The Jamestown Colony

The Jamestown Colony

Unit One (1) Plan:

The Jamestown Colony

Instructor: Patrick Stokes

Course: Turning Points in American History

Topic(s): Jamestown Colony

Essential Standards Covered:

12.H.1.2: Analyze specific turning points in terms of the interaction between people, places, and time.

12.H.1.5 Evaluate the extent to which economic, social, cultural and political factors of specific turning points impact the historical narrative of the United States.

12.H.1.6 Analyze the historical narrative of various turning points using the ideas of "historical contingency" and "historical inevitability".

12.H.3.1 Analyze primary sources using the social, cultural, political and economic context in which each source was produced.

Common Core Standards Covered:

Common Core Standard #1: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence

Objectives/Goals for Students: After completion of this lesson, students will be able to interpret and analyze how primary and secondary sources are used to effectively represent the events of the past. Students will also understand and apply historical interpretations and explanations as to the failures and successes of the Jamestown Colony

Key Concepts: Geopolitics—motives, why come to Roanoke, Jamestown

Varying perspectives

Different cultural perspectives

Race

Collision of cultures

Texts and bones –how do we know what we know?

Use of Pocahontas movie to engage discussion/historical inaccuracies

Key Terms:

  1. joint-stock company
  2. John Smith
  3. John Rolfe
  4. Pocahontas
  5. Powhatan
  6. Algonquians
  7. 'the Starving Period'
  8. Virginia Company
  9. indentured servitude
  10. headright system

Resources Used:

Secondary Sources

  • Edmund Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom
  • Gregory Waselkov, Peter Wood, M. Thomas Hatley, Powhatan’s Mantle: Indians in the Colonial Southeast
  • Kathleen Brown, “The Anglo-Algonquian Gender Frontier,” in Nancy Shoemaker, ed., Negotiators of Change: Historical Perspectives on Native American Women (Routledge, 1995)*reprinted in Thomas Dublin and Katherine Sklar, eds., Women and Power in American History (2002 edition)
  • William Kelso, Jamestown: The Buried Truth
  • Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra, ch. 1 “The Wreck of the Sea-Venture”
  • James Horn, “Jamestown and the Founding of British America,”
  • Daniel Richter, “Indian Discoveries of Europe”,
  • Peter H. Wood, Strange New Land: Africans in Colonial America, ch. 3 “The Terrible Transformation”
  • Alan Gallay,

Primary Sources:

  • Thomas Hariot, ABriefe and True Report of the Newfound Land of Virginia. Illustrations by Theodor de Bry
  • John White, Drawings of Virginia Indians, (de Bry illustrations included)
  • Ralph Lane, Raleigh’s First Roanoke Colony
  • John Smith, GenerallHistorie
  • Indentured Servitude, primary sources:
  • Richard Frethorne, letter:
  • Virginia laws, indentured servitude:
  • Indentured servant contracts, Maryland and Virginia:
  • George Percy, True Relation, excerpt
  • William Berkeley, Discourse and View of Virginia
  • “Serving Time in Virginia: The Perspectives of Evidence in Social History,” in James West Davidson and Mark Lytle, After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection
  • Sources on Bacon’s Rebellion:
  • Berkeley:
  • Nathaniel Bacon, Declaration:
  • Ann Cotton:
  • Selected Virginia Statutes pertaining to slavery:

Suggested Procedures/Activities:

  • Students will begin the unit on Jamestown by completing a KWL chart and sharing this with their predetermined “work groups”.
  • Students will begin to familiarize themselves with key vocabulary words relevant to the study of Jamestown. Students will define the words so that they may begin to recognize and identify when encountered during reading
  • Students will read selected secondary sources regarding Jamestown and discuss the text within their groups.
  • Students will create a timeline of events leading to the founding of Jamestown and they will begin to formulate predictions as to what may have happened to the colony.
  • Using the following link:

