Facilitator s Guide Unit 4 Revolutionary Perspectives Introduction This unit, Revolutionary Perspectives, focuses on the American colonies break with Great Britain. The workshop activities are designed to show the different perspectives about governance, loyalty, and liberty that were held by people living in what became the United States. Learning Objectives In this session, teachers will analyze how Enlightenment ideas influenced people in this era; examine written sources and visual sources to learn about the Revolutionary era; explore how Americans from different backgrounds participated in or responded to the events of the Revolutionary period. Before You Begin Before the day of the Revolutionary Perspectives session, familiarize yourself with the reading materials assigned to the participating teachers. You should also review this facilitator s guide. Be sure to prepare the correct number of overheads, handouts, maps, charts, and illustrations needed for each activity. Each teacher should read the text materials for Unit 4 before attending the workshop (estimated reading time: two hours). Activities during the session will draw heavily on the content in the text materials as well as the video. Participants should bring the unit text materials to the workshop session. Materials Needed This America s History in the Making facilitator s guide Text materials for Unit 4: Revolutionary Perspectives VHS tape and VCR, DVD and DVD player, or access to streaming video of America s History in the Making video for Unit 4: Revolutionary Perspectives available at www.learner.org Overhead projector Multiple copies of handouts (in the Appendix of this guide) Pens and paper for participating teachers and facilitator Chalkboard, blank transparencies, or overhead for reporting out
Overhead and Handout Instructions 1. Using Appendix A, Themes for Revolutionary Perspectives, create an overhead transparency. 2. Using Appendix B, The Bostonians Paying the Excise Man, make enough copies for half of the learners. 3. Using Appendix C, The Able Doctor, or America Swallowing the Bitter Draught, make enough copies for half of the learners. 4. Using Appendix D, The Bostonians Paying the Excise Man, and The Able Doctor, or America Swallowing the Bitter Draught, create an overhead transparency. 5. Using Appendix E, Definition of Enlightenment Thinking, create an overhead transparency. 6. Using Appendix F, Preamble to the Declaration of Independence, create handouts for one-third of the participating teachers. 7. Using Appendix G, Prince Hall Petition January 13, 1777, create handouts for one-third of the participating teachers. 8. Using Appendix H, Abigail Adams to John Adams 31 March 1776, create handouts for one-third of the participating teachers. 9. Using Appendix I, Enlightenment Thinking in the Era of the Revolution, create an overhead transparency. 10. Using Appendix J, Imagining Voices in History Topics, cut out the four topics so that each can be distributed to a separate group during the workshop. Facilitator s Note: You may want to prepare overheads of the reflection and discussion questions for teachers to reference during the workshop activities. Leading the Session As participating teachers arrive, have an overhead set up which lists the main themes of the unit for teachers to review (Appendix A). After you have completed any housekeeping announcements, ask one of the teachers to read the themes aloud. Explain that they will expand their understanding of these three themes through activities and video segments that build on the reading they did prior to the workshop session.
Warm-up and Activity 1 (35 minutes) This activity serves as an icebreaker for the group, while introducing some of the competing perspectives people held during this historical period. Teachers will analyze two images depicting political conflicts leading to the Revolution that reveal how differently colonists viewed events. Warm-up Brainstorming (5 minutes) Many of us first learned about the Revolutionary War from textbooks that discussed only two groups: the Colonists who bravely defeated the British. But even through the first months of fighting, many colonists still considered themselves British citizens, hardly anticipating the break with their nation that was to come. Others remained opposed to the break even after it happened. Drawing on previous knowledge of this period as well as the reading for the unit, brainstorm a list of groups whom you think might have supported or opposed the Revolution. Please keep this list handy, as you will refer to it again later in this workshop. Activity 1 After the warm-up, divide the teachers into two groups. Give the teachers in the first group copies of The Bostonians Paying the Excise Man (Appendix B) and teachers in the second group copies of The Able Doctor, or America Swallowing the Bitter Draught (Appendix C). Part 1 (10 minutes) Ask each group to write a paragraph summarizing what their image depicts. Then have them list five specific pictorial elements that indicate the artists perspective on events in the British Colonies. Part 2 (15 minutes) Have each group present their image, along with their paragraph and list of pictorial elements, to the other group. Then put up the overhead showing both images side by side (Appendix D). Ask the teachers to make one list of what the images have in common and another list of important differences between them. 3
Part 3 (5 minutes) Allow teachers to share their responses to the following reflection question with the group. Reflection Question The Bostonians Paying the Excise Man is intended to show the lawlessness of some colonists, while The Able Doctor, or America Swallowing the Bitter Draught is meant to show the cruelty of English rulers. What do you think is the historical significance of the similarities and differences between the two images? Watch Video Segment 1: Historical Perspectives (approximately 10 minutes) 4
