Theodore Roosevelt Association
Curriculum-Based Lesson Plans
Grades 5-12

(Based on National Standards)

Written by DeeGee Lester
copyright February 2004, The Theodore Roosevelt Association
updated Feb 23, 2004

General Introduction
The TRA web site provides basic tools for student research, including a biography of Theodore Roosevelt, a TR Timeline, Quotations, TR's Conservation Legacy, and a page entitled "Just for Kids." As an added service for teachers and students, the TRA adds a series of lesson plans based on National Standards in History, Civics, Geography, and Language Arts. Each lesson plan includes applicable national standards, lesson objectives, a lesson introduction, and a selection of activities for students, grades 5-12, focusing on Era 7 (The Emergence of Modern America, 1890-1930) for U.S. History Standards.

Today, we proudly reflect on The American Century, the roots of which lay in the vision and achievements of the first modern president, Theodore Roosevelt. Consumer laws, conservation, regulation of railroads and corporations, the building of the modern Navy, the increased use of mediation to avoid war were all introduced or expanded as TR changed the role of the modern presidency.

Standard I: Chronological Thinking
Establish a sense of chronology - when events occurred and in what temporal order. Students will construct a time-line and analyze and interpret data presented in the time-line.

1. Students will gain an understanding of the sequence of events during the eight years of TR's administration over a variety of issues.
2. Students accustomed to Newtonian linear thinking will create a visual tool for understanding how a leader must deal with a variety of complex issues simultaneously.
3. Students develop skills in working forward through development to outcome or backward from conclusion of an issue to explain its origins and development over time.

Introduction:
One of the great challenges in teaching history is helping students to develop chronological thinking - when and in what order events occurred. Time-lines are useful tools for helping students grasp the flow of history.* The exercise of creating a time-line often enables visual learners to remember dates or the order of events. A second challenge in regard to chronological thinking is helping students to understand that the history that appears to flow in a convenient linear pattern was, in reality, more chaotic. The events of September 11, 2001 demonstrate the unpredictability of life and events. Developing skills in chronological thinking must therefore also include development of flexible strategies to meet unpredictable, multiple challenges. This skill is particularly important for leaders. Using TR as a test case, students will explore how a leader balances a myriad of challenges and issues as he works to achieve his vision for the nation.

(*Note: While creation of a time-line is an obvious learning tool for the study of history, it can likewise be helpful to students as a visual tool for understanding progress, trends, and movements in literature, science, math, art, and other subjects).

Lesson 1 Activities:

Create a Presidential Time Line:
Using the Chronology available on the TR website as a resource, students create a time-line for TR's presidential years. Students may use colored pencils to mark and identify significant events in the following areas:

Part of the challenge in completing this exercise is student determination of which events or issues to include in the time-line.

Creating a Topic Time Line:
This exercise demonstrates how leaders deal with multiple issues simultaneously. Divide students into teams and ask each team to develop an issue-specific time-line based on one of the topics listed above. Using the TRA website, textbooks, encyclopedias, etc., students on each team select the critical dates/issues/achievements for inclusion on their particular topic time-line. When all time-lines are completed, place them side by side to demonstrate to students the difficult role of leaders in dealing with many issues simultaneously and pulling these diverse issues together into a unified and attainable national vision.

Reverse Event Analysis:
In 1913, the Panama Canal opened to inter-oceanic traffic, completing a centuries old dream of a path between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. TR considered the canal one of the triumphs of his administration. Using the Internet, historical narratives such as David McCullough's The Path Between the Seas, and other resources, ask students to work backwards from the canal's opening to explain the canal's development and origins (including the French efforts, 1880-1889). The report may be accompanied by a time-line showing significant people and events in the canal's history.

LESSON 2 (top)
INTERPRETING THE PAST;
ASSESSING ITS IMPACT ON THE PRESENT

Meeting National Standards Objectives (Grades 9-12)

Standard 3: Historical Analysis and Interpretation
Students are invited to study events, access evidence, build an argument, and defend their position. Students draw comparisons across eras and hypothesize the influence of the past.
Civics: National Standard 3
Students will learn how power and responsibility are distributed, shared, and limited in the government established by the United States Constitution.

Learning Objectives:
1. Students explore a variety of sources, points of view in accessing evidence pertaining to an issue or problem.
2. Students draw comparisons across eras, noting similarities and differences in issues of the early 20th century and the early 21st century.
3. Students build arguments supporting their thesis based upon their research.
4. Students understand the power, responsibilities, and limitations on Presidential powers.

Introduction:
Historians point out the similarities between the early 20th century and the early 21st century. Many of the same issues, often with the same arguments and opposition, challenge Americans in areas such as immigration, conservation, balancing labor with big business and consumerism, anti-trust issues, and defining America's role in the world.

