D2.Civ.6.6-8: How Political, Civil and Economic Organizations Shape People's Lives
In plain English: D2.Civ.6.6-8 is the C3 Framework civics indicator for grades 6-8 that asks students to describe the roles of political, civil and economic organizations in shaping people's lives. Students learn to tell governments and parties, volunteer and nonprofit groups, and businesses, unions and cooperatives apart, and to describe how each affects daily life, then and now.
Describe the roles of political, civil, and economic organizations in shaping people's lives.
C3 Framework for Social Studies (NCSS) · Dimension 2: Applying Disciplinary Concepts and Tools · Discipline: Civics · Civic and Political Institutions · Official standard
D2.Civ.6.6-8 asks students to describe the roles of political, civil and economic organizations in shaping people's lives. Political organizations make or influence government decisions; civil organizations are voluntary groups that people join to help others or share an interest; economic organizations produce and sell goods and services or represent workers and businesses (Diagram 1). Each shapes daily life in its own way (Diagram 2).
Students read Clara Barton's account of Red Cross relief after the Johnstown Flood of 1889 (Source 1), the historian Solon J. Buck on the Grange, a national organization of farm families (Source 2), and an invented scenario about one student's week today (Source 3). The activities ask students to classify organizations, trace their effects and log the organizations in their own day.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
Define political, civil and economic organizations and give an example of each
Describe how a political organization shapes people's lives through rules and services
Describe how a civil organization shapes people's lives through voluntary help and belonging
Describe how an economic organization shapes people's lives through jobs, prices and goods
Explain, with evidence from a source, how one organization can play more than one role
Prior Knowledge Required
Students should already be comfortable with:
Citing evidence from primary and secondary sources RH.6-8.1
Knowing that governments in the United States work at the local, state and national levels D2.Civ.5.6-8
Basic background: in the late 1800s most Americans lived on farms or in small towns, and railroads carried crops to market
"Think about this morning, from the moment you woke up until you got to class. List every group or organization that had something to do with your morning, even in a small way. Who made the rules? Who made or sold the things you used?"
Take answers and write them on the board without sorting them: the bus company or school district, the store that sold the cereal, the power company, the city that fixed the road, a club meeting after school. Tell students that an organization is a group of people who work together under shared rules toward a shared goal. D2.Civ.6.6-8 asks them to describe how three kinds of organizations, political, civil and economic, shape people's lives. Leave the list up for Direct Instruction.
Direct Instruction15-20 minutes
Part 1: Three kinds of organizations. Show Diagram 1. Political organizations make or try to influence government decisions: governments themselves (a city council, a state legislature), political parties and interest groups. Civil organizations are voluntary, usually nonprofit groups that people join to help others or to share an interest: relief groups, youth leagues, clubs, religious congregations, food banks. A nonprofit is an organization that does not exist to make money for owners. Economic organizations produce, buy or sell goods and services, or represent workers and businesses: companies, banks, labor unions and cooperatives. A labor union is an organization of workers that bargains with an employer about pay and working conditions. A cooperative is a business owned by the people who use it.
Part 2: How they shape lives. Show Diagram 2. Political organizations shape lives with rules backed by law and with public services paid for by taxes. Civil organizations shape lives with help, belonging and skills, but they cannot force anyone to join or pay. Economic organizations shape lives through jobs, wages, prices and the goods people can buy. Sort the warm-up list together into the three types. Then work these examples.
Classifying: three organizations in one town
Classify a county board of supervisors, a Little League baseball team and a bakery, and give one way each shapes a family's life.
Result: The county board is political: it is part of government, and it sets property taxes and decides which county roads get repaired. The Little League team is civil: families join by choice, and it gives children exercise, friends and a team to belong to. The bakery is economic: it sells bread at a price and pays wages to the people it hires.
Civil compared with political: what each can require
A town floods. The town government and a volunteer relief group both want to help. What can the government require that the relief group cannot?
Result: The government can order people to leave a dangerous area, close roads and collect taxes to pay for repairs, because its rules are backed by law. A relief group depends on volunteers and donations and cannot order anyone to do anything. It can move quickly, though, and go where people need help most. The two often work side by side.
Economic: when a big employer closes
Invented example: a factory employs 400 of the 5,000 workers in a small town and announces that it will close. What share of the town's jobs is that, and how could the closing shape lives beyond the factory's own workers?