Students will analyze items brought on the Jamestown journey to analyze how cultures have changed over time. Students will create a written response utilizing a thesis statement and descriptive paragraph to explain how American society is different today when compared to the colonists of the early Jamestown era

  • Students will take notes on a lecture on the topic of Jamestown
  • Students will view a brief documentary from discovery education on Jamestown

Lesson idea from websites with substantial increases in difficulty level

  1. “what we know about Jamestown,” specifically the makeup of occupations of the colony as it started.
  2. Introduce the starving time, telling students that though the colony started off with high hopes, by the winter of 1609 colonists “had to eat dogs, cats, rats, toadstools, horse hides, and even the corpses of dead men” (from the MCPS Social Studies guide).
  3. Present the mission: Find out what really caused the starving time in Jamestown.
  4. With the whole group, analyze excerpt from “Travels and Works of John Smith.” Record information in the capture worksheet. Model the process of marking/highlighting important information by asking questions such as: -What should be marked? (a sample response might be “440 out of 500 died”) -Why 500 not 105? -Continue to probe student responses for “why?” -What is the date? -What is significant about the date? -Who wrote it? (this can lead to a great sourcing discussion about who really wrote it)
  5. In pairs, students will analyze excerpt from “George Percy’s Account of the Voyage to Virginia …”, using the same techniques modeled with the first account.
  6. Gather as whole group to discuss findings/thoughts/conclusions. Have students come to the board to mark the primary source.
  7. Read aloud ushistory.com article. Have students share new/important information they learned from the reading.
  8. Writing prompt
  • Students will research one additional aspect of the Jamestown settlement not covered in class. Each student will formulate a one page research report utilizing at least one primary source and one secondary source. On a rotational basis, 10 students will present brief oral reports to their peers.
  • Students will create at least one assignment from
  • A DBQ will be completed as the summative assignment for the Jamestown Colony lesson

Adaptations:

For students who work at a slower pace:

Pair with an advanced learner on “Percy” activity to aid in critical thinking skills and interpreting primary source documents

Ask them specifically how they fared with the independent reading and pinpoint common problems

Pair with an advanced learner on thesis development exercise to aid in reinforcing basic content knowledge/pulling out pertinent information from the text as supporting evidence

For students who work at a faster pace:

Challenge them to try and complete the thesis statement activity in a timed manner to prepare them for the constraints of the AP US History Testy

Pair with a slower learner on matching exercise to model how to correctly recognize and evaluate basic content

Ask to share their answers on “ticket out the door” questions to model succinct but accurate summarizations of the content

Have students formulate questions and answers to use in a round table discussion as a part of the review for the Unit assessment

Unit One (1):

The Salem Witch Trials

Instructor: Patrick Stokes

Course: Turning Points in American History

Topic(s): Salem Witch Trials

Essential Standards Covered:

12.H.1.2: Analyze specific turning points in terms of the interaction between people, places, and time.

12.H.1.5 Evaluate the extent to which economic, social, cultural and political factors of specific turning points impact the historical narrative of the United States.

12.H.1.6 Analyze the historical narrative of various turning points using the ideas of "historical contingency" and "historical inevitability".

12.H.3.1 Analyze primary sources using the social, cultural, political and economic context in which each source was produced.

Common Core Standards Covered:

Common Core Standard #1: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence

Objectives/Goals for Students: After completion of this lesson, students will be able to interpret and analyze how primary and secondary sources are used to effectively represent the events of the past. Students will also understand and apply historical interpretations and explanations as to the causes and effects of the Salem Witch Trials

Key Concepts: Contributing factors

Gender conflict

Religion as source of conflict

Social conflict

Class dispute

Bias and perspective

Conflicting evidence

Change over time

Key Terms:

  1. Puritans
  2. half-way covenant
  3. King William's War
  4. Reverend Samuel Parris
  5. Tituba
  6. Cotton Mather
  7. Governor Phipps
  8. Gallows Hill
  9. Samuel Sewall
  10. ergot theory

