Oklahoma Social Studies AWH.C.12.3

Social StudiesGrades 9–12Content Standards

The Standard

Assess the economic and social effects of the spread of the Black Death on society.

Oklahoma Academic Standards for Social Studies (2026)

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students explain how widespread deaths changed work, wages, trade, and daily life. They also trace social responses, including fear, religious practices, and attacks on Jewish communities.
What Mastery Looks Like: A student can explain why a shortage of workers raised wages in some places and why rulers tried to limit pay. They can describe how false accusations led to persecution without treating those accusations as fact.
Common Misconceptions: Students may assume everyone who survived grew richer or that changes happened the same way everywhere. They may repeat claims that Jewish communities caused the plague instead of identifying those claims as false accusations.
How to Assess It: Ask students: After plague deaths reduced the workforce, what was one economic effect and one social effect? Explain the cause of each in two or three sentences.

Lesson moves

Give groups ten farm job cards and twenty worker tokens, then remove half the workers and have groups negotiate wages with coin counters.
Read a short account of attacks on Jewish communities, then ask students to write how fear turned false accusations into violence.
Have pairs sort cards labeled higher wages, abandoned fields, disrupted trade, and persecution into economic and social effects, then defend one choice.
Show a sample help-wanted sign offering higher pay, then compare it with England's 1351 law that tried to limit wages after the plague.

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