Read Kansas! Middle School - M-41 The Great American Desert
This lesson focuses on Kansas as the "Great American Desert." Students will analyze historic primary source documents that both create and dispel the myth of Kansas as "The Great American Desert." Students will then work in groups to produce a multimedia project to attract 19th century immigrants to "The Great American Desert." This lesson is written for two to three class periods.
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Geography Standards:
- Benchmark 2, Indicator 6: The student explains the effects of a label on the image of a region (i.e., Tornado Alley, Sun Belt, and the Great American Desert).
Kansas History Standards:
- Benchmark 3, Indicator 4: The student traces the migration patterns of at least one European ethnic group to Kansas (e.g., English, French, Germans, German-Russians, Swedes).
Kansas College and Career Ready Standards:
- RI.7.6: The student determines an author's point of view or purpose in a text and analyzes how the author distinguishes his or her position from that of others.
- RI. 7.8: The student traces and evaluates the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is sound and the evidence is relevant and sufficient to support the claims.
