Western Expansion
Enduring Understanding:
To understand the present and make plans for their future, you must first understand the past.
Essential Question:
How did the beliefs and ideas of Americans lead to western expansion?
Why did individuals and families migrate to the West and shape political events in Oregon, Texas, and
California?
Guiding Questions:
1. How did Great Britain and the US come to share Oregon jointly?
2. What hardships did emigrants face on the Oregon Trail?
3. How did the Mexican government attempt to control US settlers in Texas?
4. Why do you think the Texas voters approved annexation to the US by a great majority?
5. What belief fueled Americans’ desire to push across the Mississippi?
Reform Movement
Essential Question:
How did new beliefs, ideas, and institutions influence education, artists, and writers?
Which reforms of the era had the most lasting effect on civil rights and liberties in the US?
Guiding Questions:
1. Why do you think an American style of painting and writing was not developed until the 1800s?
2. What would be the consequences for the nation if states today did away with their public school
systems?
3. What effect did Dorothea Dix’s work on behalf of the mentally ill have on state legislatures?
4. What techniques did abolitionists use to further their cause?
Western Expansion
Enduring Understanding:
To understand the present and make plans for their future, you must first understand the past.
Essential Question:
How did the beliefs and ideas of Americans lead to western expansion?
Why did individuals and families migrate to the West and shape political events in
Oregon, Texas, and California?
Guiding Questions:
1. How did Great Britain and the US come to share Oregon jointly?
With equally valid claims, they agreed to share the area for 10 years.
2. What hardships did emigrants face on the Oregon Trail?
Swollen rivers, diseases, accidents, steep mountains, weather
3. How did the Mexican government attempt to control US settlers in Texas?
Settlers got land in return they had to become Mexican citizens, obey Mexican laws, and become
Catholic.
4. Why do you think the Texas voters approved annexation to the US by a great majority?
They wanted to be apart of the US.
5. What belief fueled Americans’ desire to push across the Mississippi?
Manifest Destiny
Reform Movement
Enduring Understanding:
To understand the present and make plans for their future, you must first understand the past.
Essential Question:
How did new beliefs, ideas, and institutions influence education, artists, and writers?
Which reforms of the era had the most lasting effect on civil rights and liberties in the US?
Guiding Questions:
1. Why do you think an American style of painting and writing was not developed until the 1800s?
American writers and artists were still dominated by the ideas of Europeans. They did not
consider themselves Americans until the 1800’s.
2. What would be the consequences for the nation if states today did away with their public school
systems?
3. What effect did Dorothea Dix’s work on behalf of the mentally ill have on state legislatures?
Led 11 states to open hospitals for people with mental illnesses
4. What techniques did abolitionists use to further their cause?
Newspapers, propaganda, and speeches by formerly enslaved persons