Defining US: The American Experience
FCPS Teaching American History Grant
LESSON PLAN TEMPLATE
Subject: U.S./VA. History
Grade: 11
Prepared by: Brian Heintz
School: Westfield High School
Title or Topic: Doing History: Life in the Early Republic
Instructional Time: 2 -3 days (90 minute blocks)
PART I.-CONTEXT
1. Essential Learning:
By the end of these lessons, the students will have a sense of some aspects of daily life around the turn
of the eighteenth century and contrast that with their own lives. They will get a sense of how history is
made by both the people who live it and the professionals who research and write it.
2. Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL):
VUS.1
The student will demonstrate skills for historical and geographical analysis, including the ability to
a) identify, analyze, and interpret primary and secondary source documents, records, and data,
including artifacts, diaries, letters, photographs, journals, newspapers, historical accounts, and art to
increase understanding of events and life in the United States;
b) evaluate the authenticity, authority, and credibility of sources;
c) formulate historical questions and defend findings based on inquiry and interpretation;
d) develop perspectives of time and place, including the construction of maps and various time lines of
events, periods, and personalities in American history
3. Fairfax County Program of Studies (POS): (Identify by number and descriptor.)
Benchmark 1.1: The student will gather and organize various data and information.
Performance Indicator 1.1
Students reach this benchmark when they are able to:
A. Use primary and secondary sources, including library and museum collections, diaries, Interviews,
newspapers, artifacts, historic sites, and electronic technologies such as on-line sources and the Internet.
B. Use visual, literary, and musical sources, including fine arts, architecture, literature, folk tales, cartoons,
and popular and classical music.
Benchmark 1.2: The student will analyze, interpret, and evaluate information and data.
Performance Indicator 1.2
Students reach this benchmark when they are able to:
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A. Read primary and secondary sources to reconstruct the literal meaning of the historical passage by
identifying who was involved, what happened, where it happened, why it happened, and what outcomes
followed.
B. Read for a variety of purposes: critically, analytically, to predict outcomes, to answer a question, to form
an opinion, to skim for facts, and to draw inferences.
C. Formulate historical questions based on critical examination of relevant information in order to develop
hypotheses, to test the hypotheses, and to construct a thesis about a topic in American history.
D. Analyze cause and effect relationships, focusing on multiple causations; the importance of the individual
in history; the influence of ideas, human interests, and beliefs.
F. Differentiate between historical facts and interpretation.
H. Detect bias in data presented in various forms: graphic, tabular, visual, and print.
I.
Assess differing interpretations historians have written about the past.
Benchmark 1.3: The student will communicate information in various formats.
Performance Indicator 1.3
Students reach this benchmark when they are able to:
E. Construct a historical narrative reflecting the origins, development, and outcome of an issue, problem, or
event, using a variety of written forms such as:
o
Diaries
o
Satire
o
Songs
4. National History Standard (Historical Thinking Standard)
Historical Comprehension
Historical Analysis and Interpretation
Historical Research Capabilities
5.
Learning Strategy(s) Objectives:
Use Resources
Take Notes
Make Inferences
Use Selective Attention
6. Connection to TAH grant:
-Specifically uses ideas and materials utilized by Dr. Barbara Smith’s presentation: Society and Culture
in the Early Republic from 6/23/04.
-Also uses the resources made available from the Center for History and New Media at George Mason
University.
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PART II.
1. Assessment:
(See Handouts)
2. Instructional Strategies:
Day 1
-Opener: History Now: “Carb” Diet of the 19th Century. (10-15 mins.)
Reading, Student Questions, and Discussion.
-Introduce the diary of Martha Ballard. (10-15 mins.)
Work through the “Trivial and Unimportant” handout
-View Film, “A Midwife’s Tale” (45-50 mins.)
While viewing the students should complete the “Contrasting the early 19th versus early
21st Centuries” t-chart. Showing the first 45 minutes of the film (up until the death of
Martha’s niece) is enough for students to gain understanding and complete charts.
-Assignment/Assessment
As homework, the students should complete “Doing History: Journals.”
Day 2
-Opener: History Now: Premarital Pregnancy. (15-20 mins.)
Reading, Student Questions, and Discussion. Also share “A New Bundling Song” and
“The Whore on the Snow Crust” songs as additional primary sources on the topic.
-Assignment Review. (20-25 mins.)
In small groups of 3-5, students share their “Doing History: Journals.” Discuss their
accuracy/inaccuracy.
-“Life in the Early Republic through Death: Springer Estate” (20-25 mins.)
Students remain in small groups, completing assigned group questions/activities.
-Overall class discussion of group findings/de-briefing. (15-20 mins)
Groups share their responses to Springer estate activities. Follow-up with generalizations
about life in the early U.S.
3. Materials/Resources to be used:
TV/VCR
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Handouts
4. Differentiation: (Include strategies for reteaching and special populations such as GT, ESOL and
special education.)
-Build in an additional day to complete the journal assignment within the class.
-Allow students to create visual representations of the contrast between life in the centuries instead of
written comparisons.
5. Attachments: (Include copies of assessments, rubrics, handouts that support this lesson.)
“Contrasting the early 19th versus early 21st Centuries”
“Trivial and Unimportant”
“Thomas Springer Estate”
“History Now: “Carb” Diet of the 19th Century”
“History Now: Premarital Pregnancy”
“Doing History: Journals.”
6. Annotated Bibliography: (Include information so that others are able to access the same
resources.)
Do History: A site that shows you how to piece together the past from the fragments
that have survived. Case study: Martha Ballard. The DoHistory Web site was
developed and maintained by the Film Study Center at Harvard University and is
hosted and maintained by the Center for History and New Media, George Mason
University.
http://dohistory.org/home.html
OAH Magazine of History, July 2004: Courtship and Sexual Freedom in
Eighteenth-Century America, by Richard Gobeer. Reprints of A New Bundling Song
and The Whore on the Snow Crust.
A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, by
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich: The historical piece that inspired the film and the “Do
History” website.
American Experience: A Midwife’s Tale: 90-minute film inspired by the book.
The Reshaping of Everyday Life, 1790-1840, by Jack Larkin: Excellent research
source for tidbits on daily life in the period.
After the Revolution: The Smithsonian History of Everyday Life in the
Eighteenth Century, by Barbara Clarke Smith: Background and support
information for the Springer Estate exercise.
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