5th Grade Social Studies Teacher Notes
SS5CG3 The student will explain how amendments to the U. S. Constitution have
maintained a representative democracy.
Under this standard, students need to be reminded that the United States has a
representative, rather than direct, democracy, and that citizens are responsible for
electing representatives to government. The elements below serve to show how voting
(as a citizen’s responsibility) has changed in the United States, and how the
Constitutional amendment process has been used to secure voting rights for increasing
numbers of people.
a. Explain the
purpose of the
12th and 17th
amendments.
EU – Conflict and
Change
EU – Beliefs and
ideals
For this element, students need to be able to briefly explain the significance of each
of the enumerated amendments in context.
The 12th amendment was ratified in 1804, largely in response to the contentious
election of 1800 (Thomas Jefferson beat President John Adams after multiple
ballots, and the House of Representatives ended up deciding the election). The 12 th
amendment created the Electoral College, a means by which Presidents (and VicePresidents) of the United States are elected to office. Under the Electoral College,
voters select “electors,” who are compelled to vote for a Presidential/VicePresidential pair. Seats in the Electoral College are awarded based on population,
so populous states like California have far more electors than sparsely populated
states like Wyoming.
While the Electoral College makes ties and multiple presidential ballots nearly
impossible, it also allows Presidents to win office despite having a minority of
popular votes, as happened in the 2000 election. The 12th Amendment serves to
correct problems identified in the first Presidential elections, though the Electoral
College causes some debate in modern times. {Note: Teachers will want to ensure
that their students are aware that “Electoral College” is a ceremonial sort of title,
and that it in no way resembles what we know as college/university.} The original
text of the document can be found here: http://www.archives.gov/historicaldocs/todays-doc/index.html?dod-date=1209.
The 17th amendment was ratified in 1913. It changed the original set up of the
legislative branch by providing for the direct election of United States Senators by
voting citizens. The original framers of the Constitution had created the Senate as
the branch of Congress where each state would be represented equally – regardless
of size – by two elected officials. These officials were chosen by state legislatures.
By the late 1800s, some states faced extreme difficulty in selecting these Senators,
as their state legislatures were mired in partisan issues and corruption.
The 17th amendment removed the state legislatures from the equation, and sought
to restore the Senate’s role as a representative of the people, not of political
interests in power within a given state legislature. The amendment was part of a
larger reform movement, which sought to secure rights for ordinary Americans. A
history of the movement towards direct election of Senators, along with the original
text of the 17th amendment, can be found here:
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=58.
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5th Grade Social Studies Teacher Notes
SS5CG3a
The 17th Amendment was one of the progressive reform amendments added to the Constitution in 1913.
It gave the people in the states the right to vote for United States senators. Why was this important?
A. It allowed the people to have more say in their government. *
B. It was needed because senators held office for life.
C. It meant that the people had less say in their government.
D. It was needed to keep members of both the House and Senate the same.
b. Explain how
voting rights were
protected by the
15th, 19th, 23rd,
24th, and 26th
amendments.
EU – Beliefs and
ideals
For this element, students need to be able to briefly explain the significance of each
of the enumerated amendments in context.
Each of these amendments was a watershed moment for the extension of
democracy to a greater number of Americans. After decades of effort, the 15 th and
19th Amendments guaranteed (African-American men and women) would receive
the right to vote.
The 15th amendment was passed in 1870, and granted African-American men the
right to vote. This final “Civil War Amendment” was supposed to secure suffrage as
the capstone of citizenship for men of color. (Only men were listed since no
woman, regardless of skin color, was permitted to vote in Federal elections until
the 19th amendment was passed.) Unfortunately, within a decade, municipalities
and states began to set forth a series of laws that infringed upon this right. The
Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally undid these laws to the point that voting was
readily possible for most African-Americans – 95 years after the ratification of the
15th amendment. For a brief history of the amendment and its original text, visit:
http://ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=44.
The 19th amendment was ratified in 1920. It symbolized nearly a century’s worth of
effort by courageous women, who held that they were not receiving the full
privilege of citizenship, since they were not allowed to vote for the government
under which they lived. Some states had given women the right to vote previously,
but this amendment gave all women full voting privileges in all elections. For a
longer history of the movement to give women equal suffrage and the original text
of the amendment, visit: http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=63. More
documents, including several dating back to just after the Civil War, can be found
here: http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/woman-suffrage/.
Until the ratification of the 23rd amendment in 1961, the residents of Washington, D.
C., had no real representation in the federal government. The 23rd amendment
awarded them representative seats in the electoral college, so they were finally
permitted to vote for the President who governed from their city. Today,
Washington, D. C., is still Senator-less, and has limited voting rights in Congress.