Result: 400 / 5,000 = 0.08, so 8% of the town's jobs. Families of those workers lose income, so they spend less at local shops and restaurants, which may cut hours too. The town collects less in taxes. One economic organization's decision reaches far past its own walls.
Political: a rule that changes daily life
A city council passes an ordinance (a city law) that closes a downtown street to cars on Saturday mornings for a farmers' market. Who is affected, and how?
Result: Drivers must take another route; shoppers get a safe place to walk; farmers and food sellers gain customers; a few shop owners on the street may lose drivers who used to stop. A political organization's decision helps some people and costs others, which is why citizens attend council meetings to speak for or against such rules.
Teacher tip. Many organizations play more than one role. A labor union is an economic organization, and it may also act politically by supporting candidates or laws. A religious congregation is a civil organization when it runs a food pantry. Students should name the main role and then describe any others, using evidence.
Guided Practice15 minutes
A civil organization in a disaster. On May 31, 1889, a dam above Johnstown, Pennsylvania, gave way, and a wall of water destroyed much of the town; more than 2,200 people died. Clara Barton, who had founded the American Red Cross in 1881, arrived with a few helpers within a week and stayed five months. Read Source 1 aloud with the class. Glossary: "stenographer" (a clerk who writes fast in shorthand), "dispatches" (messages), "militia" (citizen soldiers called up by a state), "nucleus" (the center or start of something), "imperative" (absolutely necessary), "slackened" (slowed down).
1Not a business house or bank left, the safes all in the bottom of the river; our little pocketbook was useless, there was nothing to buy, and it would not bring back the dead. With the shelter of the tents of the Philadelphia Red Cross, that joined us en route with supplies, when we could find a cleared place to spread, or soil to hold them, with a dry-goods box for a desk, our stenographer commenced to rescue the first dispatches of any description that entered that desolate city. The disturbed rivers lapped wearily back and forth, the people, dazed and dumb, dug in the muddy banks for their dead. Hastings with his little army of militia kept order.
2Soon supplies commenced to pour in from everywhere, to be received, sheltered as best they could be from the incessant rain, and distributed by human hands, for it was three weeks before even a cart could pass the streets.
[...]
3We had been early requested by official resolution of the Finance Committee of the City of Johnstown to aid them in the erection of houses. We accepted the invitation, and at the same time proposed to aid in furnishing the nucleus of a household for the home which should in any way be made up. This aid seemed imperative, as nothing was left for them to commence living with, neither beds, chairs, tables, nor cooking utensils of any kind; and there were few if any stores open, and no furniture in town.
4Of this labor we had our share. Six buildings of one hundred feet by fifty, later known as "Red Cross Hotels," were quickly put up to shelter the people, furnished, supplied, and kept like hotels, free of all cost to them, while others were built by the general committee. Three thousand of the latter were erected, and the Red Cross furnished every one with substantial, newly purchased furniture, ready for occupancy. [...] The three thousand houses thus furnished each accommodated two families.
[...]
5When the contributions slackened or ceased, and more material was needed, we purchased of the same firms which had contributed, keeping our stock good until all applications were filled. The record on our books showed that over twenty-five thousand persons had been directly served by us. They had received our help independently and without begging. No child has learned to beg at the doors of the Red Cross.
Clara Barton, A Story of the Red Cross: Glimpses of Field Work, "The Johnstown Flood" (Source 1: relief work in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, 1889) (1904). Public domain (published 1904). Source text.
Keeping order. Prompt: which sentence in paragraph 1 names a political organization, and what was its role? Teacher note: "Hastings with his little army of militia kept order." Daniel Hastings commanded Pennsylvania's militia, so the state government's role was safety, while the Red Cross handled relief.
Getting supplies to people. Prompt: paragraph 2 says supplies poured in. Why was simply having supplies not enough? Teacher note: everything had to be "distributed by human hands, for it was three weeks before even a cart could pass the streets." An organization was needed to receive, store and hand out goods.
Counting families. Prompt: paragraph 4 says each of the three thousand houses held two families. How many families is that? Teacher note: 3,000 x 2 = 6,000 families, which helps explain how Barton's records could reach more than twenty-five thousand people in all.
Label the organizations. Pairs underline every organization Source 1 names and label it P, C or E on their copy. Collect one list per pair to check against the quiz.
