YHP Curriculum

Young Historians Program: Causes of the American Revolution LPM EDUC ATION

CHAPTER 1

Overview The Young Historians Program is an innovative approach to the study of history which leverages technology to enable international debate and discussion between students in different countries on a historical topic of direct relevance to both nations.

The 2021-2022 Young Historians Program focuses on the Causes of the American Revolution and is open to students across in grades 4/5 and in grade 7. This year-long program requires 90 minutes of instructional time per month between September and April. Starting in May, the program requires 90 minutes of instructional time per week as we ramp up to the debate with an international school. Because major state testing is completed by May, this time of year should prove more amenable to increased focus on the program.

In order to fully understand the Causes of the American Revolution, which explores the idea of who has a right to the territory known as the 13 Colonies, it is essential to begin with the first inhabitants of North America. The program therefore begins with the history of Native Americans and the process of European exploration, mercantilism and colonization that displaced the first peoples of this region.

Students will be assigned to one of the thirteen colonies and compare and contrast the perspectives of the native tribes in their assigned region and that of the colonists who have moved into the area. We will explore the sources of legal and moral authority that gave the colonists the “right” to these tracts of land and to establish them in areas that had been for thousands of years inhabited by Native Americans. In learning about this history, we will learn about the Protestant Refor1

mation, the threats to the English monarchy and the growing role of trade in European economies.

Through a focus on the individual 13 colonies and their different objectives, characters, and populations, students will acquire a vivid sense of Colonial America and the tensions within it. These tensions include attitudes toward Native Americans’ rights, differing stances on the enslavement of Africans, dependence on British protection from territorial threats, and reluctance to pay ever-increasing taxes to the Crown. Students will trace the history of how these very different colonies eventually united in the struggle for independence from Great Britain.

The causes of the American Revolution were several. Students will identify the primary and secondary causes of the Revolution and note the strong loyalist tendencies within the colonies. Students will examine what decisions and actions by the British crown formed the “tipping point” in favor of the American Revolution.

New York City students will study primary and secondary sources and learn about life in the Bronx during the Colonial period and the American Revolution.

They will receive one ZOOM or Google Meets class visit from a professional historian who is an expert on the American Revolution and who can answer their questions and discuss the period with them. They will work in small groups to produce written arguments in support of the colonists’ quest for independence.

Meanwhile, a school in England will be following a similar process in researching the British crown and parliament’s response to the American colonies in the years leading up to the American Revolution. The British students will use primary and secondary sources to understand both the British and the Americans’ perspectives on the colonists’ demands. The British students will work in small groups to produce written arguments in support of the crown’s stance that the colonies belonged to Great Britain and had no right to rebel.

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Using Google Meets or similar technology, the two schools will come together to debate each other. They will follow a parliamentary debate format and independent judges will decide which team won: the British or the Americans.

They will then have the opportunity to discuss the issues in at least two sittings, again using ZOOM or similar meeting software. Their classroom discussions will enable the students to: •

Learn the difference between a debate and a discussion

• Explore the nuances of the disagreements between the nations in a collaborative rather than adversarial exchange • Imagine how things might have turned out differently if the Crown had made fewer demands on the Americans, or if the colonists had lost the war The overall benefits to students are: •

A much richer engagement with a critical period of history

• A sharper sense of what primary and secondary sources are and how to use them •

Awareness of local historical societies and their function

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Awareness of what professional historians do and their function in soci-

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Stronger research skills

ety

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Stronger historical writing skills

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Keener sense of what an argument is and how to form and support one.

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Practice in public speaking

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Interaction with age-mates in another country and continent

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Perspective-taking

• Understanding of the many applications of technology for learning, research, writing, collaboration, discussion and debate In the US, the program will be interwoven within the Core Knowledge History curriculum and will build off of the existing materials that students use. Supplemental readings and trade books that compliment the current curriculum will be used within the program. The program is designed to run throughout the school year so that the debate and discussion with the British school happens in May or June. The full-year schedule allows us to more easily integrate the program within the competing demands of the school’s curriculum and to accommodate a field trip to local Colonial Bronx places of interest as well as a visit from a professional historian, and of course, the culminating events with the English school.

