Comstock Calamity

Laura Tremaine

1859-1864

Portfolio Cover Sheet

Background

Silver was discovered on the Comstock in 1859.  It was the first major discovery, of silver in the United States. This discovery led to the statehood of Nevada in 1864.  Over the course of twenty years the Comstock played the most important role within the area and was considered one of the largest and fastest growing cities in the country.  At the height of the boom there were more people living in Virginia City than Los Angeles California.  People from all over the country moved to the area in hopes to strike it rich.  There were also a considerable amount of people from other parts of the world as well.   There were strong Irish, English, Welsh and Chinese populations that created such a diverse population.

Life on the Comstock was exciting and advanced.  The town had many saloons and restaurants.  There was a small theater and several banks.    This was not a traditional mining town because many families settled in the area.  Mark Twain wrote articles for one of the four newspapers at the time.  The Fourth Ward School was designed to house more than 1,000 students.  It had a modern heating and ventilation system, drinking fountains and modern plumbing for the time.  This school was considered to be one of the finest school in the country.

The area was the center of technology.  The train station brought tourists and supplies.  The engineers of the mines was considered to be the best in the country with shafts that reached 2,000 feet underground.  For a period of time Virginia City was one of the most popular towns to start a new life.

Nevada Standards

H1.4.5 Identify contributions of immigrants in Nevada
H2.4.2 Describe the experience of pioneers moving west.
H2.4.4 Identify diverse populations  of Nevada’s early settlers and discuss their unique experiences.
H3.4.1 Compare and or contrast their daily lives with children in Nevada’s past.
H3.4.2 Recognize that communities have people with diverse ethnic origins, customs and traditions to make contributions to Nevada.
H3.4.4 Explain how advances in technology have impacted Nevada i.e. railroad, mining and gaming.

Table of Contents

Activity 1: Primary Source:  Interactive Writing-Miners
Learning goal:  Each student will be given a primary source picture.  They will be given 1 minute to study the picture and instructed to look at the entire picture before they begin to write.  The teacher will monitor the time and give the students four minutes to write about their picture.  The writing can be fact or fiction.  At the end of four minutes student swill trade papers within their group of three.  They will read what the students before wrote and add on to their piece. At the end of this activity, student can read their story to 3-5 people depending on time.

Activity 2: Wordle Activity: The Words of Mark Twain
Learning goal: In pairs students will compare/contrast two Wordles.  These Wordles will be from quotations of Mark Twain.  The quoatations will be taken from the time in which Mark Twain lived in Virginia City and wrote for the newpaper.  Students will identify common language he used and identify the meaning that Twain was suggesting.  Students will create their own interesting quote.

Activity 3: Foldable: Venn Diagram -School Days
Learning goal: Student will create a Venn Diagram that compares the life a child on the Comstock Lode to their own life.  The Venn Diagram is located on page 52 of Dinah Zike’s Notebook Foldable.  Students will create this foldable in their journal.  Once the diagram is complete students will write a paragraph on similarities and one on differences between the two time frames.

Activity 4: Literature Connection- The Life of a Miner by Bobbie Kalman and Kate Clader
Learning goal:  The teacher will read The Life of a Miner by Kalman and Clader.  The students will take notes on what miners went through to retrieve ore from the mines.  The students will try to recreate a step by step account of what a miner did from start to finish.  In groups they will pool their notes to see how close they came to recreating a miner’s day.  The teacher will reread the book and students will check their steps.

Activity 5: Art Piece/Writing:  Mosaic Poster-Fourth Ward School
Learning goal: Using the image of the Fourth Ward School in Virginia City, students will create one piece of a mosaic poster.  When the poster is complete the teacher will show the actual picture.  The students will write an informative paragraph about what they learned about the school from activity 3.

Activity 6: Student Project: Student skit-Life on the Comstock
Learning goal:  Students will work in groups of 4-5.  They will be given a topic to create a short skit about.  They will be allowed 2-3 days to write and edit their skit.  They will be given 1-3 days to create a set and costumes. Students will used authentic language based on what they have studies.  Students will perform their skits in front of the class.