Lesson 2 Activities:

New Century; Same Issues:
In preparation for this exercise, have students read the portion of the U.S. Constitution regarding the powers of the executive branch. As noted in the introduction to this lesson, many of the same issues, arguments and opposition faced by Americans at the dawn of the 20th century, are major issues one hundred years later. Ask students to select one of the issues listed above; then using a variety of sources, draw a comparison as a report or a chart showing a critical question within the issue (listed below); then identify opposing arguments as well as individuals/groups on both sides of the argument. Finally, have students address the question on these issues as to whether the action taken by the President in addressing the issue moved beyond the executive powers as defined by the Constitution.

Issues:

Tracing TR's Vision:
Theodore Roosevelt's vision for the United States is reflected in his Progressive Platform for the 1912 presidential election. Although Roosevelt lost that election to Woodrow Wilson, many of TR's platform goals were enacted into law under various administrations over the next fifty years. Ask students to use various sources to determine if/when (and under whose administration) the following 1912 Roosevelt platform articles were enacted.

Selected Platform Goals:

• Direct primaries for nomination of state and national officers.
• Effective legislation looking to the prevention of industrial accidents, occupational diseases, overwork, involuntary unemployment and other injurious effects incident to modern industry.
• Fixing of minimum safety and health standards for various occupations and the exercise of the public authority of State and Nation, including Federal control over inter-State commerce.
• Prohibition of child labor.
• Minimum wage standards.
• Establishment of the eight-hour day for women and young persons.
• Publicity as to wages, hours, and conditions and labor; full reports upon industrial accidents and diseases; and the opening to public inspection of all tallies, weights, measures, and check systems on labor products.
• A system of social insurance adapted to American use.
• Organization of workers…as a means of protecting their interests and promoting their progress.
• National regulation of inter-State corporations.
• The natural resources of the nation must be promptly developed and generously used to supply the people's needs, but we cannot safely allow them to be wasted, exploited, monopolized or controlled against the general good.
• It is the National obligation to develop our rivers, and especially the Mississippi and its tributaries under a comprehensive plan … designed to secure its highest usefulness for navigation, irrigation, domestic supply, water power, and the prevention of floods.
• Completion of the Panama Canal, built and paid for by the American public.
• Securing equal Suffrage to men and women alike.
• Legislation compelling the registration of lobbyists, publicity of committee hearings, except foreign affairs, and the recording of all votes in committees.
• Establish a Department of Labor.
• The construction of national highways.
• A graduated income tax.
• The ratification of the pending amendment to the Constitution giving the Government power to levy an income tax.
• We pledge our party to use its best endeavors to substitute judicial and other peaceful means of settling international differences.

LESSON 3 (top)
ROOSEVELT'S LEGACY: CONSERVATION

Meeting National Standards:

Geography Standard 1: Understand how to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective.

Geography Standard 5: Understand how human actions modify the physical environment; and understand the changes that occur in the meaning, use distribution, and importance of resources.

Geography Standard 6: Understand how to apply geography to interpret the past.

History Standard 1-A: Explain how Progressives drew upon the American past to develop a notion of democracy responsive to the distinctive needs of an industrial society (Explain historical continuity and change).

1. Students become familiar with the scope of TR's contribution to conservation in America.
2. Students gain skill in mapping with special attention to designating a variety of items describes in the map key.
3. Students explore a variety of viewpoints regarding the use and preservation of resources.
4. Students build an argument and support that argument in class presentations.

For more information explore the following TRA website pages: Biography, Time Line, TR's Conservation Legacy, and Quotations.

Lesson 3 Activities:

Make A Map (Option A):
In order to give students a visual tool illustrating TR's achievements in conservation, provide each student with a map of the US (including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico). Using the map key below, have each student fill in the states with letters representing lands/projects set aside by TR.

Where projects were located
on the boundaries of two states,
the site is listed in the first state.

Make an Edible Map (Option B):
For added fun, create an edible map. Assign students to teams. Each team uses sugar cookie dough and the outline of one of the states listed above (determine a good, estimated uniform size). Before baking, fill in the selected state with M&M's to designate lands/projects set aside by TR: yellow for Federal Bird Preserves; green for National Forests; brown for National Game Preserves; red for National Monuments; orange for National Parks; blue for Reclamation Projects.
When placed side by side to create a full map including the entire west plus Puerto Rico, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Arkansas and Louisiana, students will get a dramatic (and delightful) image of Roosevelt's conservation achievements and a visual marker for 230 million acres. As each team places their state on the map, ask them to provide a Roosevelt quote on conservation. The giant cookie map can be shared with other students in the school, along with a class lunchtime presentation on TR and conservation.

