Lesson: Continuation of the review of the historical documents: Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights, and related terminology/vocabulary. Development of the concept of the need to address multiple perspectives in studying U.S. History and their impact of primary and secondary sources of historical events..

Standards:

Historical Skills/Historical Inquiry

Students will understand that …secondary sources may be influenced by the author’s interpretation of historical events.

Content and Habits of Thinking: Further familiarization with principal historical documents: Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. Students will be reviewing terms and analyzing and organizing information now based on different perspectives. Students will be required to collaborate and discuss various perspectives, as well as back up their ideas by explaining their thought process to the group. The class will come to the conclusion that a narration of our history is not something fixed; we will always need to consider the source, and the perspective that might shape the author’s view.

Guiding Questions:

Overarching: How can the study of our historical documents help us to understand our government today?

How do different perspectives of authors affect the presentation of, and our understanding of, U.S. History?

* How might different groups of people interpret words/concepts differently?

* How might concepts vary in their meaning over time?

* How might our understanding of this help us in our study of U.S. History this year?

Lesson Sequence and Instructional Strategies:

Warm-up: Students will share their poems written using the terminology and topics from last class. Or, if they already did this, they will write a summary of the main ideas of their last class.

Then, after copying the topic/*questions of the day, students will brainstorm individually for two minutes a list of different groups of people who might look at the terms or documents differently. Ex: the slaves of the days of the Revolution probably looked at the Declaration of Independence differently than the colonist businessmen. Refugees from Vietnam might think freedom means something different than a high school student. (Possible groups might be: the rich, poor, immigrants, undocumented workers, indigenous people, women, senior citizens, Afro-Americans, Korean-Americans, tourists, businessmen and women, workers, slaves, abolitionists, slave owners, colonists, British loyalists, Muslims, Jewish people, Quakers, etc.)

After sharing and creating a long list together on the board, students will be asked to create a visual aid to illustrate the idea of different perspectives of different groups of people about the same topic or term. Graphic organizers could be used (bubble, double bubble, a tree map or a brace map), or students can choose another method to illustrate their idea. Students will get into their groups of three and will be given poster paper and markers to do their work. Once again, a quick discussion of what they will be scored on should occur before students start work. Each poster should include a minimum of four different terms, each with two different groups of people who would interpret the term differently – either at different times in history, or from different vantage points in society. Neatness, an attractive presentation, and four clear, well-described and/or illustrated ideas are required. (The poster paper could be folded into four to emphasize the idea of four presentations.)

After groups have finished, the posters and ideas should be shared with the class. An extension of the concept can be discussed: How might our understanding of these differences help us in our study of U.S. History this year?

For homework or as a wrap-up, students will be asked to write a paragraph to summarize their thinking:

1) How might different people interpret words differently and narrate the history of our country in different ways?

2) How will this affect our study of U.S. History this year?

Assessments:

Group work – evidence of cooperation and collaboration in the creation of the poster

Posters illustrating the main idea of the lesson

Summary paragraph

Instructional Considerations: This lesson is intended to set the tone for our course of study and to help students reflect on the many groups of people that need to be taken into consideration as we discuss U.S. History from the perspective of our textbook and other sources.

Materials needed: Poster paper

Markers

"A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used."--from Supreme Court decision in Towne v. Eisner (1918)

Español: “Una palabra no es un cristal, transparente y sin cambio; es la piel de un pensamiento vivo y puede variar enormemente en color y contenido según las circunstancias y la época en la cual es utilizada.”

- de la decision de la Suprema Corte - Towne v. Eisner (1918)

Link to PDF copy of lesson plan below. Plan from Liz Hathaway-Castelán.

Lesson Plan - Continuation of the Review of the Historical Documents