Independent Practice15 minutes
One organization, several roles. Context note: the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, founded in 1867, was an organization of farm families; members were called Patrons. In the 1870s, farmers said railroads charged unfair prices to carry their crops, and in several Midwestern states Grange members and their allies won laws, called Granger laws, to limit those prices. Glossary: "repealed" (canceled), "arbitration" (settling a disagreement with the help of a neutral person), "statutes" (laws), "retailing" (selling goods to customers), "stock" and "share" (parts of the ownership of a company, sold to raise money), "dividend" (a share of profits paid to owners). The Interstate Commerce Commission, created by Congress in 1887, was the first national agency to regulate railroads.
1In all the States but Illinois the Granger laws were repealed before they had been given a fair trial. The commissions remained in existence, however, although with merely advisory functions; and they sometimes did good service in the arbitration of disputes between shippers and railroads. Interest in the railroad problem died down for the time, but every one of the Granger States subsequently enacted for the regulation of railroad rates statutes which, although more scientific than the laws of the seventies, are the same in principle. The Granger laws thus paved the way not only for future and more enduring legislation in these States but also for similar legislation in most of the other States of the Union and even for the national regulation of railroads through the Interstate Commerce Commission.
[...]
2By 1876 the members of the National Grange had begun to study the problem of coöperation in retailing goods and had come to the conclusion that the so-called "Rochdale plan," a system worked out by an English association, was the most practicable for the coöperative store. The National Grange therefore recommended this type of organization. The stock of these stores was sold only to Patrons, at five dollars a share and in limited amounts; thus the stores were owned by a large number of stockholders, all of whom had equal voice in the management of the company. The stores sold goods at ordinary rates, and then at the end of the year, after paying a small dividend on the stock, divided their profits among the purchasers, according to the amounts purchased. This plan eliminated the violent competition which occurred when a store attempted to sell goods at cost, and at the same time saved the purchaser quite as much. [...]
Solon J. Buck, The Agrarian Crusade: A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics, chapters III and IV (Source 2: what the Grange did) (1920). Public domain (published 1920). Source text.
Students answer on their own: (1) What kind of role does paragraph 1 describe: political, civil or economic? Quote the words that show it. (2) What kind of role does paragraph 2 describe? Quote the words that show it. (3) Explain in two sentences how one of these roles shaped farm families' lives. Collect the answers; Quiz questions 6-10 and 14 use Source 2.
Closure10 minutes
Today's organizations. Introduce Source 3, an invented scenario about a seventh grader's week, for the quiz and the homework. Students read it once on their own.
1Invented scenario, written for this page. Jordan is in seventh grade in a mid-sized town. On Monday, Jordan rides the school bus on a route set by the elected school board, past a new crosswalk that the city council paid for last spring. Jordan's cousin, who just turned eighteen, stops at a table outside the library where volunteers from a local political party are helping people register to vote. Volunteers from the other major party ran a table in the same spot the week before.
2On Tuesday, Jordan's mother starts her shift at a food-packaging plant. Her hourly wage, her break times and her health insurance are set by a contract between the company and the workers' labor union, which the members approved by a vote. Jordan's father works at a hardware store and keeps the family's savings at a credit union, which works like a bank but is owned by its members.
3On Wednesday and Saturday, Jordan plays in a youth soccer league run by parent volunteers. Every coach must take a safety course, and league rules say that every player gets at least half of each game on the field. On Thursday, Jordan's class collects canned food for the town food bank, a nonprofit group that serves about 300 families a month.
4On Friday, a new state law takes effect that requires bike riders under 16 to wear helmets, so Jordan's grandmother buys a helmet at a sporting-goods store. On Sunday, the family goes to a potluck dinner held by their neighborhood association to welcome new families to the street.
SVHS (invented scenario written for this page), A Week in Jordan's Life (Source 3: invented scenario). Original passage written for this page.
Exit ticket: Name one organization from the 1880s (Sources 1 and 2) and one from Source 3 that play a similar role, and explain the similarity in one sentence.
Teacher note on the sources: Sources 1 and 2 are quoted exactly as published in 1904 and 1920. Other parts of Barton's chapter, not printed here, use expressions of her time that compare her reception to an "Oriental mission"; they are not needed for the lesson. Barton's figures for relief work come from her own records. Source 3 is invented, and its political party appears only as volunteers helping people register to vote; the lesson does not take sides between parties.
