Lesson Title:
Understanding Surplus

Grade Level:
Grade Six Lesson 5

History-Social Science Standard:
6.2.2   Students trace the development of agriculture techniques that permitted the production of economic surplus and the emergence of cities as centers of culture and power.

Correlation to K-8 California Adopted Textbooks:
Houghton Mifflin Social Studies, A Message of Ancient Days, pp. 132; 142-143.

Setting the Context:
As farming techniques advanced through time, surplus goods became available for trade or for profit.  This surplus allowed farmers to trade for necessities and luxuries they couldn’t produce.  The greater yields required additional workers in order to harvest the crops in an efficient, productive manner.  Farmers hired workers who migrated from other areas in order to secure employment.

Focus Question:
What is a surplus?
Who is involved in the production/harvest of this surplus?

Expected Learning Outcomes:
Students will explain the concept of surplus and its relationship to economic profit.

Assessment:
Students will demonstrate an understanding of the concept of surplus by completing the flow chart on page 143 of the textbook.

Key Concepts:
Surplus and its impact on Migrant Farm Workers.

Essential Vocabulary:
surplus
migrant farm worker
supply/demand
technology
trade
profit
scarcity.

Primary Sources:
Textbook, photos from the CDE Web site, and first account from workers on the CDE Web site.

Visuals:
Flow chart, page 143, 
Internet: CDE Web site (farm worker interview video), transcripts (look under documents)

Procedure

Motivation:
What do you do when you have too much of something?  Pretend that you have a small garden where you are growing tomatoes.  The weather has been warm, you have tended your garden well providing water and fertilizers, and you have kept all of the weeds away.  Your garden is a whopping success!  You have given tomatoes to your relatives, neighbors, and friends, and you still have so many tomatoes.  What are you going to do with them?  You are a great success, shouldn't you be rewarded? 

Making Connections:
As farming techniques improved, farmers grew more produce than they could use, creating a surplus.  A surplus meant success, more money for growers, but not everyone shared in the success, more money - a surplus.  In reference to surplus, César E. Chávez said, "Farm workers are involved in the planting and the cultivation and the harvesting of the greatest abundance [surplus] of food known in this society.  They bring in so much food to feed you and me and the whole country and enough food to export to other places.  The ironic thing and the tragic thing is that after they make this tremendous contribution, they don't have any money or any food left for themselves." 

Vocabulary Activities:
Students continue to list and define teacher given vocabulary in their vocabulary journals.  (Refer to farming lesson)

Guided Instruction:
In our wonderful, successful tomato garden you did all the work in the garden and you owned the land, you were both grower and farm worker.  But in the real world of agriculture, the grower and the farm worker are not the same and that is the problem.  Let us first review surplus and then discuss the plight of the farm worker.

Students/teacher read and discuss text pages 132-143 and make connections to the key concept:  Surplus and its impact on farm workers.  Teacher assigns students to complete the flow chart from page 143.  Students should work independently or in small groups.

To review the plight of the farm worker, watch or read one of the following:  The Fight in the Fields: César Chávez and the Farm Worker Movement; (Fighting for Our Lives, The United Farm Workers' 1973 Grape Strike); Ferriss, Susan and Sandoval, Richard.  The Fight in the Fields, César Chávez and the Farmworkers Movement (Chapter 6: Blood in the Fields)

Discuss the video or reading and list the problems of the farm workers.

Integrating Language:
Students will listen to teacher’s introduction, read textbook, participate in classroom discussions, and complete a flow chart, interview a farm worker, or grower.

Enrichment:
Interview a grower or a farm worker and share your interview with the class.  Use the following guidelines for your interview:

1)	Arranging the interview:  The key is to establish rapport with the potential interviewee.

2)	Setting up the location of the interview:  Choose as quiet a location as possible.

3)	The interview process:  An oral history interview is not a general dialogue.  The purpose of the interview is to listen to what the interviewee has to say and to stimulate the narrative with understanding comments and intelligent questions.  Ask open-ended questions first, waiting to see where they lead.

4)	Possible themes:  family, migration, childhood, job history, education, and unions.