Resources Used:

Secondary Sources

  • Carol Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman
  • Mary Beth Norton, In The Devil’s Snare
  • John Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England

Primary Sources:

  • Increase Mather, Cases of Conscience
  • Transcriptions, Court Records of Witch Trials
  • Record Books, Salem Village Church
  • Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World
  • Letters of Governor Phips:
  • Deodat Lawson, A Brief and True Narrative:
  • Salem Witchcraft Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society:
  • “The Visible and Invisible Worlds of Salem: Studying Crisis at the Community Level” in James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle, After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection

Suggested Procedures/Activities:

  • Read the background material and use the following website as a resource guide for lesson plans and activities to both teach the material and create modern-day correlations for the Salem Witch Trials:
  • After reading the material listed in the section below regarding thesis statements students will identify writers’ theses from the secondary sources listed above. Students should begin to analyze and make conclusions in regards to what a thesis statement tell the reader about the text and the author’s purpose. Small and whole group discussions can begin to take place to properly identify the authors’ theses.
  • Students should then begin to read the primary source excerpts for themselves and create their own thesis statement which accurately summarize their intended purpose and convey strong understandings of the content as presented.
  • Students will take notes during a lecture of the material (causes, events, and effects) of Salem Witch trials. Afterward, students will create a flow map clearly connecting the three relevant historical components of the topic.
  • Students will watch the following PowerPoint presentation: Quotes.ppt andread the document on the following website:

After viewing and reading students will extract quotes from the primary sources provided and write sentences which incorporate the author’s quotes. Through the thesis development and the quote extraction students will begin to learn how to effectively write a thesis statement and provide concrete evidence to support their argument.

  • A DBQ will be completed as the summative assignment for the Salem Witch Trials lesson

Thesis Practice and Information:

The thesis statement is a type of assertion—something that you claim is true about your topic. Keep in mind that although the thesis is called a statement, it may consist of more than one grammatical sentence. Most of the time, however, a thesis is a simple declarative sentence with a single main clause.

Since the essays you will write are a combination of the expository, analytical, and argumentative forms, your thesis must address the aspect of these multiple forms. As a result, your thesis statement must encompass the following:

-an assertion of what you are going to explain, analyze, prove, or disprove (make sure this assertion addresses the prompt in full and stays within any parameters established by the prompt such as time, people, and or place)

-the categories/reasoning you are using to organize/support your explanation/assertion

-the order in which you will be presenting your categories

What you plan to argue + How you plan to argue it = Thesis

Examples:

Prompt: Compare and contrast the reasons why the North and South fought the Civil War.

A bad thesis: The North and South fought the Civil War for many reasons, some of which were the same and some different.

-This basically restates the question without providing any additional information. It is important that the reader know where you are heading. "What reasons? How are they the same? How are they different?" Push your comparison toward an interpretation--why did one side think slavery was right and the other think it was wrong?

A better thesis: While both sides fought the Civil War over the issue of slavery, the North fought for moral reasons while the South fought to preserve its own institutions.

An even better thesis: While both Northerners and Southerners believed they fought against tyranny and oppression, Northerners focused on the oppression of slaves while Southerners defended their own rights to property and self-government.

Adaptations:

For students who work at a slower pace:

Pair with an advanced learner on “Percy” activity to aid in critical thinking skills and interpreting primary source documents

Ask them specifically how they fared with the independent reading and pinpoint common problems

Pair with an advanced learner on thesis development exercise to aid in reinforcing basic content knowledge/pulling out pertinent information from the text as supporting evidence

For students who work at a faster pace:

Challenge them to try and complete the thesis statement activity in a timed manner to prepare them for the constraints of the AP US History Testy

Pair with a slower learner on matching exercise to model how to correctly recognize and evaluate basic content

Ask to share their answers on “ticket out the door” questions to model succinct but accurate summarizations of the content

Have students formulate questions and answers to use in a round table discussion as a part of the review for the Unit assessment

Unit Two (2) Plan:

Proclamation of 1763

Instructor: Patrick Stokes

Course: Turning Points in American History

Topic(s): Proclamation of 1763

Essential Standards Covered:

12.H.1.3 Analyze specific turning points in terms of motives, beliefs, interests, hopes, fears and their consequences.