Differentiation Strategies
For Struggling Students
Give a three-color highlighter key (blue political, green civil, orange economic) for marking organizations in each source
Provide sentence frames: "___ is a ___ organization because ___. It shapes people's lives by ___."
Read Source 2 aloud and pause after each sentence to restate it in plain words
For Advanced Students
Research a civil organization in your community and describe how it works with a political and an economic organization
Compare the Rochdale plan in Source 2 with how a credit union shares its earnings with members today
Write a paragraph on whether a labor union is better described as an economic or a political organization, with evidence
Assessment Guidance
What to Look For
Strong answers classify an organization by its main purpose, describe a specific effect on people's lives and back it with a quotation or a detail from a source. Watch for three confusions: treating every large organization as political; calling a business "civil" because it gives to charity; and describing what an organization is without describing how it shapes lives.
02
Classroom Activities
3 Activities
1
Organization Card Sort
15 minPairs
Pairs sort 12 organization cards into political, civil and economic, then pick three cards, one of each type, and write one way each shapes a seventh grader's life.
The 12 Organization Cards
The U.S. Congress
A county library's Friends group that raises money for books
A grocery store chain
A state department of motor vehicles
A volunteer fire company
A teachers' union
A city parks department
A Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts troop
A bank
A group that runs ads urging voters to support a school tax
A local animal shelter run by a nonprofit
An online shopping company
Answer Key for the Teacher
Political: 1, 4, 7 (parts of government) and 10 (an interest group trying to influence a vote).
Civil: 2, 5, 8, 11 (voluntary, nonprofit groups).
Economic: 3, 9, 12 (businesses) and 6 (a union bargains over pay; it may also act politically, so accept "economic, with a political role" if explained).
Discussion Questions
Which card was hardest to sort? What would you need to know about it to be sure?
Which of the 12 organizations shapes your life the most? Defend your choice.
Modification for English Learners
Add a picture to each card and give the three category words with a one-line definition in English and the student's home language.
2
Then and Now Web
20 minGroups of 3
Groups make a web on chart paper with a family at the center: one side for a Johnstown family in 1889 (Source 1), the other for a farm family in the 1870s (Source 2). Each line to an organization is labeled with what the organization did for or to the family.
Steps
Find at least four organizations across Sources 1 and 2 and write each in a circle colored by type.
Label each connecting line with a verb phrase: "kept order," "sold goods," "passed a law."
Add one organization that would do the same job today, for example a modern disaster-relief group or a state agency.
Discussion Questions
Which type of organization shows up most in each web? Why might that be?
Which organizations in your webs worked together? What did each one bring?
Modification for a Shorter Class
Build one web for the whole class on the board, with each group adding one organization and one labeled line.
3
My Organization Log
15 minIndividual, then whole class
Each student lists, without names of people, every organization that touched one day of their life, sorts each by type, and records one effect. The class then totals the types on the board.
Log Columns
Time of day
Organization (a kind, not a person's name: "the grocery store," "the school district")
Type: P, C or E
How it shaped my day
Discussion Questions
Which type showed up most often in the class totals? Which shaped the most important parts of the day?
Did anyone list an organization that fit two types? Which ones?
Privacy Note
Students write kinds of organizations, not addresses or the names of family members or employers. Students may choose an imagined day instead of their own.
03
Diagrams & Visual Aids
2 diagrams
Diagram 1: Political, Civil and Economic Organizations
Three overlapping kinds of organizations. Political organizations make or influence government decisions; civil organizations are voluntary groups people join to help others or share an interest; economic organizations make, buy and sell goods and services or represent workers and businesses. The overlaps show organizations with more than one role, such as a labor union that also lobbies lawmakers.
Diagram 2: How Organizations Shape a Person's Life
Each kind of organization reaches people in its own ways: political organizations through rules, taxes and public services; civil organizations through help, belonging and skills; economic organizations through jobs, wages, prices and savings.
04
Homework Assignment
~30 min
D2.Civ.6.6-8 Homework: Organizations in Your Life and in History
Directions: Part 1 is about your own community; write kinds of organizations, not people's names. Part 2 uses Sources 1 and 2 in the lesson plan. Answer in complete sentences and show any arithmetic.
