American Progress Lesson Plan Year 3

American Progress
Essential Question: Was the westward movement really progress for all Americans?
Instructional Chunk #1: What represented American Progress in regard to the Westward
movement of the 1800s?
Instructional Chunk #2: What impact did Westward Expansion have on the Native Americans?
Instructional Chunk #3: Explain the difference in the Native American point-of-view of American
Progress to that of the settlers.
Standard Addressed: Students will explain why historical accounts of the same event
sometimes differ and relate this explanation to the evidence presented or the point-of-view of the
author.
Problematic
Students will see one side as good and one side as bad
Different or conflicting stories of the past arise when only part of the story is known or when
the truth is deliberately distorted.
Progress is always good for everyone.
Activating Strategies:
Strategy 1: Analyze the American Progress painting by
John Gast to determine how it represents American
progress in regard to the westward movement of the
1800s.
Key Vocabulary to preview

Progress
Manifest Destiny
Reservations
Westward Expansion
technology
Strategy 2: Read about the perspective of the westward

movement of the Native American point of view
and how it impacted their lives.
Strategy 3: Students recreate the American Progress
painting from the Native American point of view.
Teaching Strategies:
Collaborative pairs
Heterogeneous Grouping
Think/ Pair/ Share
Graphic Organizer(s) Used:
T-Chart American Progress: Settlers/Native Americans Resource #1
Materials Needed:
American Progress painting, by John Gast Resource #3

Settlers Moving West: Native American Point of View Handout Resource #2
Art Supplies
Paper
Distribute to pairs of students, copies of John Gasts painting American Progress.
Tell students the title of the painting is American Progress and it was painted by artist
John Gast in 1872.
Instructional Plan:
Instructional Chunk #1:
1. Procedures: Tell students the female figure in the center of the painting is called Columbia. In
a Think/Pair/Share, have the students predict what she is holding and why. Discuss with the
students that she is carrying a schoolbook in one hand and a string of telegraph wire in the other.
Ask students how these features help portray American Progress? Ask students what else in
the painting adds to its overall message that westward settlement was also
spreading American progress? How do the movements and gestures of the many figures add to
this idea? How does the use of dark and light add to the idea? Distribute Westward Movement
T-chart (Resource #1) to the students. Have the students work in collaborative pairs and list all
the elements of the painting that demonstrate American Progress on the Settlers side of the
chart.
2. Debrief: ask the students

What represented American Progress in regard to the Westward movement of the 1800s?
What is the point of view of the artist?
3. Check for Understanding/Summarizing Activity: Check students answers on the T-chart

and their response to the debriefing question.

1. Procedures: Tell students not everyone saw the idea of manifest destiny in such a positive
light. As demonstrated in the painting, Native Americans were seen merely as obstacles to be
overcome in westward movement. Distribute to the students the handout entitled Settlers
Moving West: The Native American Point of View Resource #2. As a class, read the handout
by chunking the paragraphs and using margin notes. Discuss with the students the differing
point of view of Westward expansion. Have the students work in their collaborative pair and
fill in the items from the handout that show westward expansion in a negative way on the
Native American side of the T-chart (Resource #1).
2. Debrief: ask the students What impact did Westward Expansion have on the Native
Americans?
3. Check for Understanding/Summarizing Activity: Check students answers on the T-chart
and their response to the debriefing question.
1. Procedures: Tell students to pretend that a Native American artist was asked to paint a picture
titled American Progress from the point of view of Native Americans. Pose the following
questions to the students What kind of picture would he paint? What objects, symbols, or
figures would be in the painting? Have students either work in pairs or groups to sketch or use
clipart to demonstrate their ideas of what the painting would look like.
2. Debrief: ask the students Explain the difference in the Native American point-of-view of
American Progress to that of the settlers.
3. Check for Understanding/Summarizing Activity: Have students display their paintings
around the room and have the other students complete a gallery walk. What are the similarities
and differences in the paintings?
Summarizing Strategy:
Have the students look at John Gasts painting

American Progress. Pose the following question to the students, Do you agree or disagree
with this paintings point of view in regards to American progress, why or why not? Why
might there be two different points of views on the same historical event?
Sources:
The Way We Saw It: Historical Themes in Illustration & Art Manifest Destiny: Images of An
American Idea MindSpark 2001
The Split History of Westward Expansion in the United States Nell Musolf 2013
3
Resource #1
American Progress
Answer the essential question, was the westward movement really progress
for all Americans, using evidence from the text/picture to support your point
of view.
Settlers
Native Americans
Resource #2
Settlers Moving West

The Native Americans Point of View
When settlers began to spread across the West, they
brought their own cultures with them. These cultures were
different from the cultures of the Native Americans. Settlers, or homesteaders, began to fan
out over the plains. Of course, the lands these settlers claimed for their farms were lands that
had long been home to a variety of Native American tribes. While some settlers were
sympathetic to the Native Americans, most were not. Many settlers thought the Native
American were simply in the way, and that they should make room for the settlers. Some of
the Native Americans were very unhappy about the newcomers. Often they were sick with
measles and other diseases such as cholera and smallpox when they arrived. These deadly
diseases spread though the tribes since the Native Americans had never been exposed to these
germs and didnt have any immunity. An outbreak of smallpox in 1837 almost wiped out the
Mandan tribe of North Dakota and the Lakota and Cheyenne tribes of the Great Plains suffered
many deaths from cholera in the 1840s.
The settlers were mostly farmers. They cleared trees, planted crops, and built fences.
There fences prevented buffalo from roaming free on the open plains. The Native Americans
who lived on the plains depended on the buffalo, their supermarket on a hoof, in many ways.
The meat of the buffalo was the main element in their diet. The hides of the buffalo were used
to make shelter, bedding, and clothing. Bones, horns, and hooves were used to make tools and
utensils. During this time, professional hunters came through the plains, killing as many as 1
million buffalo each year. During the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the
1860s, hunters killed thousands of buffalo while clearing the land, often leaving behind the
bodies of the buffalo to rot in the sun. After the railroad was completed, it became easier for
hunters to send hides back East, and the number of buffalo killed increased.
The government wanted to force the Plains Indians to give up their valuable land. If the
buffalo were gone, the government reasoned, the Indians would be forced to give up their land.
Sometimes the government made treaties with the Native Americans, granting them the rights
to certain lands if they would withdraw from a particular area. The treaties were often signed
under threat of violence. Many treaties were broken when more land was needed, or when the
land given to Native Americans turned out to be more valuable than expected. In the worst
cases, the Native Americans were rounded up and forced to leave their homes. When gold was
discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1875, the government wanted to break the
treaty given to the Lakota Sioux. When they refused to go, the government sent soldiers to
attack them and forcing them to leave the Black Hills and move to reservations. Native
Americans faced difficulty adjusting to life on the reservations. These reservations were
located in other parts of the country. Poverty levels were high and living conditions were poor.
It was easy for Native Americans to become depressed in their new homes. Some turned to
alcohol as a way to cope with their unhappiness.
5
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American Progress Lesson Plan Year 3

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American Progress

Key Vocabulary to preview

Strategy 2: Read about the perspective of the westward

Graphic Organizer(s) Used:

T-Chart American Progress: Settlers/Native Americans Resource #1

American Progress painting, by John Gast Resource #3

2. Debrief: ask the students

3. Check for Understanding/Summarizing Activity: Check students answers on the T-chart

Instructional Chunk #2:

Have the students look at John Gasts painting

Settlers Moving West

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