Activity 1: Primary Source Interactive Writing
Miners at Work

Learning goal:  Students will identify and study primary source pictures.  Student will write  and interactive story about the picture using their own words and adding on to the words of others. Students will create a story based on what the item might have been used for on the Comstock Lode

Primary sources: Miners at work
http://wpcontent.answers.com/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Comstock_miner.gif
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/a/af/20080423024719!Comstock_miners.jpeg
http://www-tc.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/images/wimg640/comstck.gif

Procedure
1. Divide students into groups of 3
2. Pass out one picture to each member of the group.
3. Have students study the picture carefully looking at the surrounding, tools, clothing etc.
4. Describe to the student what they will be doing.  They are to create a story about the characters in the picture.  Students will have 3 minutes to write whatever they would like about  the picture.  At the end of 3 minutes the picture and story will be passed to the next person in their group.  Students will look at the new picture and read what the other student wrote and add onto the story.  The will also have 3 minutes to write.  This process happens until every member of the group has added to the story.  When the story gets back to the original owner students can share their stories with other members of the class.

Assessment:
The teacher will determine if students utilized the picture as a reference to the story.  The teacher will look for correct terminology of tools etc.  The teacher will also assess proper grammar and sentence structure. The teacher will also assess story flow. Participation will also be graded.  The teacher will read/listen to the stories produced by the students.

Rubric:

Pictures

Activity 2: Wordle The Words of Mark Twain

Learning goals:
Students will identify common words used during the time of the Comstock Lode.  Students will become familiar with the phrases of Mark Twain and how they relate to life on the Comstock Lode.  Students will compare/contrast the language Twain used.  The students will identify the main idea of what the quote was talking about.  Students will create their own quote about something on the Comstock.

Primary Sources:
The book, The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain: A Book of Quotations by Mark Twain

Procedure:
1.Teacher will copy various quotations from Mark Twain’s book, The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain. 
2. Students will choose 2-3 quotations.
3. Students will use http://www.wordle.net/ and imput their quotations to create a poster.
4.  Students will choose a partner that had different quotations and compare/contrast the language Twain uses.
5.  Using the worksheet students will record similarities and differences between the two posters.
6.  Students will write their own quotes with their partner.

Worksheet for Wordle:

Expanding learning: Teacher will post the Wordles around the classroom and students can locate thoughts or words that relate to Twain’s topics.

Evaluate:  Teacher will read the partner writing to evaluate if student grasped the concept.  Teacher will utilize the compare/contrast sheet to determine if students recognized similar or different words.

Activity 3: Foldable- Venn Diagram  School Days

Learning goal:  Students will use a Venn Diagram on page 52 of Notebook Foldables by Dianh Zike to compare and contrast the life of children on the Comstock Lode to themselves.  Students will write a paragraph based on their diagram.

Teacher reference about the Fourth Ward School during the Comstock era.
http://www.onlinenevada.org/historic_fourth_ward_school
http://www.fourthwardschool.org/ic/Venue

Procedure:
1.  Students will paste their Venn Diagram into their journal notebook.
3.  Students will write about themselves in one side of the Venn Diagram.
4.  Teacher will lead them by discussing how they got to school, what they eat during school, what they write on, number of students, specials throughout the day etc.
5.  Teacher will discuss what a child’s life was like at the Fourth Ward School on the Comstock.
6.  Students will complete the rest of the diagram finding similarities and differences.
7.  Students will write a paragraph using information from the diagram.

Purpose:
Students will become aware of the similarities and differences between the time periods.  Students can refer back to this information throughout the unit on the Comstock.

Rubric:

Activity 4: Literature Connection Life of a Miner

Learning goal: The teacher will read The Life of a Miner by Kalman and Clader.  The students will take notes on what miners went through to retrieve ore from the mines.  The students will try to recreate a step by step account of what a miner did from start to finish.  In groups they will pool their notes to see how close they came to recreating a miner’s day.  The teacher will reread the book and students will check their steps.