Part 1: Your Community (Problems 1-3)
List five organizations that affected you or your family this week. Label each political, civil or economic and give your reason in one sentence.
Choose one organization of each type from your list. For each, describe one specific way it shapes your life, using one of the effects in Diagram 2.
Find one organization in your community that plays more than one role, for example a union, a cooperative or a congregation that runs a food pantry. Describe each role.
Part 2: Organizations in History (Problems 4-6)
Invented example of the Rochdale plan in Source 2: after paying the stock dividend, a cooperative store has $1,200 of profit to return to its members, whose purchases for the year totaled $18,000. A family bought $450 of goods. How much does the family get back? Show your work.
Make a T-chart for Source 1: what could the Red Cross do for Johnstown that the state militia could not, and what could the militia do that the Red Cross could not? Give at least two entries on each side, with paragraph numbers.
Write a paragraph of 5-7 sentences answering: "In the 1870s, which role of the Grange made the biggest difference to farm families: its political role or its economic role?" Use evidence from both paragraphs of Source 2.
Rubric
Criterion
Full Credit (2 pts)
Partial Credit (1 pt)
No Credit (0 pts)
Classification
Every organization correctly labeled, with a reason
One or two labels missing a reason or incorrect
Three or more errors
Effects on Lives
Specific effects on people for each organization
General effects ("it helps people")
No effects described
Evidence and Math
Quotations with paragraph numbers; Problem 4 correct with work
Loose evidence or an arithmetic slip
No evidence; Problem 4 missing
Reasoning
Problem 6 makes a clear claim and supports it from both paragraphs
Claim with evidence from one paragraph
No claim
05
Quiz: 20 Questions
Interactive, with answers
Instructions
Questions 1-5, 15 and 19 use Source 1 (Clara Barton, 1904) in Guided Practice. Questions 6-10, 14, 16 and 17 use Source 2 (Solon J. Buck, 1920) in Independent Practice. Questions 11-13 and 18 use Source 3, the invented scenario in Closure. Question 20 uses all three. Your score updates as you answer, and Reset quiz clears everything.
Multiple choice: pick an option to check it. Short answer: write your answer, then reveal the model answer.
0 of 20 answered · 0 correct
Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 1, paragraph 3, why did Barton think help with furniture "seemed imperative"?
Answer: B
Barton writes that "nothing was left for them to commence living with, neither beds, chairs, tables, nor cooking utensils," and "there were few if any stores open, and no furniture in town." With the stores gone, families could not simply buy what they needed. Choice A adds a reason the source does not give. Choice C invents an order. Choice D is not in the passage.
Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which political organization asked the Red Cross to help build houses (Source 1, paragraph 3)?
Answer: A
Barton says the Red Cross "had been early requested by official resolution of the Finance Committee of the City of Johnstown." An official resolution by a city committee is a government action. Choice B is a civil organization, a branch of the Red Cross itself. Choices C and D are economic organizations, and neither made the request.
Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to Source 1, paragraph 4, what did the "Red Cross Hotels" give flood survivors?
Answer: C
Paragraph 4 says six large buildings were "put up to shelter the people, furnished, supplied, and kept like hotels, free of all cost to them." Choice B contradicts "free of all cost." Choices A and D are not in the paragraph.
Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 1, paragraph 5, what role did businesses ("firms") play in the relief work?
Answer: A
Barton writes, "When the contributions slackened or ceased, and more material was needed, we purchased of the same firms which had contributed." The firms were donors and then sellers. Choice B is the opposite of "the same firms which had contributed." Choice C contradicts paragraph 4, where the hotels were free. Choice D confuses firms with the militia in paragraph 1.
Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Barton ends Source 1 with "No child has learned to beg at the doors of the Red Cross." What does she want readers to understand?
Answer: B
The sentence before it says people "had received our help independently and without begging." Barton is describing how her organization helped: by filling families' needs without making them plead. Choice A reverses her meaning. Choices C and D are not supported by the passage.
Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice
What did the Granger laws in Source 2, paragraph 1, regulate?
Answer: C
Paragraph 1 describes laws "for the regulation of railroad rates" and disputes "between shippers and railroads." Choice A confuses the laws with the stores in paragraph 2. Choices B and D are not mentioned.
Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to Source 2, paragraph 1, what was a long-term result of the Granger laws, even though most were repealed?
