TAH Fall 2009
Carolyn Cristofalo
Matt Upham
Lisa Cullen
Life of a Patriot SoldierPart II
Surrounding Unit
Students have been studying the American Revolution prior to
completing today’s Common Sense activity.
They have been exposed to several text and media resources that
have depicted the lives and viewpoints of the Patriot soldier, as well
as the perspective of those who had remained loyal to the king.
Sample Text: My Brother Sam Is Dead
Sample Film: “The Patriot”
Specifically for this activity, students have learned how writing was a
major tool used to gain support for the Patriot cause. They will be
expected to use this prior knowledge in completing the assignment.
Background:
Common Sense
Common Sense was a 47-page pamphlet that was distributed in
Philadelphia in January 1776; over 500,000 copies were sold.
It was published anonymously.
The author, Thomas Paine, argued that citizens, not kings and
queens, should make laws; this was a bold idea at the time.
Common Sense changed the way many colonists viewed their
king, supporting instead the need for economic freedom and
for the right to military self-defense.
Declaring Independence
Colonial leaders and soldiers rallied behind Paine’s Common Sense.
June 1776: the Second Continental Congress formed a committee to
write a document declaring the colonists’ independence.
Created a seal for the new country with the motto “E pluribus
unum.”
Declaration of Independence (1776): formally announced the
colonists’ freedom from British rule.
A strong divide ignited between the Patriots and the Loyalists, or the
colonists who chose to side with the British.
Common Sense
PERHAPS the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet
sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not
thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right,
and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But tumult
soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
As a long and violent abuse of power is generally the means of calling the right
of it in question, (and in matters too which might never have been
thought of, had not the sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry,) and as
the king of England hath undertaken in his own right, to support the
parliament in what he calls theirs, and as the good people of this country
are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted
privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the
usurpations of either…
[Introduction]
Assignment
Students will work in pairs to read the introduction to Thomas Paine’s
Common Sense and complete a related writing activity; the reading and writing
activities will be differentiated according to the students’ abilities.
Activity I:
Read the introduction to Common Sense with your partner.
Complete the vocabulary handout as you read.
Activity II:
After reading the document, write to your relatives back
home in England, urging them to support the ideas put
forward in the pamphlet (supporting colonial independence).
Sources
www.earlyamerica.com
United States History and New York History: Beginnings to
1877, Holt McDougal (2009)