Alabama Social Studies SS24.6.11c
The Standard
- SS24.6.11
- Analyze how collaboration and compromise were employed to address key issues during the Constitutional Convention, including representation in Congress (Great Compromise and bicameral legislature), balance of power between national and state governments (establishment of the system of federalism), limiting government power (establishment of the three branches), and slavery (Three-Fifths Compromise).
Assess the arguments made by groups and individuals seeking greater inclusion and advancement of fundamental values in the late 1700s, including women and Black Americans, who were excluded from early American political participation.
2024 Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students read arguments by women and Black Americans who sought greater rights in the late 1700s. They explain each claim, connect it to ideas such as liberty and equality, and judge how well the argument supports the claim.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can explain what Abigail Adams asked lawmakers to change and what enslaved petitioners in Massachusetts asked for. They can cite a line from each source and explain how it challenges the rights promised by the new government.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think the Declaration of Independence gave everyone the vote. They may also treat Abigail Adams's call for legal protections as the same demand as enslaved petitioners' call for freedom.
How to Assess It
- Give students short excerpts from Abigail Adams's 1776 letter and a 1777 Massachusetts petition by enslaved people. Ask: What change does each seek, and which argument is more persuasive to you? Use one detail from each excerpt.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs printed excerpts and two highlighters; have them mark each group's demand in one color and its reason in another.
Ask students to write three sentences answering: How did each group use the new nation's ideas to challenge its laws?
Play a source-match game with cards showing claims, supporting lines, and authors from the two documents.
Show a school election ballot and ask who can vote; compare those rules with voting limits in the early United States.
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Related Standards
- SS24.US1.6
Evaluate the influence of American social and political reform on the emergence of a national identity from the early to mid-nineteenth century.
- SS24.USG.7
Analyze how the expansion of suffrage affected the political system of the United States, including the enfranchisement of non-property owners, women, Black Ame...
- SS24.US1.7a
Summarize the contributions of women reformers in the early to mid-nineteenth century who sought to expand political and educational opportunities for women.
- SS24.US1.7
Assess how women challenged their societal roles under the Cult of Domesticity through their participation in social movements prior to the Civil War.
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