Lesson Ideas: Political Independence in the American Colonies

In my recent post about how to plan a unit on the Colonial Era, I mentioned the usefulness of foreshadowing. Even if you are beginning your course with the American Revolution, you still need to provide some background as to why the colonists revolted against British rule.

So here are some ideas for a lesson you might entitle something like, “Political Autonomy, the Rights of Englishmen and the American Colonies.” Or perhaps something like this: “The Rise of American Independence before Independence.”

First, the big or essential questions. These are the questions that drive the lesson.

1. What do we mean by self-government? By representative govt? By democracy?

2. In what way(s) were the colonists already getting used to running things on their own before the Revolution?

3. In what way did the inefficiency of the British government contribute to start of the Revolution?

4. When we say the colonists enjoyed, “the rights of Englishmen,” what did they mean? (i.e. did they only mean men? And what rights were they talking about?)

5. In what ways was English government “representative”? (Because we know that one of the things that led to the Revolution was colonists argument that there should be “no taxation without representation.”

Teaching Ideas:

1.  Try displaying this image as a way for students to see the difference between self-government and democracy. The correct answer is A, as in self-government means the people decide what kind of government they want. It may be democracy, but it also might be something else (as we found out the hard way in Vietnam).

2.  Have students read these documents. One is an excerpt from the English Bill of Rights. It is useful for pointing out the power of Parliament vis-a-vis the King following the Revolution of 1688.  And the second is a secondary source about the importance of New England Town Meeting. The third is an amusing little excerpt from Edmund S. Morgan’s The Birth of Republic that demonstrates how the inefficiency of the British government over the colonies led to a certain amount of independence, long before the Revolution. This 3rd one is also useful for explaining the concept of salutary neglect.

If you try any of these ideas, please let me know how they worked. How did you tweak it?

Why We Can't "Save" Teaching Slavery until Our Civil War Unit

Update: June 2020 - This post has been updated to include some new resources that have come out since I first wrote this in 2014. See those at the bottom. Many teachers, perhaps especially white teachers, are uncomfortable teaching about slavery. As a white teacher myself, I have concerns about how my students of color react to lessons about these topics. Before delving into some of the topics below, I highly recommend the podcast "Seeing White."  Being uncomfortable does not give us a pass on teaching this material. It is our collective ignorance and amnesia of African American history that perpetuates the problems we still have in our country. See this new resource from the National Museum of African American History and Culture for help with talking about race in general.

Unfortunately, slavery is a topic almost invariably “saved” until just before the curriculum reaches the Civil War.  Doing so, however, oversimplifies both slavery and the causes of the Civil War. Including slavery as a topic earlier in the year gives students a better appreciation for the diversity of the slave and slaveholding experience. (For excellent background on this check out Peter Wood, Black Majority,--see below for a "cheat sheet" on this, Donald Wright, African Americans in the Colonial Era, or the first two chapters of Peter Kolchin's, American Slavery).

Teaching about the early history of slavery in what became the United States also creates the opportunity to teach students about important problems in historical thinking.  Our images of slavery as existing mostly on large cotton plantations obscure important truths.  Because we know how the story goes--there will be a Civil War, slavery will be eventually abolished, and racism will still exist-- we take for granted certain things about slavery. Just because we know today that slavery became the dominant labor force in the American South doesn’t mean we should assume it was inevitable.  Re-read that last sentence: slavery BECAME the dominant labor force. It might not have been, right? Shouldn't students know that? And most students don’t even realize that slavery existed in the North at all. Which raises the issue, if slavery existed in the North, why did it decline in the North after 1776? And what does that say about the American Revolution?

But I am racing ahead.