Activity 2 (45 minutes) Teachers should rely on material from the video and the readings to complete this activity. They should be encouraged to refer to the text materials as a resource. Activity Overview This activity focuses on how different inhabitants of the colonies responded to the Enlightenment ideas that were prominent during the Revolutionary era. Part 1 (10 minutes) Put the Definition of Enlightenment Thinking (Appendix E) transparency on the overhead. Ask the teachers to brainstorm what they know about the Enlightenment, based on the reading for this unit, the first segment of the video, and their prior knowledge. Generate a list of their ideas. Part 2 (15 minutes) Divide the teachers into three groups. Give members of the first group copies of the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence (Appendix F). Give members of the second group copies of the Prince Hall Petition (Appendix G). Give members of the third group copies of Abigail Adams correspondence to John Adams (Appendix H). Ask each group to underline the passages in the text they have been given that they think represent Enlightenment thinking. Part 3 (10 minutes) Put Enlightenment Thinking in the Era of the Revolution (Appendix I) transparency on the overhead. As each group presents the results from Part Two, use the overhead graphic organizer to record the results. 5
Part 4 (10 minutes) Conclude the activity by asking teachers to discuss the following reflection questions. Reflection Questions 1. What similarities are there in the different uses of Enlightenment thinking? 2. Are there significant differences in how the writers invoked Enlightenment thinking? 3. The Preamble to the Declaration of Independence is a familiar text for many of us. Do you notice anything new about it when you read it alongside the Prince Hall Petition and the Abigail Adams correspondence? Watch Video Segment 2: Faces of America (approximately 10 minutes) 6
Activity 3 (30 minutes) Teachers should rely on material from the video and the readings to complete this activity. They should be encouraged to refer to the text materials as a resource. Activity Overview The goal of this activity is to explore how people chose which side to support in the conflict between the British government and the colonists, and to examine the usefulness of a particular classroom activity for helping students to understand history. Part 1 (5 minutes) Ask the teachers to make a list of reasons that Phillis Wheatley, William Franklin, and Dragging Canoe each supported or opposed the colonists. Part 2 (15 minutes) Divide the teachers into four groups, and read the following directions to them: This activity offers an example of a classroom or homework assignment that can help students understand and apply historical content. You will be asked to do the activity yourself, and then to reflect on its usefulness for helping students understand history. Give each group one of the Imagining Voices in History Topics (Appendix J). Part 3 (5 minutes) Have a representative from each group read their group s letter to the rest of the teachers. Reflection Questions 1. How would this type of assignment help your students understand history content? 2. What historical thinking skills can students learn and demonstrate through this type of assignment? 3. How did completing the activity yourself help you understand what instructions and support students might need for this type of an assignment? Watch Video Segment 3: Hands on History (approximately 5 minutes to the end of the tape) 7
Activity 4 (10 minutes) Activity Overview This activity serves as a conclusion to this session of the workshop. It will provide you with an opportunity to reflect on what you have learned. Part 1 (5 minutes) Ask teachers to consider how studying different materials shapes what we learn about the past. Compare the use of written materials like Abigail Adams letter, Phillis Wheatley s poetry, and the Prince Hall Petition or visual materials, like the images from the opening exercise, with Carol Berkin s use of material artifacts as sources to learn about the past. Which types of sources do the teachers find most interesting? Most informative? Most challenging? Part 2 (5 minutes) Ask teachers to return to the list they brainstormed in the warm-up activity for today s session. Have teachers share their responses to the following reflection question. Reflection Question 1. Would you revise the list based on the video and the rest of the activities? What reasons would you give for each group s perspective? 8
APPENDICES Revolutionary Perspectives A: Themes for Revolutionary Perspectives overhead transparency B: The Bostonians Paying the Excise Man copies for half of the learners C: The Able Doctor, or America Swallowing the Bitter Draught copies for half of the learners D: The Bostonians Paying the Excise Man and The Able Doctor, or America Swallowing the Bitter Draught overhead transparency E: Definition of Enlightenment Thinking overhead transparency F: Preamble to the Declaration of Independence handouts for one-third of the participating teachers G: Prince Hall Petition January 13, 1777 handouts for one-third of the participating teachers H: Abigail Adams to John Adams 31 March 1776 handouts for one-third of the participating teachers I: Enlightenment Thinking in the Era of the Revolution overhead transparency J: Imagining Voices in History Topics four topics divided, each distributed to a separate group during the workshop 9
Appendix A: Themes for Revolutionary Perspectives THEME 1 The Enlightenment inspired many colonists to challenge England s governance, providing an importance impetus for the Revolution. THEME 2 Some African Americans, white women, and white yeoman farmers used political rhetoric to argue for their own rights; Loyalists and most Native Americans found little in these ideals to support their own interests. THEME 3 During this period, the writing of state constitutions provided crucial, but contested, opportunities to put democratic concepts into practice. 10
Appendix B: The Bostonians Paying the Excise Man Item 1895 Phillip Dawe (c.1750 c.1785), THE BOSTONIANS PAYING THE EXCISE-MAN OR TARRING & FEATHERING (London, 1774). Colored engraving. Location: Private Collection Photo Credit: Art Resource, NY. 11
Appendix C: The Able Doctor, or America Swallowing the Bitter Draught Item 2125 Unknown, THE ABLE DOCTOR, OR AMERICA SWALLOWING THE BITTER DRAUGHT (1774). Courtesy of the Library of Congress. 12
Appendix D: The Bostonians Paying the Excise Man, and The Able Doctor, or America Swallowing the Bitter Draught Item 1895 Phillip Dawe (c.1750 c.1785), THE BOSTONIANS PAYING THE EXCISE-MAN OR TARRING & FEATHERING (London, 1774). Colored engraving. Location: Private Collection Photo Credit: Art Resource, NY. Item 2125 Unknown, THE ABLE DOCTOR, OR AMERICA SWALLOWING THE BITTER DRAUGHT (1774). Courtesy of the Library of Congress. 13
Appendix E: Definition of Enlightenment Thinking The Enlightenment was an eighteenth-century intellectual and cultural movement that stressed human rationality the ability of people to examine evidence and exercise logic to make reasoned choices, as embodied in Renee Descartes proclamation: I think, therefore I am. Enlightenment thinkers stressed the importance of what they called natural rights rights such as liberty and equality which they believed should determine the relationships among members of society. The emphasis on rationality and natural rights led many people to advocate for selfgovernment rather than submission to monarchs. 14
Appendix F: Preamble to the Declaration of Independence When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. Thomas Jefferson, Preamble to the Declaration of Independence (1776). http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch1s5.html 15
Appendix G: Prince Hall Petition January 13, 1777 To the Honorable Counsel and House of Representatives for the State of Massachusetts Bay in General Court assembled, January 13, 1777: The petition of A Great Number of Blackes detained in a State of slavery in the bowels of a free and Christian County Humbly sheweth that your Petitioners apprehend that they have in Common with all other men a Natural and Unalienable Right to that freedom which the Grat Parent of the Universe that Bestowed equally on all menkind and which they have Never forfeited by any Compact or agreement whatever but that wher Unjustly Dragged by the hand of cruel Power and their Derest friends and sum of them Even torn from the Embraces of their tender Parents from A populous Pleasant and Plentiful country and in violation of Laws of Nature and of Nations and in Defiance of all the tender feelings of humanity Brough here Either to Be sold like Beast of burthen and Like them Condemned to Slavery for Life Among A People Professing the mild Religion of Jesus A people Not Insensible of the Secrets of Rational Being Nor without spirit to Resent the unjust endeavors of others to Reduce them to a state of Bondage and Subjugation your hononuer Need not to be informed that A Live of Slavery Like that of your petitioners Deprived of Every social privilege of Every thing Requisite and render Life Tolable is far worse that Nonexistance. (In imitat)ion of the Lawdable Example of the Good People of these States your petitioners have Long and Patiently waited the Event of petition after petition By them presented tot the Legislative Body of this state and cannot but with Grief Reflect that their Success hath been but too similar they Cannot but express their Astonishment that It have Never Bin Considered that Every Principle from which America has Acted in the Course of their unhappy Difficulties with Great Briton Pleads Stronger than A thousand arguments in favors of your petitioners they therfor humble Beseech your honours to give this petition its due weight and consideration and cause an act of the legislature to be past Wherby they may be Restored to the Enjoyments of that which is the Natural right of all men and their Children who wher Born in this Land of Liberty may not be held as Slaves after they arrive at the age of twenty one years so may the Inhabitance of this States No longer chargeable with the inconstancy of acting themselves that part which they condemn and oppose in others Be prospered in their present Glorious struggle for Liberty and have those Blessings to them. To the Honorable Council & House of Representatives for the State of Massachusetts (January 13, 1777). http://www2.volstate.edu/socialscience/finaldocs/revolution/petition.htm 16
Appendix H: Abigail Adams to John Adams 31 March 1776 I long to hear that you have declared an independency and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation. That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness. Letter from Abigail Adams to husband John Adams (March 31, 1776). http://www.masshist.org/adams/manuscripts_1.cfm#%23 17
Appendix I: Enlightenment Thinking in the Era of the Revolution Examples from the Declaration of Independence Examples from the Prince Hall Petition Examples from Abigail Adams Letter to John Adams 18
Appendix J: Imagining Voices in History Topics 1. Write a letter from Phillis Wheatley to a slave who is considering joining Lord Dunmore arguing why the recipient should not side with the British. 2. Write a letter from a slave who has joined Lord Dunmore to Phillis Wheatley arguing why the recipient should side with the British. 3. Write a letter from William Franklin to Benjamin Franklin explaining his position on the conflict. 4. Write a letter from Dragging Canoe to Thomas Jefferson explaining his position on the conflict. 19
Notes