Historical Context | United States History I Activity Using Salem Witch Trials
OER lesson that primarily teaches the historical concept of context, then uses the Salem Witch Trials as event to exercise what it teachers
Geography and Its Impact on Colonial Life - Lesson
Lesson Plans - For Teachers (Library of Congress) European settlement patterns were influenced by geographic conditions such as access to water, harbors, natural protection, arable land, natural resources and adequate growing season and rainfall. Examine a variety of primary sources to determine why colonists were drawn to a particular region of the country.
American Colonial Life in the Late 1700s: Distant Cousins | EDSITEment
Students will become historical detectives and learn to gather information from artifacts and make inferences about the lives and times they represent. They will then use what they have learned to write historical fiction in the form of friendly letters between fictitious cousins in Massachusetts and Delaware.
American Indians in Children's Literature - Columbus Lesson
Lesson plan that has students looking through several books on Columbus and comparing them. This is a solution to 3rd grade teachers trying to determine what to do with Columbus
Cultures at Jamestown
Three cultures converged at Jamestown - the Powhatan Indians, the English and the Africans - each of whom had their own unique way of life. Students compare and contrast these three cultures and learn about their interactions.
Colonizing the Bay | EDSITEment
This lesson focuses on the content of John Winthrop’s speech and how it illuminates the Puritans’ beliefs, goals, and programs. It requires a close reading of a difficult text – but one that yields significant benefits to those who persist and analyze it closely.
Images of the New World | EDSITEment
This lesson will enable students to interact with written and visual accounts of this critical formative period at the end of the 16th century, when the English view of the New World was being formulated, with consequences that we are still seeing today.
Lesson 1: The First Great Awakening | EDSITEment
By examining primary documents from the time, this lesson will introduce students to the ideas, practices, and evangelical spirit of the First Great Awakening.
Mapping Colonial New England: Looking at the Landscape of New England | EDSITEment
In this lesson, students learn to interpret the built environment through text and image. They also study maps as a key way of shaping territory and transmitting cultural knowledge. This lesson explores the landscape of New England as a way of understanding the contrasting ways that the Europeans and Indians understood the land and how to use it
William Penn's Peaceable Kingdom | EDSITEment
This lesson examines one of these promotional tracts, “Letter to the Free Society of Traders.”
Daily Life and Diversity in 18th Century Philadelphia
In this education program, students will develop an understanding of daily life in 18th century Philadelphia by exploring the people, material culture, and larger historical context related to four specific households. Guided webquest takes students through houses to meet residents and learn about their lives. Site sponsored by the National Park Service
Understanding the Salem Witch Trials | EDSITEment
Lesson geared toward 6-8, though could be adapted so students seek explanations for the trials
Salem Witch Trial - mock trial
Digital History materials for mock trial reenactment
Colonial | Stanford History Education Group
The lessons in the Colonial Unit introduce students to many of the themes in the curriculum. In the Pocahontas lesson, students question Disney's account of Pocahontas's encounter with John Smith. Students engage in three additional inquiries: one about the Puritans, one about the causes of King Philip's War, and one about the causes of the Salem Witch trials. The Colonial Unit is unique in that it introduces students to different types of historical evidence such as maps and passenger lists, and asks students to consider what claims can be made on the basis of these special documents.
Plantation Life in 18th-century Virginia: Building a Picture of the Past through Probate Records
Utilizing a probate record, and what they have already learned about colonial Virginia, the students will attempt to describe life on an 18th-century Virginia plantation.
An Explorer's View of Maryland: Can we Believe Him?
In what at first looks like another overly-ambitious lesson, the resources provided with this lesson make it clear that it can absolutely be done. valuable critical thinking skills and historical analysis are exercised in this lesson. Be sure to look through the resources provided, there is enough material here to run the lesson right out of the box.
Students will practice using historical thinking skills including sourcing, close reading, contextualizing and corroborating to evaluate John Smith's Map of Virginia (1612) by comparing and contrasting Smith's map with Augustine Herrman's Map (1670) and a map of Maryland today. Students will draw conclusions about the reliability of the Smith map as a primary source and explore the changes in Maryland through an analysis of these maps.
Early American Government, Plymouth Style
The purpose of this lesson is for students to gain an understanding of the establishment of a democratic government in America by studying Jamestown, Plymouth, and St. Mary's City to identify how early settlements adapted and survived in America.
Either run the whole lesson, or just pick out the Mayflower Compact analysis materials
"For a Noble Man, a Prince": Images and Identity in Colonial America
Images and objects from paintings to wallpaper and almanac prints to furniture served to shape their owners identities in British America before the revolution. This activity assists in deciphering the messages in visual images that convey social status and economic power in the late colonial period.