So below are a few classroom teaching ideas for teaching about this period. I think it is important in order to dispel several myths about slavery held by many students:

1. that slavery was a new thing that started in what became the U.S. and only existed there

2. that slavery was always tied up with race

3. from the beginning, slavery was only in the South and all Northerners opposed slavery, while all Southerners supported it.

idea #1. Below is a chart one can reproduce or put on screen/board in order to generate a discussion.  I have included potential answers.  I have found that students are able to figure out most of the answers on their own, and so it is useful to do this with a partner or in small groups. Alternatively, you can use it as a whole-class discussion. However you do this, be careful about the messages you are sending. This is raw history, filled with trauma. Talking about slavery as a solution to the labor problem is historical; but this is one of those moments when teachers have to step in to acknowledge the pain of this history. Stories abound in the national news about teachers who made these errors. (See here or here for examples.)

	white indentured servants	Native Americans	Africans
advantages as a labor force	- same race & culture (dispels the myth that owners prefered those of different background)	- no transportation costs - more readily available	- plentiful - more difficult for them to escape (both because they are visually different looking, but also where would they escape to?--can't easily get back to Africa) - students aren't likely to figure out this one on their own: had a greater immunity to disease than Native Americans
disadvantages as a labor force	- limited; labor scarcity - eventually had to give them their own land & freedom	- could more easily escape to rejoin their communities - very susceptible to disease)	- very expensive - language barriers

Idea 2. Here is another technique useful as a way to make students do the thinking.  You could simply tell students the information below, but if you give it to them on separate cards to put in order or in the format below, they have to use logic.  This technique could be used with lots of other topics.  I have chosen to use punctuation and capitalization as a clues to help students, but depending on their ability, you could omit those clues.  I also have learned that it is best to tell students which one is #1.

Put the sentences/phrases below in the order which makes the most sense.  Put the numbers in the blanks next to each phrase.

__4__ the worse conditions became for Africans.  The individual became more expendable.

__2__ Colonists, therefore, needed to import more slaves from Africa.

__7__ Restrictions on freedom led to greater resistance from slaves and more interference from whites.

__3__ The more slaves there were,

__1__ The need for slaves rose. (This one is sort of the result of decisions made by the chart above)

__5__ Racial tension increased.

__6__ Colonists passed laws to ease their fears about the number of Africans.

An interesting question: what does this little exercise above suggest about which came first, racism or slavery? I think students would be interested to know that historians disagree about the answer to this. See this lesson plan for resources to teach this topic (and thanks to Siobhan O'Connor whose comment below introduced me to this resource).

Idea #3. Once students understand how increasing numbers of African slaves led to the need for greater social control, you can show them examples of some of the slave codes. Here is a link to primary sources re: slave codes: http://www.teachingushistory.org/ttrove/1740slavecode.htm. And here is a link to 3 slave codes and my ideas on how to use them. And some useful info on codes in Virginia including a useful chart and another one.

Idea #4. One of the debates historians have had is whether or not it was possible for blacks to retain African customs and have any freedom--however limited-- given the harsh experience of slavery. I like to use this image (also a link to other teaching ideas on colonial slavery) in a very simple. Have students decide whether the image lends support to the idea that African customs and a certain amount of independence were possible by analyzing the image. Be careful that you do not imply or suggest that there was a positive aspect of slavery. And you can discuss with students why such a painting might have been painted in the first place. More info on the painting here.

Idea #5. Another common myth that students have--well, less of a myth than just ignorance, perhaps--is that slavery is something unique to what became the United States. One look at map #1 on this website should dispel that idea pretty quickly. If we are to make our U.S. history class a little less U.S.-centric and more international in focus (I know that seems contradictory) this is a good place to start. Maps such as these demonstrate that slaves didn't come from "Africa"--they came from specific areas within Africa. And the majority ended up in Central America, the West Indies, and Brazil, not the future United States.

Hope this helps give you some ideas!

RESOURCES:

Teaching Hard History: American Slavery - produced by Teaching Tolerance. There is also an accompanying podcast.
1619 project - a curriculum project inspired by the Pulitzer prize winning series in the New York Times in 2019
Washington Post articles about slavery and the teaching of it
National Museum of African American History and Culture
Thanks to Sioban O'Connor's comment below for introducing me to this resource, useful for African American history in every time period, not just slavery.
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
slaveryandrembrance.org

slavevoyages.org - amazing resource

Slavery at Monticello

Africans in America from PBS

Historian Peter Wood on the shift from indentured servitude for blacks to an inheritance of slavery.
See also my later post on teaching slavery before the Missouri Compromise

What Gets Lost in the Controversy over the New APUSH Framework

Twenty years after Lynne Cheney criticized the U.S. National History Standards for their "grim and gloomy" view of American history, the Republican National Committee is now critiquing the College Board's new framework for AP US History as portraying "a consistently negative view of American history." Two days ago, James R. Grossman of the American Historical Association wrote a thoughtful op-ed piece in the New York Times about the controversy that was criticized yesterday by Stanley Kurtz in the National Review.