12.H.1.4 Analyze turning points using multiple perspectives of various individuals and groups.

12.H.1.7 Use the antecedent circumstances of specific turning points to interpret contemporary problems and infer solutions.

12.H.3.5 Use historical data collected from multiple sources (including but not limited to library and museum collections, historic sites, historical photos, journals, diaries, eyewitness accounts, newspapers, documentary films and monographs) to generate questions about specific turning points.

Common Core Standards Covered:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.6
Evaluate authors' differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors' claims, reasoning, and evidence.

Objectives/Goals for Students:

After completion of this lesson, students will be able to interpret and analyze how primary and secondary sources are used to effectively represent the events of the past. Students will also understand and apply historical interpretations and explanations as to spiraling importance of the Proclamation of 1763.

Key Concepts:Geopolitics

Global economics

Contrasting Imperial policies with local interests

Causality

Conflict

Key Terms:

  1. French and Indian War/ Seven Years' War
  2. mercantilism
  3. Treaty of Paris 1763
  4. Pontiac's War/Rebellion
  5. Quebec Act
  6. 'Indian Reserve'
  7. King George III
  8. Paxton Boys
  9. General Gage
  10. George Washington (reaction)

Resources Used:

Secondary Sources:

  • Colin Calloway, The Scratch of a Pen
  • Eric Hinderaker and Peter Mancall, At the Edge of Empire: The Backcountry in British North America, ch. 5,6, epilogue
  • Fred Anderson, Crucible of War
  • Woody Holton, “Unruly Americans and the Revolution,”
  • Theodore Crackel, “George Washington’s French and Indian War,”
  • William White, “The Colonial Virginia Frontier and International Native American Diplomacy”,

Primary Sources:

  • Text of Proclamation,
  • Maps of British forts in frontier,
  • Pontiac on Neolin’s Message:
  • “Remonstrance” of the Paxton Boys, 1764: Could be paired with Benjamin Franklin, “A Narrative of the Late Massacres” at
  • Minutes of the Augusta Conference of 1763 (between governors of GA, VA, SC, and NC and representatives of the Cherokee Nation):
  • Jeffrey Amherst, letters: are letters from General Jeffrey Amherst describing fighting during Pontiac’s Rebellion. They are famous as the source of the allegation that British troops (acting under Amherst’s orders) sent smallpox-infected blankets to Indians.
  • Board of Trade to George III, “Representation to His Majesty Upon a Complaint Made by the Delaware Indians Against the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania Concerning Lands”: This is from the papers of colonial Indian Commissioner William Johnson, the most prominent supporter of the Proclamation. Also includes several letters by Johnson.
  • James Otis,” The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved”:
  • Letter, George Washington to William Crawford, 1767
  • Lord Dunmore’s Report on “Dunmore’s War” of 1774:
  • Speech of Logan to Dunmore, 1774:
  • Samuel Adams, Instructions to Boston’s Representatives in General Assembly, 1764:
  • Daniel Boone, Account of Kentucky Settlement:

Suggested Procedures/Activities:

Teacher must locate necessary documents in digital folders included:

Proclamation of 1763

  • AIH French and Indian War [strong Qs]
  • High School History Lesson Plans: Proclamation of 1763 [good overview]
  • Proclamation of 1763 activities
  • Essential Standard Covered: President Obama’s Withdrawal from Afghanistan Speech. [Comparative document to Proclamation for analysis of purpose and success.]

Unit Two (2) Plan: