Virginia SOL VS.5.b
The Standard
examining the important contributions, leadership, and experiences of Virginians during the war including, but not limited to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, James Madison, James Armistead Lafayette, Indigenous people, women, and free and enslaved Blacks
Virginia Standards of Learning for History and Social Science
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students identify how key Virginians supported independence through military command, political writing, government service, intelligence work, labor, and military service. They compare the different choices and hardships faced by Indigenous people, women, and free and enslaved Blacks.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can match Washington, Jefferson, Mason, and Madison with their main wartime contributions. The student can explain James Armistead Lafayette’s intelligence work and compare the varied experiences of Indigenous people, women, and free and enslaved Blacks.
Common Misconceptions
- Students often assume every Virginian supported independence and all Indigenous nations chose the same side. They may think military service automatically freed enslaved people or that women only watched from home. They also may call Washington president during the war or credit Jefferson with writing the Constitution.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Choose one political leader, James Armistead Lafayette, and one group. For each, write one contribution or experience and one accurate supporting detail.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs cards naming people, groups, actions, and hardships, then have them build and explain accurate matches.
Ask students to write which Virginian faced the hardest choice during the war, using two facts as evidence.
Play a clue game where teams identify a person or group from three facts, then explain the answer.
Open a nearby Virginia historical marker online, identify whose wartime story it tells, and name one perspective the marker leaves out.
Keep exploring
Related Standards
- VS.7
The students will apply history and social science skills to understand the key people, events, and issues of the Civil War and Virginia’s role by
- VS.7.g
evaluating the experiences and contributions of Indigenous people and enslaved and free Blacks and their allies during the war including, but not limited to Eli...
- VS.7.f
identifying and explaining the leadership roles of Virginians including, but not limited to Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Robert E. Lee, William Harvey Carney, Wi...
- USI.9.f
analyzing the effects of the war from various perspectives of Union and Confederate soldiers, Indigenous people, women, European Americans, and enslaved and fre...
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