History is a contentious subject. What is taught, how it is taught and what is left out matters. But what all the reformers, textbook companies, the College Board, politicians and pundits forget about is how students see things. And all the fighting about whether we should include this famous person or another really begs the question of what students actually learn.

Larry Krieger and Jane Robbins, two vocal critics of the new APUSH Framework write that its redesign is "leftist nonsense." Krieger points out that "The redesigned Framework omits Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Dorothea Dix, William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Roosevelt, Jonas Salk, Rosa Parks, Dwight Eisenhower, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and many other notable American heroes." (quoted here).

Let's examine this list in a little more detail. Take Jonas Salk, for example. I do not dispute that Jonas Salk is a "notable American hero" and we should know about him. But where, exactly, does he belong in a U.S. history curriculum? If we don't want our history classes to be focused on the memorization of facts and details, exactly what should be taught about Jonas Salk and when and where? Should he be mentioned in a lesson on F.D.R. in the context of Roosevelt's polio? And if he is merely "mentioned," does that does the subject justice? Should we instead include an in-depth, entire lesson on vaccination and the eradication of childhood diseases? Or should we just throw him in on a lesson on famous American inventors? And how will we avoid turning a lesson like that into a mere memorization exercise, where the teacher either lectures on a bunch of famous inventors and the students fill out a chart to accompany it? If students did research online to learn about different inventors would it be any better? Or would that still just be looking up a bunch of people and copying it down on a chart? I'm not disputing the profound significance of Jonas Salk--I just raise the issue of what we all mean when we say our curriculum should include famous person A or important event B or noteworthy document C.

Let's take another one: William Lloyd Garrison. Let's say you do a lesson in which students read the deservedly famous piece he wrote in his first issue of The Liberator. When the test or essay or DBQ or authentic assessment rolls around, let's say a student didn't remember that William Lloyd Garrison was the author, but the student offered a cogent discussion of this famous document and explain the impact of abolitionists on the antislavery movement and the eventual abolition of slavery? Wouldn't that be as (or more) important than being able to identify William Lloyd Garrison as its author? 

Let's take two more: the two that are trotted out every 3rd week in January or during Black history month in schools around the country: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks. I'd be surprised that any U.S. history teacher would leave them out, but I am more concerned by the fact that too often, the Civil Rights movement is boiled down to ONLY Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks. And, to make matters worse, it is often a one-dimensional look at King and Parks. Year after year, in schools around the country, kids are taught the flawed and grossly oversimplified account of Rosa Parks being too tired to move to the back of the bus and--at least according to my 2 kids--every year they hear the same passage from King's "I Have a Dream Speech." They rarely hear the whole speech. And too few teachers go on to teach about how King's vision changed over time--how his experience fighting discrimination in Chicago and the expansion of U.S. involvement in Vietnam led to him to bring up economic inequality and broader issues? Why not have students hear or read other famous King speeches? I worry that by the time students make it to high school U.S. history class, King's "I Have a Dream Speech" has become a tired cliche because they hear it too often, with too little context. (Note: I have since elaborated on this particular set of problems in this post on "8 Mistakes Teachers Make When Teaching the Civil Rights Movement.")

So while the politicians and pundits debate what should be taught, let's think more carefully about HOW we teach what we decide to teach. And, if history is so critical to the future of our republic, let's involve our students in this controversy. Have students weigh in on whether a particular period is "grim and gloomy" or exemplifies America at its best, or--what is likely more accurate, something in between. Good history should be both dark and uplifting. But too many kids still say that history class is boring. If it's boring, they tune out. And if they tune out, it doesn't matter if you mention Jonas Salk or not, because they won't be paying attention.

A Method for How to Plan a Unit Using Essential Questions: Colonial America

One of my pet peeves as a teacher is when I see a syllabus for U.S. history that only lists the title of the unit as "Chapter 4." And then under each day, you see things like "section 4.3." To me, this suggests a unit planned according to a textbook. Even very good textbooks are flawed and they should never be used as the guiding force in planning. And really, what kid is going to be excited about the fact that tomorrow's lesson will be on Chapter 4, section 4.3?? Give your unit and each lesson a title. Not only does this make things sound more interesting, but they probably will be more interesting because you have now put thought into what the unit and lesson are really all about. It will also help students see the structure of the course more clearly and therefore better understand the context for each day's lesson. 


