Important Note:  A  good lesson plan will begin with a statement on student learning objectives: What do you want your students to know?  (This includes facts, ideas, interpretations.)  What new knowledge and skills do you want your students to develop?  You must then determine how you will help them gain this knowledge (known as "procedures"):  What questions can you pose?  What activities can you create to facilitate student learning?  What teaching aids might you envision using in this lesson?   How can you present the subject material in ways that will be meaningful to your students: through individual work, games, simulations, role playing, discussions, collaborative tasks, field trips, and other activities?  Finally, state the basis for assessment of your students' learning: What assignments will be used to evaluate students' progress?  (Give an example or two.)  Include references to course or other materials used in your lesson.

Lesson Plans may take outline or prose form, and should not exceed 2 pages in length.

For sample lesson plans incorporating primary documents from the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, visit the  Teaching Pages at SunSite

Lesson Plan 1 ~ Teaching the Gold Rush                            Due Date: June 19

Your task for this assignment is to imagine that you are a fourth-grade teacher of California history.  You must prepare a lesson plan about the impact of the Gold Rush on California.  Define what you feel is the most important consequence of the discovery of gold and its subsequent exploitation, in terms of its lasting impact on the state or region.  Here’s the hard part: Because history is all about evidence and interpretation, there is no single “right” answer to this assignment.  You may choose to focus on one aspect of economic development, environmental effects, population growth, social characteristics, cultural activities, or one of any number of other issues.  The task is to create an argument using appropriate examples, then produce a coherent lesson plan that articulates your point of view.

Lesson Plan 2 ~ Social Aspects of California Progressivism        Due Date: July 1

Historian Andrew Rolle writes of Progressivism: "Ambivalence was at its core. . . . The Progressives [had a] habit of opting for change while seeking to conserve such old-fashioned values as private enterprise, regional patriotism, and isolationism.  The result was pseudo-reform."  Prepare a lesson plan that addresses the validity of this statement with regard to one aspect of social reform in Progressive-era California.  What key "social problem" did this reform attempt to resolve?  What attitudes and assumptions informed the Progressives' construction of this "social problem"?  What methods were proposed to institute changes in society?  What was the response of California's citizenry, and particularly, the people who were the objects of that reform?  Did the reform prove successful?