Lesson Plan - Gold Fever

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Learning Objective

Students will understand how the discovery of gold in California 175 years ago helped reshape the United States.

Text Structure

Cause and Effect

Content-Area Connections

U.S. History

Standards Correlations

CCSS: RI.3.1, RI.3.2, RI.3.3, RI.3.4, RI.3.5, RI.3.6, RI.3.7, RI.3.8, RI.3.10, L.3.4, SL.3.1

NCSS: Time, Continuity, and Change 

TEKS: Social Studies 3.1

1. Preparing to Read

Watch a Video: The California Gold Rush
Discuss: What risks did gold prospectors take when they headed to California? 

The California Gold Rush
Watch a video to learn more about this exciting chapter in U.S. history.

Preview Words to Know
Project the online vocabulary slideshow and introduce the Words to Know. 

  • migration
  • immigrants
  • prospectors


Set a Purpose for Reading
As students read, have them identify three ways the Gold Rush changed California. 

2. Close-Reading Questions

1. The article says that after the Gold Rush, “the U.S. would never be the same.” Why?
The Gold Rush caused California’s population to rise. This led to California becoming a state in 1850. And many people who came to seek gold, especially Chinese immigrants, later helped build America’s railroads.
RI.3.3 Cause and Effect

2. What is meant by the phrase “gold fever” in the title? 
“Gold fever” was the dream of getting rich by finding gold. It is why many people made their way to California.
RI.3.4 Determine Meaning

3. Why do you think people who went to California during the Gold Rush became known as forty-niners?
“Forty-niners” refers to the year many of them went. A large number of gold prospectors headed to California in the year 1849.
RI.3.1 Text Evidence

3. Skill Building

FEATURED SKILL: Reading Paired Texts
Use the Skill Builder “Gold Rush Gear” to have students learn about some equipment used by prospectors.
RI.3.9 Paired Texts

Differentiate & Extend

Multilingual Learners
Use the Skill Builder “What I Learned” to assess comprehension. Sentence stems and other question formats help scaffold understanding.


Striving Readers
Review the Words to Know slideshow. Then help students define and illustrate other domain-specific words in the article (sawmill, population, etc.).


Writing Extension
Invite students to imagine themselves as figures involved with the Gold Rush, like James W. Marshall, a prospector, or a California hotel owner. Have them write journal entries describing what they see, hear, and experience.

Text-to-Speech