A unit in a U.S. history course ought to focus on a few essential questions. And what one teaches Monday should logically lead to what is taught on Tuesday, and so on. What is taught in the unit as a whole should carry through themes or questions raised in earlier units and/or introduce problems or issues that will be developed in later units. It is okay to skip part of the textbook. (Indeed, it is okay not to use one at all, but that is subject unto itself.)
For me, it has always been easier to figure out what needs to be included in units on the wars because there is a clear sequence of events. And I have found it harder for periods that are broad like Colonial America (200 years of history in 2 weeks!) Industrial America (too much going on: railroads, big business, labor, immigration, urbanization, the last of the Indian wars, the rise of Jim Crow, oh my!), or the Progressive Era (so much legislation revolving around so many issues: women, prohibition, trust-busting, federal regulation—how to avoid the unit becoming a slog of filling in charts of all these laws?!).

So here’s my suggestion:

Take a cue from a literature: foreshadowing and themes. DON’T cover everything in your textbook about the colonial era. Instead, choose themes which “foreshadow” what will happen in the next unit and/or later on in the year. The reason for teaching a particular topic should never be because that is what comes next in the book. It should be because that what logically follows in this grand story you are teaching. Does this mean you will leave out important information about what life was like in Colonial times? Yes, of course. Does this mean you will probably skip having students copy information out of the textbook about the differences between proprietary, royal and charter colonies and put the info into a chart? Yes, thankfully! But remember, you can't EVER hope to "cover" everything, nor should you even if you could. (If you did, you'd be lucky to make it to World War I by May!) And remember the most imporant question all students ask: why do we have to know this? Planning a unit like I am suggesting will help you help them answer that question.

Click here to see my example of this kind of planning for a unit on Colonial America.

Ferguson, MO & Emmett Till: How Our Understanding of History Informs Our Present

In this morning’s Chicago Tribune, John Kass writes about the murder of Emmett Till in 1959 and the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. He writes, “If you’re white and you suggest the killing may have been justified, you could be denounced as a racist. If you’re black and you think the cop should be thrown in jail, you could be seen as seeking revenge for the sins of the past.” Perhaps oversimplified, perhaps not. But as he goes on to discuss his meeting with Emmett Till’s cousins, Wheeler Parker and Simeon Wright about the events of August 28, 1955, I was reminded that what happens in the past does not stay in the past. Times change, but what has been going on recently in Ferguson, the murder of Till, the OJ Simpson trial, and the summer race riots in Chicago in 1919 are all part of the same story.

So while I am intending this blog to go chronologically through American history, I hope you are bookmarking articles about Ferguson now so you can use them when you get to Black Migration and Civil Rights later in the year. And--if you are still interested in how to start off your school year, why not try a lesson right now that demonstrates to students how our understanding of the world has been shaped by history? Throughout the year, challenge students to make connections between events of the past and events that follow. It’s not nearly as simplistic as my little diagram below suggests, but emphasizing links such as these will help your students better understand history instead of just memorizing facts about history.

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The Practical Problem of Coverage, or How to get past WWII by May

A constant problem facing teachers of U.S. history is how to “cover” everything before the end of the year (or for some, the A.P. History test, which comes even earlier). It is, of course, an impossible and dubious task. However, it is something that a conscientious teacher must address from the start of the school year. If you hope to make it to the Second Gulf War, or September 11th, or Reagan, or even Vietnam by May, you have to cut things earlier in the year and make yourself a schedule. There are three questions you must ask yourself, and your answers to all three are intimately interconnected:

1. when does U.S. history start? 1492? 1607? 1763? the Revolution?
2. when does 1st semester end? after the Civil War? after Reconstruction? at the end of the 19th century?
3. How far are you going to get? Vietnam? the 70s? the 80s? 9/11?


Everyone has different answers, and each are potential loaded. For example, if you rush to the Revolution, what does that suggest about the place of Native Americans in the story? (Kevin Schultz, history professor at University of Illinois at Chicago has an interesting post on this question.)

