World History · Week 13 · Imperialism and Independence
Why Empires Expanded
Students analyze how markets, resources, national rivalry, and beliefs of superiority drove the new imperialism and examine assumptions about who is better than whom.
- Students will
- Students explain how economic, strategic, and moral motives, including Social Darwinism and the missionary impulse, drove nineteenth century imperialism, and evaluate how beliefs of superiority justified it.
- SEL skill
- Notice assumptions about who is better and explain how they affected other people
- What it looks like
- Students notice assumptions about who is better than whom, in history or an imagined person, and recognize how those beliefs affected the people who were colonized.
- Content focus
- Motives behind the new imperialism
- Format
- Think write pair share
Self-awareness
Social awareness means understanding the perspectives of others, including people from different backgrounds, and recognizing how beliefs and actions affect them. More self-awareness activities
What you get
A teacher guide with what to say, step by step, plus student pages and a supports page for students with diverse learning needs, including those with IEPs. Print or Project it, or assign it in Google Forms and Google Docs for Google Classroom. Your first 10 activities are free.
Standards
- 10.4.1: CA History Social Science Content Standard, Grade 10: World History, Culture, and Geography: The Modern World (standard 10.4, item 1)
- CA HSS Analysis Skill: HI1 Show the connections between particular historical events and larger social, economic, and political trends. (Historical Interpretation)
- C3 Framework (national): D2.His.14.9-12 Analyze multiple and complex causes and effects of events in the past.
- Literacy in history: RH.9-10.3 Analyze a series of events and determine whether earlier events caused later ones.
Fits these textbook chapters
- Modern World History, The Age of Imperialism
- Modern World History, Modernization in Japan
- History Alive! World Connections, Lesson 17: Imperialism Throughout the World
Textbook names are used only to help you find activities that fit what you teach. RoseThread Connect is not affiliated with these publishers.
More self-awareness activities for World History
- Becoming a Historian Self-awarenessStudents meet ancient thinkers in Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem who asked what a person owes others, then name the questions and curiosity they bring to history as young historians.
- Ideas That Start Revolutions Self-awarenessStudents connect the ideas of Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Jefferson, and Bolívar to the revolutions they inspired and name the beliefs that drive their own choices.
- Mapping Colonial Rule Self-awarenessStudents study maps of Africa and Asia before and after colonial rule and name the feelings that arise when borders are drawn by outsiders.
- A Lost Generation Makes Art Self-awarenessStudents explore how writers and artists after the war expressed grief and disillusionment and use a quick sketch or poem to name a feeling of their own.
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RoseThread Connect activities are drafted with the help of AI and shaped by educators. Students never have to share anything personal. Our five SEL skills are informed by CASEL's SEL Framework; RoseThread Learning is not affiliated with or endorsed by CASEL.