Maryland State History | Complete 10-Script Mini Unit Bundle | Grades 3-5

Bring Maryland State History to life with a complete Grade 4 Reader's Theater and differentiated Mini Reader bundle covering geography, Native homelands and communities, colonial Maryland, tobacco and slavery, the American Revolution, the Constitution, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, the Civil War, postwar change, and the modern civil-rights movement.

This ten-script mini unit gives students three ways to access the same essential content: engaging Reader's Theater scripts for oral fluency and discussion, Original Mini Readers for independent reading, and Accessible Mini Readers for mixed reading levels, multilingual learners, intervention, homework, or faster one-day use. Within every lesson, all three reading paths preserve the facts needed for the shared assessment.

10 Complete Maryland State History Lessons

1. 1. Maryland Regions & Geography — Maryland physiographic provinces, Chesapeake Bay and waterways, Cumberland, Hagerstown, Baltimore, Annapolis, Salisbury, and Ocean City.
2. 2. Native Peoples of Maryland: Chesapeake Homelands and Communities — Chesapeake and Potomac waterways, Piscataway/Piscataway Conoy and Accohannock communities, Indigenous homelands and exchange.
3. 3. Founding Maryland — Maryland Charter of 1632, St. Mary’s City and Annapolis, settlement and colonial government.
4. 4. Tobacco, Labor, and Slavery in Colonial Maryland — tobacco economy and Chesapeake trade, warehouses, inspection, and ports, indentured servitude and slavery.
5. 5. Maryland and the American Revolution — taxes and representation, boycotts, protest, and the Peggy Stewart, Patriot and Loyalist perspectives.
6. 6. Maryland and the Constitution — Articles of Confederation, Constitutional Convention, Maryland ratification debate.
7. 7. Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and Resistance to Slavery — Harriet Tubman and Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Frederick Douglass and literacy, self-liberation and resistance.
8. 8. Maryland in the Civil War — Maryland as a divided Union border state, Baltimore, railroads, and strategic geography, Maryland Campaign and Antietam.
9. 9. Maryland After the Civil War — Reconstruction amendments and unequal citizenship, Maryland HBCUs, Baltimore port and B&O Railroad.
10. 10. Civil Rights and Modern Maryland — Donald Gaines Murray and legal challenges, Lillie Carroll Jackson and Maryland NAACP organizing, Brown v. Board of Education.

Perfect For

• Maryland State History units and Grade 4 social studies
• Mixed reading levels in grades 3–5
• Reader's Theater, Mini Readers, oral fluency, and content-area literacy
• Whole-class lessons, small groups, sub plans, review, intervention, and enrichment
• Teachers who need a connected Maryland history sequence with flexible print and digital options

Flexible Classroom Use

• Use the Reader's Theater scripts for whole-class reading, small-group performance, oral fluency, and evidence-based discussion.
• Use the Original or Accessible Mini Readers for independent reading, homework, centers, intervention, multilingual-learner support, or differentiated groups.
• Use the shared vocabulary, comprehension questions, challenge questions, and quizzes for assessment and review.
• Teach the full sequence as a Maryland State History mini unit or select individual lessons to match a district pacing guide.

Differentiation Built Into Every Lesson

• Reader's Theater roles with varied reading loads
• Original Mini Reader for students ready for greater detail
• Accessible Mini Reader with shorter sentences and clearer structure while preserving assessed content
• Shared vocabulary and assessments across all three reading paths

What Each Lesson Includes

• 10-scene Reader's Theater Script
• Original Mini Reader and Accessible Mini Reader
• Teacher Guide, vocabulary, student worksheet, and answer key
• 10 two-part comprehension questions and 5 two-part challenge questions
• 20-question multiple-choice quiz with self-grading Google Forms support
• Discussion prompts and source/evidence support

Bundle Totals

• 10 Reader's Theater scripts / 100 scenes total
• 20 differentiated Mini Readers
• 100 vocabulary terms
• 100 two-part Short Answer questions
• 50 two-part Challenge questions
• 200 multiple-choice questions
• 10 Teacher Guides plus worksheets, answer keys, and Google Forms quiz support

Skills Addressed

• Reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary in context
• Geographic reasoning, chronology, cause and effect, and continuity and change
• Historical source analysis and evidence-based claims
• Comparing perspectives, conflict, cooperation, government, and civic participation
• Discussion and explanatory writing

Standards Connections

The individual Teacher Guides document lesson-specific Maryland Social Studies standards across geography, peoples and nations, history, civics, economics, and disciplinary literacy. This bundle description does not add code-level standards beyond those documented in the included Teacher Guides.

Text Summary

Students begin with Maryland geography and Native homelands, then trace colonial settlement and labor systems, Revolutionary change, constitutional government, resistance to slavery, the Civil War, postwar citizenship and industrialization, and twentieth-century civil-rights organizing. Across the bundle, students repeatedly use places, maps, laws, artifacts, people, and competing perspectives to explain how geography, government, conflict, cooperation, labor, technology, and human choices shaped Maryland over time.