Most U.S. history courses divide themselves in half after the Civil War and Reconstruction. I began teaching U.S. history this way, but after a few years, along with my colleagues, we decided that 1900 (give or take a few years) made a better halfway point to allow more time for the 20th century. Let me stress that it was VERY DIFFICULT for us to cut things from the first half of the course to fit in a last unit during first semester on industrialization and urbanization. But it does our students a disservice to neglect to teach Vietnam, the Reagan Revolution, changing immigration patterns and race relations or the increasing significance of the Middle East to U.S. foreign policy. It is hard to understand today's world without some background on these topics. To make appropriate time for them, you simply have to cut topics from earlier in the year. If you spend roughly 2 weeks (10 days) on the standard units, that gives you some room to add here and there and account for final exams, testing, shortened periods, field trips and the gazillion other things that make planning difficult for teachers.

We all have our favorite units—often based on what we loved when we were in college, or on what we studied in grad school—and it is easy to get bogged down in them because we feel we cannot possibly do justice to _____________ (fill in the blank with any unit) without spending some time on ____________(fill in the blank of a particular topic.) But you can’t teach it all. So pick and choose. Carefully. For help with this, I urge you to read chapter one, ”The Tyranny of Coverage” in James Loewens’s book, Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks and Get Students Excited about Doing History, which provides a thoughtful analysis of this problem. (Though I disagree with Loewen's decision to leave out the Progressive Era. This is difficult period to teach, but key things are raised during this time period that inform later issues and it seems historically irresponsible to leave it out altogether).

Another interesting discussion about the problem of how to divide the course along with some interesting ideas about how to teach the second "half" of U.S. history can be found here, though it is geared more towards college level (but easily adaptable, I think).

Curious about how other folks plot out the year...?

Teaching Columbus

First off, let me say that I don’t think you need to start a U.S. history course with Columbus or discovery. If you teach middle school, chances are students have discussed this more than once in elementary school. And if you teach high school, there are all sorts of reasons why the topic fits better into world history courses. More importantly, if you want to make it at least to Vietnam, you don’t have time.

However, there are some interesting ways to use the topic as a way to think about larger issues. So if you want to start your U.S. history course with Columbus, try some of the ideas below:

 

1. Many (dare I say most?) students will know that the Vikings “discovered” America before Columbus and many will chime in that it wasn’t a discovery at all because the Indians were here first. But the very important point remains that until Columbus’s voyage, few people in Europe or Asia knew about America. So you can use the quotation below as a springboard for discussion about the significance of Columbus’s voyage:

“Columbus discovered America, not literally, but significantly.”

(quoted in Roderick Nash & Gregory Graves, “Christopher Columbus,” in From These Beginnings: A Biographic Approach to American History. New York: HarperCollins College, 1995.)

2. Building on the idea above, what is “significant” about Columbus’s voyage? Answer: the Columbian exchange. Think of the revolutionary impact on world trade this “exchange” had. From things as mundane as the introduction of tomatoes to the Old World (hard to imagine Italian cuisine without tomato sauce, but before 1492, there would have been none) to the more significant: the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade and the impact of diseases like smallpox on the indigenous American population. For more info, check out these two links:

The Columbian Exchange from North Carolina Digital History and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

3. Tie to today. U.S. Census uses 5 main categories by which Americans identify themselves: Caucasian (white), African American (black), Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic (can be white or black—many students don’t realize this even if they are themselves Hispanic), and American Indian. These 5 categories are—of course—problematic and filled with complications, but consider the extent to which they were established in the early 16th century, following Columbus. Compare to earlier perceptions of “race” and ethnicity: click here for a list of peoples that may be a good starting point for this.

4. Another way to tie to today: discuss the evolution of Columbus Day as a national holiday. How did it start? Why? What do different groups say about it now? Here is a link to an article in American Scholar that provides interesting background about how the day became a holiday. It’s probably too long to use with students, but provides good background for the teacher to use. You could follow up with a writing activity/debate/discussion about the use of a controversial figure (Columbus) to foster civic pride.

5. And if you’re looking for other ideas, check out these lessons on Columbus from the Howard Zinn website.