Indiana Social Studies 6.H.6

Social Studies6th GradeHistory

The Standard

Describe how the Black Death, along with economic, environmental, and social factors, led to the decline of medieval society.

2026 Indiana Academic Standards: K-12 Social Studies

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students connect plague deaths, poor harvests, and disrupted trade to changes in medieval life. They explain how worker shortages raised wages and gave peasants more bargaining power.
What Mastery Looks Like: A student can explain how wet weather hurt harvests and how plague deaths left farms short of workers. They can trace how labor shortages helped peasants ask for higher pay or leave a manor.
Common Misconceptions: Some students think the plague killed everyone or ended the manor system at once. Others assume fewer workers meant lower wages, or that bad harvests began only after the plague.
How to Assess It: Exit ticket: How did a bad harvest and the Black Death each weaken a manor? Explain one change in wages or peasants' choices.

Lesson moves

Give pairs cards labeled wet summers, crop failures, plague deaths, worker shortages, higher wages, and weaker serfdom; have them build two cause-and-effect chains.
Ask students to write two sentences answering, 'Why might a lord offer peasants better terms after plague deaths and bad harvests?'
Play a matching game with cards showing plague deaths, labor shortages, higher wages, wet summers, poor harvests, and food shortages; explain each match.
Show a photo of a restaurant 'Help Wanted' sign; ask how too few cooks might change pay, then compare with medieval farm workers.

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