Rethinking the American West
While many historians discuss the effect of technology (industrialization) and population shifts (urbanization) on America at the dawn of the 20th century, less attention has been given to the effects of technology and population on the American West. But as a former rancher and active hunter, Theodore Roosevelt saw first-hand the effects of humanity on the changing face of the American West. Manifest Destiny was a reality and historians bemoaned the death of the frontier. In building his conservation policies, Roosevelt kept before him an American frontier ideal while addressing the realities of the changing face of the west. What TR witnessed was the over-cutting of forests, over-grazing by herds, efforts to control water sources, the dramatic decrease in animal populations (dramatically personified by the near-extinction of the buffalo), mounting violence between open-range proponents vs. ranchers who wanted to fence their property, the movement of Indian populations onto reservations, the expansion of mining and timber industries, and the rapid expansion of railroads bringing to an end the dramatic cattle drives of the past and building or destroying communities with the selection of railroad routes.
Ask students to select a position

1. a western rancher concerned with water rights, free-range grazing, and the potential with the coming of the railroad of selling logging or mineral rights or
2. a conservationist who supports Roosevelt's goals for reclamation and setting aside extensive public lands for future generations.

Students should carefully build a case to support their argument. Select several student "ranchers" and several student "conservationists" to reenter the early twentieth century by debating the issue of land use. Students may wish to dress in period costumes. Allow the rest of the class to judge the presentations.

Meeting National Standards:

History Standard 2-A:
Evaluate the Roosevelt Administration's foreign policies through evaluation of the implementation of a decision.
History Standard 2-C:
Evaluate Wilson's Fourteen Points…and the national debate over treaty ratification and the League of Nations.
Historical Thinking Standard 3 - Historical Analysis:
Compare TR's idea for a League of Peace with Wilson's League of Nations and explore reasons why TR supporters rejected Wilson's League.

Learning Objectives:

1. Students will explore how TR's actions in international affairs reflect both points in his famous admonition to "Speak softly and carry a big stick"?
   
2. Students will evaluate one of TR's efforts to solve international disputes through mediation.
   
3. Students analyze reasons for political shifts in support or opposition to a program.

Introduction:
When discussing Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy, most people refer to his famous admonition to "Speak softly and carry a big stick," with most of the emphasis on the latter part of this famous quote. TR's idealization of the warrior, his enthusiasm as a big game hunter, and many of his own quotes provide fodder for the image of a leader itching for battle. However, an examination of his Presidential record in international relations provides an interesting picture of a world leader who, though prepared for battle at any time, eagerly but without fanfare, exhausted every peaceful route in solving international crises. Roosevelt set the standard for a man with power using that power in a thoughtful and careful manner. While building up the US Navy as his "Big Stick" he mediated the end of the Russo-Japanese War that threatened the delicate balance of power, and became the first American to win the Nobel Peace Prize. (He is the only American to hold both the Nobel Peace Prize and the Congressional Medal of Honor). He moved America from its traditional isolationism and made the nation an active and respected player on the international stage, mediating disputes over Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Morocco, and the Alaskan boundary issue. He raised the bar for world leaders, becoming the first head of state to submit a dispute to the Court of Arbitration at The Hague. A firm believer in international cooperation, he was again the first head of state to seek the convening of the Second Hague Conference. And he carried with him the desire to raise the prestige of others as he sought and won for Latin American equal status with the rest of the world and won adoption for the Drago Doctrine that forbade nations from using force in collecting foreign debts. At his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910, Roosevelt promoted the creation of an international League of Peace to "not only keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force, if necessary, its being broken by others." TR's vision of a League of Peace was presented to the world almost a decade before Woodrow Wilson's famous Fourteen Points and the League of Nations included in the Versailles Treaty of 1919.

Lesson 4 Activities:

Analysis of a Peace Process:
Ask students to select one of the following:

• Venezuela Crisis
  
• Dominican Republic Dispute
  
• Morocco Dispute
  
• The Russo-Japanese War
  
• Use of the Court of Arbitration at The Hague
  
• The Second Hague Conference

Divide students into teams. Ask the students to analyze their selected topic and create a chart, noting the crisis to be addressed, the steps TR took in meeting the crisis, whose counsel he sought in working through the crisis, how he used or avoided the press in working through the crisis, and how he related to and dealt with other world leaders in seeking an ending to the crisis. By placing these charts side by side, students see a picture of a new kind of world leader with an awareness of world/political history, an appreciation for the political skills and leadership positions of others, and an awareness of the uses for a powerful press as he sought peaceful ends to events which, in the past, had always resulted in wars.