Christina Klinke – WebQuest – The Crucible
Title: All Students are cheaters – never trust them with anything!
Topic: Researching the Background of The Crucible (WebQuest)
Introduction:
Have you ever been falsely accused of doing something? Not doing your homework when your
printer really was out of paper? Everyone in this room has probably been accused of doing
something that they are innocent of doing. How did you feel when you were being accused,
perhaps by an authority figure, and no matter what you said no one believed you? In Miller’s
play, many innocent people are accused of witchcraft and other sins they did not commit. Today
we’re going to research the time period in which Miller wrote The Crucible and determine what
laws should be made to stop the innocent from being falsely accused.
Materials:
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Cause-Effect Hand-out
K-W-L Hand-out
Source Bank Hand-out
Computer with working printer
Pen or Pencil
Copybook
Task:
You task is to pair up with a friend to research the historical background of the Salem Witch
Trials and McCarthyism. You should also use the knowledge and information you have gained
through your reading of The Crucible. (As you are researching and finding information,
remember to record all of your sources so that you are not falsely accused of plagiarism.) You
and your partner will be responsible for a verbal evaluation of the consequences of the witch
trials and McCarthyism that you will share with the class. As a written assignment, to be handed
in, each pair must create a governmental way to prevent innocent people from being falsely
accused.
The Process:
1. Once you have found a partner, discuss with him/her which role they would like to be.
Each group will need 1 researcher and 1 recorder.
2. The Recorder of the group must make sure your group has the following hand-outs: (1)
Cause-Effect, (2) K-W-L Charts, and a (1) Source Bank.
3. Once your group has all of the required materials your group my access a computer and
begin your search. There are websites listed below. (It is required that you assess at least
3 websites I have listed and 3 websites you have found throughout your search.) As you
are accessing these websites, remember to complete the K-W-L chart and to record your
findings on the Source Bank hand-out. (*Every student is responsible for a K-W-L chart)
4. Since you will be discussing your finding with the class, you may want to fill in the
Cause-Effect hand-out to organize your thoughts. This hand-out will not be collected,
however, and it is only being provided to help you with your verbal presentation.
Christina Klinke – WebQuest – The Crucible
5. Once you have a sufficient amount of resources, you should begin to answer the
questions below.
6. Once you have answered all of the questions, you and your partner should discuss a
reasonable solution to prevent the Salem Witch trials and the McCarthy trials from
occurring in the future. Remember to record all of your ideas. Once you and your partner
have decided on a solution, you should begin typing a one-page paper explaining your
solution, why you believe your solution will work, and any flaws you see in your
solution.
7. After you finish this assignment, please contact your teacher or supervisor for further
instruction.
8. Ten minutes prior to the end of class, you will be asked to stop working so that you may
discuss your findings with the class. You should have at least 2 interesting facts to share
with the class.
Websites:
http://www.curriculumunits.com/crucible/background/framestimeline.htm
o This website provides a chronology of events for the Salem Witch Trials.
http://www.curriculumunits.com/crucible/background/framesaccused.htm
o This website provides a list of people who were accused during the Salem Witch Trials.
http://www.salemwitchmuseum.com/education/index.shtml
o Briefly explains the Salem Witch Trials.
http://www.curriculumunits.com/crucible/main3.htm
o This site will serve to be your complete information source for just about everything
related to Arthur Miller's timeless piece of work.
http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/lectures/lecture23.html
o This site summarizes the McCarthyism Era.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/06/game/
o This site contains a virtual McCarthyism Trail where you are the victim and you are
given the choice to testify or plead the 5th Amendment.
o Even though you will not find any answers to the questions on this site, you may list it as
a source. Include at least 1 or 2 sentences of what you thought of the site (your reaction).
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/salem/
o This site will allow you to go on a witch hunt.
o Even though you will not find any answers to the questions on this site, you may list it as
a source. Include at least 1 or 2 sentences of what you thought of the site (your reaction).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials
o Wikipedia explains what the Salem Witch trials were, the political background, the
religious context, and much more.
Christina Klinke – WebQuest – The Crucible
Conclusion
So, now that you have decided what should be done to keep the innocent from being accused and
presumed guilty, do you think it will work? You have had to analyze society and how it works.
Do you think your solutions will change society significantly? Do you think society will change
and avoid "witch hunts"? Why does society tend to repeat mistakes instead of learning from
them? You may answer these questions in your copybook or on loose-leaf.
Evaluation
You will be evaluated based on how much of the worksheet & questions you have answered and
your solution.
