4th grade, Women’s Suffrage Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Lesson Plan: How Can Ideas Spread and Lead to Change?
Download a PDF of all the resources and materials in this unit.
Compelling Question
- How can ideas spread and lead to change?
- How did suffragists in Washington spread their ideas? And how did ideas move from the state level to the national suffrage movement
Standards and Practices
- C4.4.2 Analyze and evaluate ways of influencing state governments to establish or preserve individual rights and promote the common good.
- H2.4.1 Analyze and explain how individuals have caused change in Washington state history
- H2.4.3 Analyze and explain how technology and ideas have affected the way people live and change their values, beliefs, and attitudes in Washington.
- H4.4.1 Recognize and explain significant historical events in Washington state that have implications for current decisions.
Staging the Question
Ask students to make buttons or stickers to support a cause that they care about. (These could be made from stick-on name badges.) Ask them to wear these for a few days, then write a reflection about the experience. (Activity suggested by members of Washington State Council for Social Studies.)
OR
Ask students to analyze an object through which they express causes they believe in. This might be a water bottle or binder with stickers, etc. You might use the WSHS Source Analysis worksheet used in Formative Performance Task 3 to support this type of thinking, especially if your students are already familiar with source analysis. (Activity suggested by members of Washington State Council for Social Studies.)
OR
Ask students to brainstorm, as a class or in small groups: What other social movements have we already studied? How have people made change in their communities? What strategies have they used? Did they make change at a local, state, or national level?
Introduce the unit’s topic: The women’s suffrage movement in Washington state and nationally.