Lesson Plan - The Mystery of America’s Lost City

About the Article

Learning Objective

Students will integrate information from an article, images, and a map to learn about the first city in what would become the United States.

Curriculum Connections

• Terrain and Bodies of Water

• Indigenous Peoples

• Push and Pull Factors

• Archaeology and Artifacts

• Illinois and Missouri

Key Skills

Social Studies:

• Understand the human story across time

• Consider the development of cultures across time and place

• Study the causes, patterns, and effects of human settlement and migration

English Language Arts:

• Learn and use domain-specific vocabulary

• Determine an author’s purpose

• Integrate information presented in multiple formats

Key CCSS Standards

RH.6-8.1, RH.6-8.2, RH.6-8.4, RH.6-8.7, WHST.6-8.4, RI.6-8.1, RI.6-8.2, RI.6-8.4, RI.6-8.7, W.6-8.4, SL.6-8.1

Essential Questions

  • Why do people choose to live in particular places?
  • What was life like hundreds of years ago in the Americas?
  • What can artifacts reveal about Indigenous cultures?

1. Preparing to Read

Engage and Build Vocabulary

Ask students to respond to this prompt: Look at the photograph of Monks Mound today and the illustration of the mound and the city around it. What do you notice about the images? What do you wonder? Discuss responses. Then use the Skill Builder Words to Know to preteach domain-specific terms from the article.

2. Reading and Discussing

Read the Article

Read the article aloud or have students read it independently or in pairs. As students read, direct them to underline, highlight, or jot down details that relate to the question at the beginning of the article on page 7.

Answer Close-Reading Questions

Have students write their responses, or use the Close-Reading Questions to guide a discussion.

• What was Cahokia? Why did people settle there? (Central Ideas)
Cahokia was the first city in what would become the United States. Around 1200 A.D., it had a population of more than 20,000 Indigenous people who built many large mounds. People settled there because it had plenty of rain and good soil for growing corn and other food. Being near the junction of the Missouri, Mississippi, and Illinois rivers also enabled travel for trading.

• Why do experts think the metropolis was abandoned by the mid-1300s? (Key Details)
Experts aren’t sure but believe there may have been a number of reasons, including a drying climate emptying stores of corn, an unpopular leader, or disease.

• What do the artifacts in the sidebar “Treasures They Left Behind” reveal about Cahokians? (Text Features)
The Birdman Tablet is thought to represent heaven, earth, and the underworld, which reveals that Cahokians believed in life after death. The stones for chunkey show that residents enjoyed playing games, and the statue shows that they valued women’s ability to create new life.

3. Skill Building

Analyze Physical Maps

Have students answer the questions about the map on page 9. Review answers. Use the Physical Map lesson from our Map Skills Boot Camp for more practice. The full curriculum is at junior.scholastic.com/mapskills.

Assess Comprehension

Assign the 10-question Know the News quiz, available in PDF and interactive forms. You can also use Quiz Wizard to assess comprehension of this article and three others from the issue.

Differentiate and Customize

For Struggling Readers: Use the lower-level version of the article at junior.scholastlc.com. Students can adjust the reading level using the toolbar on the left side of the article’s webpage. Or you can download a printer-friendly PDF.

For Social and Life Skills: Have students respond to this prompt: What treasures might you leave behind? List a few artifacts from your life and explain what they might tell an archaeologist about you and your culture.

Printable Lesson Plan

Interactive Slide Deck

Text-to-Speech