Christina Klinke – WebQuest – The Crucible
Questions for The Crucible WebQuest
1. How did you feel when you were falsely accused and were you able to dissuade your accuser(s)?
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2. What is one social and political event that inspired Arthur Miller to write The Crucible?
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3. What does Miller mean in The Crucible when he state, “They believed, in short, that they held in
their steady hands the candle that would light the world. We have inherited this belief, and it
has helped us and hurt us.”
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4. In what year does The Crucible begin?
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5. What was life like for the average Salem citizen?
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6. What were the Salem Witch Trials?
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7. Who was the cause of the Salem Witch Trials?
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Christina Klinke – WebQuest – The Crucible
8. How many people were hung during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692?
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9. Who was the first to be found guilty and hung during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692?
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10. If the victims of the Salem Witch Trials were accused of witchcraft, what were the victims of the
McCarthy trials accused of?
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11. Who led the McCarthy trials?
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12. When did the McCarthy trials begin and when did they end?
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13. What was the main objective of the Alien Registration Act?
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14. What Amendments did many people rely on to save them? Did it keep them out of jail?
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15. What does HUAC stand for?
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Christina Klinke – WebQuest – The Crucible
16. When was the HUAC established and why?
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17. What does SISS stand for and what was its purpose?
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18. How did congressional hearings, loyalty programs, and blacklists affect the lives of the men and
women caught up in them?
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19. If a person refused to testify against themselves, how did the committees convince people the
person was communist?
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20. How effective had the committees become by the mid-1950’s?
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21. If a person refused to testify against themselves, what was said of them?
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22. Who were the Hollywood Ten?
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Christina Klinke – WebQuest – The Crucible
Questions for The Crucible WebQuest – Answers
1. Personal Question- Any acceptable answer
2. The McCarthy trials
3. Just as the puritans thought they were doing right, Joe McCarthy and his followers believed they
were helping defend the U.S. against communism.
4. 1692
5. No dancing, praying all the time, very modest, etc…
6. The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings before local magistrates followed by county court
trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex Counties of
colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693.
7. Betty Parris and Abigail Williams were the cause of these trials.
8. 19 men and women
9. The first to be tried was Bridget Bishop of Salem who was found guilty and was hanged on June
10, 1692.
10. Being a communist
11. Joe McCarthy
12. On February 9, 1950, McCarthy claimed to have a list of 205 Communists in the State
Department. McCarthy continued his anti-communist barrage until 1954.
13. The main objective of the Alien Registration Act was to undermine the American Communist
Party and other left-wing political groups in the United States.
14. 1st and 5th Amendments - no
15. House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
16. HUAC was established in 1938 as part of the conservative backlash against FDR's New Deal, it
developed the most successful techniques and rationales for exposing political undesirables.
17. The most important were Senator McCarthy's Permanent Investigating Subcommittee of the
Government Operations Committee and Pat McCarran's powerful Senate Internal Security
Subcommittee (SISS), both of which conducted exactly the same kinds of investigations as
HUAC. More than a dozen states and even a few cities had also established their own UnAmerican Activities Committees or authorized other investigators to make similar types of
probes.
18. Ten thousand people may have lost their jobs.
19. The committees plied reluctant witnesses with damaging questions in the confident expectation
that they could not answer them.
20. So effective had the committees become that by the height of the McCarthy era, in the mid1950s, people were often fired simply for receiving a subpoena from HUAC or one of the other
committees.
21. Senator McCarthy, "A witness's refusal to answer whether or not he is a Communist on the
ground that his answer would tend to incriminate him is the most positive proof obtainable that
the witness is a Communist."
22. Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Albert Maltz, Adrian Scott, Samuel Ornitz, Dalton Trumbo,
Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson and Alvah Bessie
Christina Klinke – WebQuest – The Crucible
The Crucible
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Who wrote The Crucible?
What kind of government does Salem have in The Crucible?
What is Parris’s position in Salem?
What did Parris catch his daughter and other girls doing in the forest?
Who does Parris ask to come to Salem?
Who blames the death of her seven newborn children on witchcraft?
Who is the first person that Abigail claims practiced witchcraft?
Who gives Elizabeth Proctor a little doll when she returns home from the trials?
Where does The Crucible take place?
Who is in charge of the court?
Who is brought in to corroborate John Proctor’s claims about Abigail?
Who is John Proctor having an affair with?
Who is a servant in Thomas Putnam’s household?
Who is a wise, sensible, and upright woman, held in tremendous regard by most of the Salem community?
Who is an elderly but feisty farmer in Salem and famous for his tendency to file lawsuits?
What is Tituba accused of?
What animal’s blood did Abigail drink?