Bryson

Johnson
11/2/17

GEOG561
Chapters 7 & 8 (panel day)

Chapter 7

USHC-3.2 Indicator: Summarize the course of the Civil War and its impact on democr acy,
including the major turning points; the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation; the unequal
treatment afforded to African American military units; the geographic, economic, and political
factors in the defeat of the Confederacy; and the ultimate defeat of the idea of secession.

In this chapter, Gersmehl lays out 4 questions for planning objectives: setting, a specific task to
be performed, the expected level of performance, and the criteria used for evaluation. When
lesson planning, one of the most important things to do is to plan with the end in mind. If you,
as a teacher, know where you want your students to end, then it makes planning much more
manageable for that lesson. These four aspects can be a significant help in teaching students
about the Civil War and the factors that affected much of the united states.
I would start, again, with the end in mind, and devise a loose plan of evaluation for my
students. Basically, I would ask myself, “What is it of this indicator that I want my students to
come away with most?” Using this mindset, I would be able to know where to begin my lesson.
I feel as though if you do not know the ending destination, you cannot truly start on the correct
path. In this case, I would assume that I would want my students to be able to interpret the
Emancipation Proclamation, explain some of the turning points of the war, and give details and
evidence about why secession was defeated. Since I have an idea of where I want to end, I can
move back to the “beginning” of the lesson on this indicator.
I would use the first factor, setting, to give the students a sense of place. Setting is more
than just where something took place, it is also important for students to understand when and
why. While studying the features of this indicator, I would give my students an overview of the
war, detailing significant battles and key figures and their accomplishments. As my students
nailed down a solid understanding of the key components of the Civil War, I would believe that
they were able to move past the setting.
As I begin to think about the expected level of performance, I would think back to
something a mentoring teacher told me a year ago: “Always have the expectation of one level
higher”. What this means is, if teaching a CP class, do not assume or accept subpar work. Just
because they are not honors or AP students, treat them as if they are from the beginning, and it
will make things easier in the long run. I took this advice to heart, and think of it as a way to
make sure that students (and myself) do not use a class-level as a cop-out. If I can get my
students to understand that they are expected to do more than simply read the Proclamation
and find an answer within the text, then I believe I can generate better academic results.
Requiring each student to move past their comfort zone and really dig deep to a level of rigor
and inquiry can have lasting results.
 With these four factors for creating objectives in mind, I believe that I could create an
effective lesson to teach this indicator to a group of students. Always having evaluations in
mind from the beginning is the secret to teaching material in an effective way.

Chapter 8

In this chapter, Gersmehl makes several claims that connect geography to other subjects
in the realm of curriculum. He argues that geography, in some shape or form, can be found in
each of the main and most of the elective courses in the school today. After reading through
this chapter, I will say that I could not agree more. Gersmehl was able to take geography and, in
such a matter-of-fact manner, prove how it is incorporated into things such as mathematics and
economics. When one really decides to stop and think, it becomes apparent that this claim is
incredibly accurate, and the basic forms of geography are evident in more places than one may
think. I believe that geography itself has, for the most part, been viewed as being incorporated
with history and physical science. Teachers of these subjects are expected to tie geography in
with their lessons. Although, I have noticed in my two teaching internships that high schools are
moving to having all 9th graders take geography. Instead of fitting geography in with a history
lesson, it is now starting to become its own separate class.
In comparison with other subjects, social studies (with geography included) always
seems to take a backseat. It seems as though the need for students to perform well in things
such as math and language outweighs the need for them to master the skills taught through
social studies. On page 235 of this chapter, Gersmehl mentions a few things that are similar to
this idea. For example, he states that increased instruction of math and reading is due to low
performance of students in these areas, noted by the Common Core. He also explains that this
increased instruction time in these areas means less instruction time for things such as social
studies. I believe that this page, alone, can tell anyone who reads it about where social studies
fits within the curriculum positioning in schools today. It is believed that the most important
subjects in school are math and science. Gersmehl goes on to say that people believe that if a
student can master those skills in school, then they can pick up anything else at a later time.
After reading this, I could not help but to think about why this started in the first place.
The first thing that came to my mind was the national report, A Nation at Risk. This report was
given in 1983 during President Reagan’s term, and explained how the U.S. educational system
was lagging behind other competitive nations. The reason this came to mind was because the
main point of the report was to highlight the areas in which United States citizens experienced
the most negative influence. For example, one of the indicators stated, “Some 23 percent of all
17 year olds in the United States can be considered functionally illiterate. Functional illiteracy
among minority you may run as high as 40 percent.”1 This is just another example of how a
“core” subject is seen as more important than social studies. Along with reading, mathematics
was another factor of the report. Essentially, if it dealt with language, mathematics, or

1
A Nation At Risk. (n.d.). Retrieved November 01, 2017, from
https://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html

technology, it was included in the report. This was a crucial time in our country when
competition for superiority was at one of its peaks.