Women's Suffrage

A WEBQUEST BY: Rebecca Fagin

5^th Grade

Social Studies

INTRODUCTION:

During the turn of the century 20^th century American women lacked economic and political rights. Women did not have the right to vote. Women did not have the right to work outside of their home as they were expected to be just homemakers. There was also a lack of role models for women to encourage them to change their conditions.

TASK:

You have been preparing for the fifth grade social studies test. You will be taking the test in two weeks. You will be using primary documents and will have to answer questions based on those documents. You have been preparing for months with your teacher so that you will do well on this test. To help you prepare for the test, and also to teach you how to develop your own policy, you will be asked to do Public Policy Analyst on the subject of Women’s Suffrage.

First, to understand Women’s Suffrage movement, you will follow the six steps in the Public Policy Analyst (below.) By doing this you will complete the six worksheets that have been provided for you.

Second, you will look at the resources (in the resource below) and you will read and research more about particular women who were involved in the Women’s Suffrage movement and you will read and research how women got the right to vote. To do this, you will have to read these resources on the Internet just like you would read printed documents. You can always print-out information you find on the Internet so that you can have a hard copy of the electronic version of the information.

After you have completed these tasks, you will develop a new policy (Amendment) as if you were living in that time period. You will write (an) Amendment(s) that you want to propose to Congress. After you have written your Amendment(s) you will make an oral presentation to the President before you present it to Congress. Your group will then prepare a presentation that they will present to the rest of Congress. Congress (represented by the each Senators and each member of the House of Representatives from each group) will have to meet and decide if they will or will not pass the Amendment(s).

PROCESS:

Step 1: You will be assigned to a group of 4 students in order to complete the task.

You will meet in groups of four. (Only one student will not be a member of a group but will be helping the teacher.)
This same person will also act as the President.) As a member of your group you will be given a role assigned by your teacher as follows:

Women of the Suffrage Movement

Senator

House of Representative

Recorder

Your responsibilities as a member of the group will be to thoroughly investigate all of the resources (in the resource section below.) You will have to work with all of the members in your group to write (an) Amendment(s) that you are going to present to the President and Congress.

Step 2: Each student in the group will be assigned a role by the teacher.

Step 3: Each group will complete the following Public Policy Analyst worksheets in order to assist you with your projects :

#1- Defining the Social Problem

#2- Gather evidence of the problem

#3- Identify the causes of the problem

#4- Identify and evaluate the existing public policies

#5- Developing public policy solutions

#6- Selecting the best policy solution

Step 4: After researching the web and other resources, and completing the worksheets, each group write (an) new Amendment(s) that they will present to the President.

Step 5: After the Amendment(s) has been approved by the President then your group will present the Amendment(s) to the rest of the Congress.

Step 6: Each Senator and member of the House of Representatives from each group will meet and vote on the proposed new Amendment(s).

Step 7: After the Senators and the members of the House have voted on the proposed Amendments they will present the final results on the Amendment(s) to the entire class.

RESOURCES:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html

http://www.usconstitution.net/constam.html#process

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/statecraft/cons.rest.html

http://www.rochester.edu/SBA/sbaecs.html

http://www.historicaldocuments.com/19thamendment.htm

EVALUATION:

GRADE:	1	2	3	4
Oral Presentation	no knowledge of the Women’s Suffrage Movement and presents no data to support the proposed Amendment(s)	little knowledge of the Women’s Suffrage Movement and presents several sources of data in a logical format to support the proposed Amendment.	acceptable amount of knowledge on the Women’s Suffrage Movement-presents several sources of data in a logical and organized format to support the proposed Amendment.	superior knowledge of the uses of the Women’s Suffrage Movement presents an exceptional amount of data to support the proposed Amendment.
Research	little support the proposed Amendment	Not enough information to support the proposed Amendment	Lots of information that support the proposed Amendment	all information support the proposed Amendment
Worksheets	Incomplete -	Complete with only a little information	complete with a some information	-complete with a lot of information

STANDARDS:

ELA Standards:

Students will read and write for information and understanding
Students will read and write for literary response and expression
Students will read and write for critical analysis and evaluation
Students will speak and listen for social interaction

Social Studies Standards:

Compare and contrast the experiences of different groups, explaining their contributions to American society and culture
Understand the interrelationships between national events and development

CONCLUSION:

After completing this assignment you will have a better understanding of the Women’s Suffrage in the United States . Also you will have improved your skills in using the Internet to research different topics. You have also completed the six steps of the Public Policy Analyst. You have written an Amendment that you have presented to the President and to Congress.