Literature Links: Predicting & Inferring About Woman Suffrage

Student Free Response

This lesson uses the Predict and Infer strategy; both the lesson and the strategy were created by elementary teacher and adjunct university instructor Kimberly Heckart, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Focus Question

  • What did women do to get the right to vote?

Content Goal
  • Students build background knowledge of what it was like to be a suffragist and discover how women persistently fought for over 100 years until they were granted the right to vote.
Primary Sources
Susan B. AnthonySusan B. Anthony Police arrest picketsPolice arrest pickets Penn[sylvania] on the picket line--1917Penn[sylvania] on the picket line–1917
Miss [Lucy] Burns in Occoquan WorkhouseMiss [Lucy] Burns in Occoquan Workhouse Suffragists Protest Woodrow Wilson's Opposition to Woman SuffrageSuffragists Protest Woodrow Wilson’s Opposition to Woman Suffrage Alice Paul sews a star onto the NWP Ratification FlagAlice Paul sews a star onto the NWP Ratification Flag
Anita Pollitzer and Alice Paul at Susan B. Anthony gravesiteAnita Pollitzer and Alice Paul at Susan B. Anthony gravesite Delegations from Womans' clubs, assemble in first national suffrage paradeDelegations from Womans’ clubs, assemble first national suffrage parade Nation-wide demonstrations held in support of Federal AmendmentNation-wide demonstrations held in support of Federal Amendment
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady StantonSusan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton Colorado's ratification of suffrage amendmentColorado’s ratification of suffrage amendment Route of Envoys Sent from East by the Congressional Union for Woman's SuffrageRoute of Envoys Sent from East by the Congressional Union for Woman’s Suffrage

Joint Resolution of Congress proposing a constitutional amendment extending the right of suffrage to women May 19, 1919 from National Archives

Literature
Instructions
Procedure
  • Follow the procedure outlined in Teaching Now: Predicting & Inferring with Primary Sources & Literature except that you will tell students they will be analyzing a primary source map and text along with the primary source images.
  • If you wish to scaffold the primary source analysis part of the lesson, you may choose to analyze the map and the text as a class.
Free Response Stopping Points

The Ballot Box Battle

  • Page 5 connection: “all that was done by men”
  • Page 8 connection: importance of her brother
  • Page 11 connection: going to school with all boys/award
  • Page 18 connection: Mrs. Stanton goes to town to vote
  • Page 24 connection: Cordelia being mocked by boys
  • Page 26 connection: jumping over the fence symbol of overcoming voting rights
  • Page 25 connection: 19th Amendment and author’s research

Susan B. Anthony: Fighter for Women’s Rights

  • Page 5 connection: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women’s rights
  • Page 10 connection: father’s mill, teacher, boarding house, not getting married because didn’t want to lose freedom
  • Page 16 connection: Underground Railroad, Women’s Rights Convention
  • Page 21 connection: traveling to give speeches for women’s rights)
  • Page 25 connection: slavery, 15th Amendment
  • Page 29 connection: Declaration of Independence, Declaration of Rights for Women
  • Page 30 connection: died before ever voting

A Time For Courage: The Suffragette Diary

  • Page 27
  • Page 40
  • Page 47
  • Page 56
  • Page 73
  • Page 90
  • Page 98
  • Page 106
  • Page 119
  • Page 127
  • Page 131
  • Page 158
  • Page 175
  • Page 202
Samples of Student Work
Free Responses
Final Writing