This is part of the "Lessons for Looking" project out of the City University of New York
Becoming American: The British Atlantic Colonies, 1690-1763, Primary Resources in U.S. History and Literature, Toolbox Library, National Humanities Center
A collection of primary resources-historical documents, literary texts,and works of art-thematically organized with notes and discussion questions from National Humanities Center from National Humanities Center
American Beginnings: 1492-1690, Primary Resources in U.S. History and Literature, Toolbox Library, National Humanities Center
A collection of primary resources-historical documents, literary texts,and works of art-thematically organized with notes and discussion questions from National Humanities Center from National Humanities Center
Engaging with Multiple Narratives and Exploring Historical Bias – Ed Methods
This University of Portland student shares a Native American lesson that splits a class into three groups, has each explore a primary or secondary source, then brings them back into whole group for a reflective discussion. There is a significant different in having students analyze specifically chosen materials rather than having them do "research" and look for their own materials to fill a need determined by the teacher (i.e. "find lifestyles")
Blackhead Signpost Rd - Google Maps
History teachers wanting to invest students in an authentic experience should direct them to this road in southwest Virginia with the simple question - how did this road get this name? and perhaps more importantly, why does it still have this name?
The Puritans | Stanford History Education Group
What were the motivations and ideals of the Puritans who settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony? In this lesson, students source, corroborate, and contextualize speeches from John Winthrop and John Cotton to explore the Puritans’ motivations. Students also practice using historical evidence to construct a written answer to the question: Were the Puritans selfish or selfless?
Examining Passenger Lists | Stanford History Education Group
What can passenger lists from ships arriving in North American colonies tell us about those who immigrated? And what can those characteristics tell us about life in the colonies themselves? In this lesson, students critically examine the passenger lists of ships headed to New England and Virginia to better understand English colonial life in the 1630s.
A Model of Christian Charity - An Interactive Lesson
Unity was much on Winthrop’s mind. Even though we might think of the Puritans as a homogeneous group, they were actually quite diverse, not in the ways we use that term today but in their theological beliefs and in the ways they experienced and expressed their faith. All embraced God’s love, for example, but in some that bred humility, in others arrogance. All were members of the Church of England. Some wanted to reform its rituals and teachings; others wanted to overthrow them completely. As one scholar has written, “Puritans disagreed on a whole host of matters… from the celebration of Christmas to the forms of burial.”<sup>5</sup>
If unity was much on Winthrop’s mind, so, too, was failure. He knew that the differences among his followers could tear the colony apart. Failure would signify that the Puritans had no “covenant” with God, that God had not given them a special “commission,” in short, that they had not been chosen to establish God’s kingdom in America. Many back home saw the Puritans as either blasphemous fanatics or deserters in the battle to reform the Church of England in England. Failure would vindicate those enemies and forever shame Winthrop and his followers. When he rose to preach, failure was much on his mind.
Indenture Records Project - Digitization from the American Philosophic Library & Museum
Interactive visualizations of data following themes of distance, gender, and time-based on records of 5,000 indentured servants registered in Philadelphia from 1771 through 1773. The presentation of these materials already has questions and a narrative path, it would not take more than a half-hour of a teacher's time to turn this site into a valuable instructional exercise
PDF-The-John-Punch-Court-Decisions-and-the-Advent-of-Slavery-in-Virginia-Full-Lesson.pdf
Several documents in a lesson that focuses on three escaped Indentured Servants in 1640 Virginia and the different sentences they received when they were caught. This lesson can be combined with others to highlight the early system of slavery in the colonies
Legislating Reproduction and Racial Difference in Virginia - Women & the American Story
Shepherding students through colonial slave laws with a source that provides the side-by-side text and explanation in plain language shows them how to decipher the text while also showing them the pervasiveness of the system. This source comes with discussion questions - easy to use in a pinch by just posting the link, or as part of a more developed lesson sequence
July 21, 1656: Elizabeth Key Wins Her Freedom - Zinn Education Project
The story of Elizabeth Key could easily be included in a lesson which follows the evolution of slavery laws in the 1600s.
Cases like Elizabeth Key’s help highlight the ways in which justifications for discriminatory practices were built over time, and the fluidity of status and freedom for people of African descent in early colonial Virginia. She initially lost her case because she and her son were classified by the court as “Negroes,” but was able to win by highlighting her father’s whiteness and her Christian faith.
Inventory of Robert Carter's Estate, November 1733
What did one of the richest men in British North American own? This answers that question. Students can be asked what they would think about looking through the personal inventory of Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk? Here they get to do just that. This provides insight into the material culture of the wealthy colonists but a truly detailed look into slavery. Just click on the locations and look at the names and ages of the persons he enslaved.