Virginia SOL USII.4.b
The Standard
explaining the reasons for and results of the Spanish-American War, including the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
Virginia Standards of Learning for History and Social Science
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students identify pressures that pushed the United States into war, including Cuban rebellion, business interests, yellow journalism, and the USS Maine explosion. They trace Cuban independence, American territorial gains, and the rise of the United States as a world power. They explain how the later Roosevelt Corollary claimed an American right to intervene in Latin America.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can sort named events as causes or results and place them in the correct order. They support each link with a specific fact. They place the Roosevelt Corollary after the war and explain how it widened American policy in the Western Hemisphere.
Common Misconceptions
- Students often assume Spain was proven responsible for the USS Maine explosion. They may confuse Cuban independence with American control of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. They may treat the Roosevelt Corollary as a cause of the war, although it came later.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Name two causes and two results of the war. Then explain how the Roosevelt Corollary changed American policy in Latin America and state whether it came before or after the war.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give groups a map and four outcome cards; students match Cuban independence and each U.S. acquisition to Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, or the Philippines.
Post Cuban sympathy, business interests, yellow journalism, and the Maine explosion; students choose the strongest cause and defend it with two facts.
Run a Cause, Result, or Later Policy relay; teams sort fact cards and justify where the Roosevelt Corollary belongs.
Compare a yellow journalism headline with a current clickbait headline, then circle loaded words and rewrite both in neutral language.
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Related Standards
- USII.4.a
explaining the legacy of Theodore Roosevelt including, but not limited to conservation contributions, progressivism, the building of the Panama Canal, and his r...
- USII.4.e
explaining how the war was a catalyst for the United States gaining international power and expanding its sphere of international influence; and
- USI.8.b
describing the causes, course of events, and effects of the War of 1812, the role of Andrew Jackson, and the development of the Monroe Doctrine
- USII.6.b
explaining the causes and events that led to American involvement in the war, including the attack on Pearl Harbor
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