Classroom Based Assessments (CBAs) can be a great way to evaluate student achievement. They are also required by Washington state in certain years and subject areas. The lessons that are provided here can be used as the starting point for a CBA

The CBA that I recommend using with this set of lessons is Causes of conflict. This CBA has students examine a conflict and decide why it started and if there is a way that it could have been avoided. In this case the students would be looking at and researching the Puget Sound Indian Wars (PSIW). The PSIW were actually a series of battles that took place around the Puget Sound in the mid 1850's. These battles were between the Natives and the Americans over control of the area and they were part of a larger series of battles that were taking place all over the Northwest and earlier, all over the country.

It would be possible to use lesson from this resource to prepare students to be able to complete the CBA.

 

GLEs

Social Studies 5.2.2- Analyzes primary and secondary sources and determines the need for more information while researching an event.

Social Studies 5.4.1- Analyzes factors, interprets sources, makes generalizations to be able to create a thesis for a paper

Social Studies 5.4.2- Creates an annotated bibliography or works cited page in the appropriate format

 

Steps

1. It is up to the teacher to decide how much information is going to be presented to the students about the CBA. It would work fine to not discuss the CBA at all until the very end of the unit and then just use the CBA as the assessment for that unit. The other option is to explain that you are going to be doing a CBA and explain what that is at the start.

2.  Have students complete the Culture before Contact lesson, Option 1. This will provide them with some background of the Nisqually tribe before Americans were involved.

3.Students should then complete the Biographical lessons (options 1,2 and 3 or 4). This will give students a introduction to the key players in this conflict.

4. Students will then complete the lessons on the treaty (option 1 & 2) 

5. Once students have gone through all the lessons, the teacher can give them these worksheets to guide them through the rubric. The worksheets are each designed to help students pull out the key information that each section of the CBA rubric is looking for.

Here are the worksheets:

Section 1: Here 

Section 2:Here 

Section 3: Here

Section 4: Here

 

To access the rubric directly, click here 

 

6. If students need more information or if the teacher would like to have the students do some more research of their own here are some links that could help

A.  http://http://www.usgennet.org/usa/wa/state/murdermostfoul.html ( A nice collection of mostly primary sources. The ones from #7 on are especially good and relevant)

B. http://http://stories.washingtonhistory.org/leschi/indianwars.htm (An amazing site and collection on the wars and Leschi. A very worthy visit)

C.  http://http://www.daffodilvalleytimes.com/history/indian_war.html (A good collection of information, nice place to start, not too in-depth)

D.  http://http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/seattle55.htm (Not a lot of information but laid out in a timeline format that makes it easy to access)

E. http://http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9906E0D61E31E033A2575BC1A9619C94639ED7CF (A very cool article from the NY times that was written about the Indian Wars at the time)

 

To help students pull out key terms and ideas from the readings here are some guided note sheets