For an interesting opinion on why this may be, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/opinion/29masur.html. The text of the
amendment can be found here:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxiii. {Note: As pointed out
in the Masur opinion piece, the framers of the Constitution wanted the residents of
the district to be “above” politics, so it was put under the special control of
Congress. However, due to the difficulties of Congress administering a
municipality, a mayor and city council were soon created. This meant that
Washington, D. C., had a local government, but lacked both state and federal
governance.}
5th Grade Social Studies Teacher Notes
The 24th amendment, ratified in 1964, eliminated the poll tax. This tax system,
which had existed since Reconstruction, required voters to pay a tax in order to
vote. While the system initially prevented poor people from voting, by the 1950s
and 1960s, the poll tax had become an accepted tool by which people of color could
be deprived of their right to vote. In order to remedy this situation, and fulfill the
commitment of the 15th amendment, Congress finally passed, and states eventually
ratified, this 24th amendment. A good timeline and history of the poll tax and its
abolition can be found here: https://lcrm.lib.unc.edu/blog/index.php/tag/polltax/. A lengthy look at ways that African-Americans were disenfranchised is found
here: http://www.umich.edu/~lawrace/disenfranchise1.htm. The poll tax section
focuses on Georgia law. Note that this is far more information than students will
need, but teachers may find it useful.
By 1971, the United States was embroiled in a lingering war in Vietnam. Among
many popular complaints about the war was that the young men drafted to fight in
it were not even allowed to vote for the government sending them into battle. The
26th amendment, ratified that year, lowered the voting age for Americans from 21 to
18 – the same age at which young men could be drafted for military service. The
original text of the amendment can be found here:
http://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/index.html?dod-date=323.
SS5CG3b
A class is studying the history of the struggle for women’s rights in the United States. In the early 1900s,
there was a major push by women for the passage of the 19th Amendment. It was approved and added to
the Constitution of the United States in 1920. What was the purpose of the 19th Amendment?
A. It gave women the right to own property.
B. It gave women the right to travel freely.
C. It gave women the right to vote in elections. *
D. It gave women the right to serve in the military.
There have been a number of amendments added to the Constitution of the United States that deal with
voting. The 15th Amendment was passed in 1870, following the Civil War. Which group gained the right to
vote from the 15th Amendment?
A. property owners
B. women
C. black men *
D. immigrants
In 1964, the 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution was added, outlawing poll taxes. How did
poll taxes discriminate against African-Americans?
A. They kept many African-Americans from voting. *
B. They prevented African-Americans from attending certain schools.
C. They kept many African-Americans from finding employment.
D. They segregated African-Americans on buses and in restaurants.
In the late 1800s, women could own land and had to pay taxes. When the 19 th Amendment went into
effect in 1920, they finally gained the right to do what?
A. say what they believed
B. vote in federal and state elections *
C. ask the government to right a wrong
D. gather with other people and work for political change
5th Grade Social Studies Teacher Notes
STANDARDS
and
ELEMENTS
TEACHER NOTES
5th GRADE SOCIAL STUDIES
ECONOMIC UNDERSTANDINGS
SS5E1 The student will use the basic economic concepts of trade, opportunity
cost, specialization, voluntary exchange, productivity, and price incentives to
illustrate historical events.
For this standard, students should be able to explicitly link the indicated economics
content to their historical understandings. As much as possible, students should be
learning all of this information in an integrated manner, rather than having the
historical, geographic, and economic content separated from each other. Teachers will
want to teach the economics content so that students can apply it to multiple situations,
and they may draw additional examples from other subjects discussed during the fourth
grade year.
{Note: Kid-friendly definitions for each of the economic terms can be found at
http://www.kidseconposters.com/literature-connection/
along with suggested literature choices for teaching each of the concepts. This site is a
project of the Indiana Council for Economic Education.}
a. Describe
opportunity costs
and their
relationship to
decision-making
across time (such
as decisions to
ration goods
during WWII).
EU – Beliefs and
ideals
EU - Location
For this element, students should be aware of the large cost (in both funds and
materials) required by a war, particularly by a war of the scale of World War II.
The United States’ government had to equip, clothe, feed, move, and support
soldiers on two fronts (Europe and the Pacific), and had to do this very quickly. As
a result, the limited resources within the United States were reallocated. Rather
than citizens being able to buy whatever they could afford to buy, the government
chose to ration certain items. Things like rubber, gasoline, and even basic foods,
were rationed.
For the government, rationing was the selected means of providing the armed
forces with their needs. The opportunity cost of this choice was allowing everyone
in the United States to buy everything they wanted and could afford. For students,
this is tricky to understand – they would like to think that the items themselves
were the opportunity cost, because to them, “cost” tends to be associated negatively
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