Virginia SOL S.USI.f

Social Studies5th Grade

The Standard

determining and explaining cause-and-effect relationships

Virginia Standards of Learning for History and Social Science

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students identify why a historical event happened and what changed because of it. They use facts from sources to explain links between events.
What Mastery Looks Like: Students can connect one event to several results and recognize that events may have more than one cause. They support each connection with accurate historical evidence.
Common Misconceptions: Students often confuse an event that happened first with the actual cause. They may name a cause and result without explaining the connection, or assume every event has only one cause.
How to Assess It: Give students three facts about the Boston Tea Party. Ask them to name one cause, one result, and explain the link in two sentences.

Lesson moves

Give groups mixed event cards about Jamestown and have them arrange the cards into cause and result chains.
Ask students to write which cause of the American Revolution had the greatest impact and support their choice with two facts.
Play Cause or Result by reading historical statements and having students hold up labeled cards before explaining their answers.
Have students trace how a school rule change leads to several results, then compare that chain with a historical event.

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