Indiana Social Studies USH.2.2
The Standard
Analyze the political and social factors associated with the development of the West and impact on the lives of various groups.
2026 Indiana Academic Standards: K-12 Social Studies · Students are expected to trace and analyze chronological periods and examine the significant themes and concepts in U.S. History. Students develop historical thinking and research skills using primary and secondary sources to explore topical issues to understand the cause for changes in the nation over time.
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Explain how federal land policies, railroads, migration, and racial prejudice changed the West. Compare what those changes meant for Native nations, homesteaders, Mexican American landowners, and Chinese workers.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students can connect a policy or social pressure to a specific change in land, work, or daily life. They can use a map or document to explain why two groups experienced the same change differently.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may treat western land as empty or assume Native nations willingly gave it up. They may think railroads helped everyone equally or that all settlers had the same access to land and jobs.
How to Assess It
- Give students a Dawes Act excerpt on allotments and surplus land. Ask how it changed land access for Native families and settlers, citing one phrase.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs 1870 and 1900 railroad and reservation maps; have them trace rail growth and mark two reservation boundary changes.
Using a Dawes Act excerpt, ask: Who gained land, who lost it, and what did federal law have to do with it?
Hand out Dawes Act, railroad grant, and Chinese Exclusion Act cards; students match each law to a group affected and explain the effect.
Compare an 1890 rail map with a current map of Cheyenne, Wyoming; circle where the tracks still shape downtown streets.
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