Literature: The Life of a Miner by Kalman &Clader.

Activites
Day 1: Students will listen to the story The Life of a Miner.   Teacher will pin-point on a map the locations where various miners come from. Teacher will also identify important parts of daily life and discuss why this is important.

Day 2:  Teacher will reread the story The Life of a Miner.  The students will take notes as to what takes place throughout a miner’s day. After finishing the story the students will work in groups using their notes,  to recreate events in the day of a miner’s life to the best of their ability. They will put the events on sentence strips that can be easily moved. As a class we will discuss the events in order and the students will self correct their timelines.  We will create one large timeline using the sentence strips from the groups.  Many of them will be duplicates therefore, use at least one strip from each group.  The strips can be changed as more events are added.

Evaluation: Teacher will assess group projects to the text.  Students will be awarded points on participation with their group and class discussion.

Rubric: 

Activity 5: Art/Writing Mosaic

Learning goal: Using the image of the Fourth Ward School in Virginia City, students will create one piece of a mosaic poster.  When the poster is complete the teacher will show the actual picture.  The students will write and informative paragraph about the school.

Supplies:
2 large pictures/posters of the image below (one color one black/white)
Black construction paper cut into squares (one for each student)
Chalk for each students
Cottonballs and q-tips for each student
Glue
Large butcher paper to place finish project.

Procedure:
Students will not know what they are creating until the end of the lesson.
1. Use the image from http://image54.webshots.com/54/2/99/0/525729900AyCvCU_fs.jpg
This is a large picture of the Fourth Ward School.
2.  Make a larger version of this picture and create one black and white and keep one in color.
3.  Cut the black and white poster up into square pieces equally depending.
4.  Mark on the back of the square, mark the top of the piece and number them.
5.  Give students a black piece of construction paper cut into a square (size depends on how large you would like the finish project, a piece of white chalk, a q-tip, and cotton ball, and the cut up image from the black and white poster.
6.  Students will recreate the image given to them onto the black piece of construction paper using chalk.  The shading can be done with cotton balls and q-tips.
7.  Once their piece is completed, have students come up in number order to recreate the poster.
8.  Show them the original piece.
9.  Place their image and the original color image on a bulletin board and put up student writing.
10.  Students will write an informational paragraph about the importance of the Fourth Wards School during the time of the Comstock.  They will have this information in their binders from activity 3. 
Evaluation:
Teacher will read paragraphs to determine if student understanding is achieved.  Teacher will identify facts given to the students from activity 3.  Students will be required to have a topic sentence, 4-5 suport sentences, and a conclusion.

Rubric

Activity 6: Student Project-Skit
Life on the Comstock

Learning goal:  Students will work in groups of 4-5.  They will be given a topic to create a short skit about.  They will be allowed 2-3 days to write and edit their skit.  They will be given 1-3 days to create a set and costumes. Students will used authentic language based on what they have studies.  Students will perform their skits in front of the class.

Materials: Chart paper, butcher paper, construction paper (all colors), markers, student notebooks, text, picture books used throughout the unit, websites, writing paper, pencils.

Procedure:
1. Lead a class discussion on what topics students would like to perform that relate to life on the Comstock.
2. Create a list on chart paper.
          Examples:  School, Mines, Newspaper, Shop keepers, Chinese life
3.  With teacher help, allow students to choose what skit they would like to perform.
4.  Students will work in groups to create a short scene from the topics listed.  Students will create dialogue that incorporates the vocabulary and information that we learned throughout the unit. Students will give reasons why their group of people moved to the Comstock. Students will refer to their notebooks, picture books, websites for information. (2-3 days)
5.  Students will have access to music from Chris Bayer’s web site
http://web.mac.com/nevadamusic.com/CWBAYER/WELCOME-MUSIC_FROM_NEVADA.html
6.  Teacher will advise groups to add/change their scripts.
7.  Using construction paper students will create costumes and sets to perform their skits. (2-3 days)
8.  Students will perform their skits in front of the class.

Rubric: