
   5. The Election of 1896

Primary Source Selections

1. 1892 Populist Party Platform
2. The Significance of the Frontier in American History
3. Cross of Gold

Multimedia Presentations

1. The West
2. Focus on the West
3. Confrontations with Native Americans
4. Cattle, Frontiers, and Farming
5. End of the Frontier

1. Indian Policy
2. Farmers' Revolt

1. Post-Civil War Westward Expansion
2. Post-Civil War Westward Expansion (2)