Answer: B
Buck says the Granger laws "paved the way not only for future and more enduring legislation in these States but also for similar legislation in most of the other States of the Union and even for the national regulation of railroads through the Interstate Commerce Commission." Choices A, C and D are not in the source.
Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Under the Rochdale plan in Source 2, paragraph 2, who owned the cooperative stores?
Answer: D
Stock "was sold only to Patrons, at five dollars a share and in limited amounts; thus the stores were owned by a large number of stockholders, all of whom had equal voice in the management." Choice A is the kind of ownership the plan avoided. Choices B and C are other organizations named in the lesson, not owners of the stores.
Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Under the Rochdale plan, how were most of a store's profits shared at the end of the year?
Answer: A
Buck says the stores, "after paying a small dividend on the stock, divided their profits among the purchasers, according to the amounts purchased." A family that bought more got more back. Choice B ignores "according to the amounts purchased." Choices C and D are not in the passage.
Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Invented example: a Rochdale store has $600 of profit to return after paying its dividend. Its 24 member families bought $12,000 of goods in all, and the Lee family bought $300. Under the plan, how much do the Lees get back?
Answer: B
The Lees made 300 / 12,000 = 1/40 of all purchases, so they get 1/40 of $600, which is $15. Choice C, $25, splits the $600 equally among 24 families (600 / 24), ignoring "according to the amounts purchased." Choice A, $5, is the price of one share of stock. Choice D, $300, is what the Lees spent, not what they get back.
Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which organization in Source 3 is an economic organization?
Answer: D
A credit union works like a bank but is owned by its members: it keeps savings and makes loans, which is economic activity. Choice A is political, a part of local government. Choices B and C are civil organizations that people join by choice.
Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 3, where does the rule that Jordan's grandmother follows on Friday come from?
Answer: C
The helmet rule is "a new state law," made by the state legislature, a political organization; it binds everyone it covers. Choice A sells the helmet but did not make the rule. Choice B and Choice D are civil organizations; the soccer league has its own rules, but they bind only its players and coaches.
Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 3, which organization decides that every player gets at least half of each game on the field?
Answer: D
"League rules say that every player gets at least half of each game on the field." A civil organization can make rules for the people who choose to join it. Choices A and C are political organizations that do not run the league. Choice B is the union at the packaging plant.
Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Based on Source 2 and its context note, which statement best describes the Grange?
Answer: C
The Grange was an organization of farm families that pushed for the Granger laws (a political role, paragraph 1) and recommended member-owned stores (an economic role, paragraph 2). Choices A and B each name only one role. Choice D is wrong: the laws were passed by state legislatures, but the Grange itself was a private organization of farmers.
Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer
Barton writes that her "little pocketbook was useless" (Source 1, paragraph 1). What does this show about the role economic organizations normally play in people's lives?
Model answer: Normally, people use money to buy food, clothing and furniture from businesses, and keep it safe in banks. In Johnstown "Not a business house or bank left" and "there was nothing to buy," so money alone could not meet anyone's needs. The flood shows how much daily life depends on economic organizations being open and working. Rubric: 2 points for explaining the normal role with evidence from the paragraph; 1 point for a correct but general answer.
Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer
Explain how the Granger laws in Source 2 show farmers using political action to shape their lives.
Model answer: Farmers in the Grange believed railroad rates were unfair, so they worked through state legislatures to pass laws "for the regulation of railroad rates." Even though most were repealed, the laws "paved the way" for later state laws and for national regulation through the Interstate Commerce Commission, which affected the prices farmers paid to ship crops for decades. Rubric: 2 points for the political route and its effect on farmers with evidence; 1 point for one of these.
Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer
From a Grange member's point of view, how was shopping at a Rochdale store different from shopping at an ordinary store?
Model answer: At a Rochdale store the member was also an owner, with an "equal voice in the management," and at the end of the year got back part of the profits "according to the amounts purchased." At an ordinary store the shopper paid the price and the owner kept the profit. Prices were "ordinary rates" in both, so the saving came at the end of the year. Rubric: 2 points for two accurate differences with evidence; 1 point for one.
Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer
In Source 3, describe how two different organizations shape Jordan's mother's workday.
Model answer: The food-packaging company, an economic organization, employs her and runs the plant where she works her shift. The labor union, also economic, bargained the contract that sets "her hourly wage, her break times and her health insurance," which the members approved by a vote. Rubric: 1 point for each organization with a specific effect from the source.
Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer
Why might Barton's Red Cross have bought supplies "of the same firms which had contributed" instead of from any seller (Source 1, paragraph 5)? Give one reason, and explain how it connects civil and economic organizations.
Model answer: Buying from firms that had given for free was a way to thank them and to keep good relations, and those firms already knew what was needed and could send it quickly. The civil organization (the Red Cross) depended on economic organizations both for gifts and for goods it could buy, and its spending in turn helped those businesses. Rubric: 1 point for a reasonable reason; 1 point for explaining the link between the two types.
Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer
Choose one political, one civil and one economic organization from Sources 1-3. For each, write one sentence on how it shaped people's lives. Then explain which of the three you think shaped lives the most, and why.
Model answer: The state militia kept order in Johnstown after the flood (Source 1). The Red Cross sheltered survivors in buildings "free of all cost to them" (Source 1). The Rochdale stores returned part of their profits to farm families "according to the amounts purchased" (Source 2). The Red Cross shaped lives the most in this set because it gave thousands of people a home and furniture when nothing else was left. Other choices are acceptable if supported. Rubric: 1 point for each organization with an accurate effect; 1 point for a supported judgment.
0 of 20 answered · 0 correct
06
Frequently Asked Questions
10 Questions
What does D2.Civ.6.6-8 mean?
D2.Civ.6.6-8 asks middle school students to describe how three kinds of organizations, political, civil and economic, shape people's lives. The full text is "Describe the roles of political, civil, and economic organizations in shaping people's lives." It belongs to the Civic and Political Institutions part of the C3 Framework's civics standards.
What is the difference between a political and a civil organization?
A political organization makes or tries to influence government decisions; a civil organization is a voluntary group people join to help others or share an interest. A city council and a political party are political; a scout troop, a food bank and a relief group are civil. Civil organizations cannot make laws or collect taxes.
Is a labor union an economic or a political organization?
Mainly economic: a union bargains with employers over wages, hours and working conditions. Many unions also act politically by supporting candidates or laws, so a full answer names the main role and the second one. Businesses, banks and cooperatives are other examples of economic organizations.
What is a civil society organization?
It is a group outside government and outside business that people join by choice, such as a charity, a club, a youth league, a religious congregation or a neighborhood association. In D2.Civ.6.6-8 these are the "civil" organizations. Many depend on volunteers and donations.
Why use the Red Cross and the Grange to teach D2.Civ.6.6-8?
Both are well documented and show clear effects on people's lives. Clara Barton's account of Johnstown shows a civil organization working beside a city committee, the state militia and businesses. Buck's history of the Grange shows farm families organizing to change their own conditions in the 1870s.
How is D2.Civ.6.6-8 different from D2.Civ.6.9-12?
The grades 6-8 indicator asks students to describe the roles of each kind of organization. The grades 9-12 indicator asks them to critique the relationships among governments, civil societies and economic markets: how they depend on, limit and compete with each other. Describing roles in middle school is the groundwork for that critique.
How does D2.Civ.6.6-8 connect to economics standards?
It overlaps with D2.Eco.9.6-8, which asks students to describe the roles of institutions such as corporations, nonprofits and labor unions in a market economy. A lesson on D2.Civ.6.6-8 focuses on how those organizations shape lives; the economics standard focuses on how they work within the market.
Can students write about religious organizations?
Yes, as civil organizations in their community role, for example a congregation that runs a food pantry or a shelter. The lesson describes what such groups do for people; it does not discuss or judge beliefs.
How do I keep a lesson on political organizations nonpartisan?
Describe roles, not positions. Source 3 mentions volunteers from two parties helping people register to vote, and the questions ask what the volunteers do, not which party is right. When students give examples from current events, ask them to describe the organization's role in neutral terms.
What is a good quick check for D2.Civ.6.6-8?
Ask students to name one organization of each type from their own lives and describe one specific way each shapes their day, as in the exit ticket and homework Part 1. If they can classify correctly and describe a real effect, not just a definition, they have met the indicator.
07
Related Standards
5 standards
These standards connect to D2.Civ.6.6-8: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.
Before this lesson
RH.6-8.1Prerequisite
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources
Standard text: National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History (Silver Spring, MD: NCSS, 2013). NCSS was not involved in the production of this lesson and does not endorse it.
