Events in History Have Causes and Effects
Sage stands at a wide wooden table covered with old maps, illustrated history books, and a row of colorful domino tiles, tipping the first domino with one finger and watching the chain ripple forward.
- Explain what a cause and an effect mean in history using your own words.
- Identify at least one cause and one effect in a historical event.
- Predict what might happen next in a sequence of historical causes and effects.
- Use clue words such as because, therefore, and as a result to identify cause-and-effect relationships in a text.
Key terms
- Cause
- The reason something happened in history.
- Effect
- What happened because of the cause.
- Clue word
- A word like because that shows a connection.
- Chain of events
- Many causes and effects linked one after another.
Cause Comes First
A cause is the reason something happens. It always comes first, before the effect. Think about pushing a swing. Your push is the cause. The swing flying up high is the effect. In history, a cause might be no rain for a long time, and the effect might be that crops cannot grow. Always look for what happened first to find the cause.
Looking for Clue Words
Clue words help you spot a cause and effect inside a sentence. Words like because, so, as a result, and led to point you to the link. When you see the word because, look right before it for the cause and right after it for the effect. Detectives use clue words to follow the trail of why things happened in the past.
Worked examples
Find the cause and effect.
- Read: Gold was found, so people rushed to California.
- Ask what happened first: gold was found.
- Ask what happened next: people rushed in.
Answer: Cause: gold was found. Effect: people rushed to California.
Spot the clue word in the sentence.
- Read: Crops died because there was no rain.
- Look for a clue word that links two ideas.
- The word because is the clue word.
Answer: The clue word is because.
Activity
Arrange the event cards in order from cause to effect to build the correct history chain.
Practice
Tell one cause and one effect about a rainy day.
Write a sentence using the clue word because.
Common mistakes to avoid
- The effect happens before the cause.The cause always comes first, and the effect comes after it.
- History is just a random list of facts.History is a connected chain where one event causes the next.
Check your understanding
A long drought caused crops to fail, and then many families moved to new areas. In this example, what is the CAUSE?
Which sentence uses a clue word to show a cause-and-effect connection in history?
Sage says historical events are like falling dominoes. What does this comparison mean?
Recap
Today we learned a cause is the reason something happened and an effect is what happened next. Causes come first, effects come after, and clue words like because help us link them in history.
Reflect
What is one effect of something you did today?