The amount of instructional time spent on this program is anticipated to be 1 1/2 hours per month, beginning in September and continuing through April. In May the instructional hours will increase to 3 hours per month to prepare for the debate with a British school. LPM will facilitate the program, provide all teaching materials and will create additional materials that align to each school’s current program in history so that the program enhances the existing instructional plan.

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Throughout the curriculum, we will consider the experiences and treatment of : • Native Americans • African-Americans and Africans • Women and girls • religious minorities

In our debate and discussion investigating the rights of the colonists in declaring independence from Great Britain, we will include the issue of the rights of Native Americans to their ancestral lands. We will also consider the Declaration of the Rights of Man against the practices of enslavement and indenture.

While this is an ambitious program, we believe that by working on it over the course of a year, we will have the ability to delve into this fascinating history and help students build a coherent grasp of the timeline of Colonial America and the central role of economic concerns in shaping the American Revolution and the quest for independence.

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CHAPTER 2

LESSON BY LESSON

Young Historians Program consists of 21 lessons, beginning in September 2021 and culminating in June 2022. Participating classrooms should ensure that students have a dedicated notebook or binder for the Young Historians Program as their notes throughout the year will prove essential to their debate with a British school at the end of the year.

The topics of individual lessons are outlined on the following page.

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Month/ Week

Lesson/ Topics

Content

Skills

September/ Week 3

The First Americans

early humans; migration to the Americas

Maps Timelines

September/ Week 4

Native American Cultures Diversity of Native along the East Coast of American cultures along North America circa 1400 Eastern Coast; AD interactions among tribes

Maps Primary Sources

October/ Week 2

Authority to Rule

Europe in the Early Modern Age

Maps The Magna Carta

October/ Week 4

European Exploration of the Americas

1492-1600s

Maps Timelines

November/ Week 2

What is a charter?

Authority to claim territory

1600s

November/ Week 4

Protestant Reformation: Church and State

1485-1700s

Graphic Organizers Timelines

December/ Week 2

The Mayflower

1620

The Mayflower Compact Maps

January/ Week 2

Colonies as a Profit Center

1600s-1700s

Economic charts

January./ Week 4

Competition for Colonies

The French Indian War (1754-1763)

Maps Timelines

February/ Week 2

Control and Cost

Taxes and Laws, The Stamp Act; Civil Unrest

Timelines Taxation Charts

February/ Week 4

Authority to Govern

1700s Enlightenment Thinkers

Inequality; laws and human rights

March/ Week 2

Command and Control

The Townshend Acts (1767)

imports, duties, taxation without representation

March/ Week 4

Civil Disobedience and Martial Law

The Boston Massacre (1770); The Boston Tea Party (1773)

primary sources

April/ Week 4

The Empire Strikes Back

The Intolerable Acts (1774)

Timelines Taxation Charts

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Primary Sources: Charters Maps

Month/ Week May/ Week 1

Lesson/ Topics The Colonies Unite

Content First Continental Congress (1774) Give me liberty or give me death (1775) Paul Revere’s Ride (1775) First Revolutionary Battles (1775) The Declaration of Independence; Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776)

Skills primary source timeline timeline maps

May/ Week 2

Revolution

May/ Week 3

A new vision for government

May/ Week 4

Causes of the Revolution: Debate Prep

Logical Arguments

June/ Week 1

Causes of the Revolution: Debate Prep

Ethical Arguments

June/ Week 2

Causes of the Revolution: Debate Prep

Rehearsing Debate Speeches

public speaking; clear wrtiing

Debate with British School

Causes of the American Revolution: Did the American Colonists Have the Right to Claim Independence from Britain?

public speaking clear writing mastery of facts analysis of historical events

Discussion with British School

Causes of the American Revolution: Did the American Colonists Have the Right to Claim Independence from Britain?

active listening participating in a collaborative meaningmaking activity considering different perspectives “What if ” questions

June/ Week 3

June/ Week 4

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document analysis components of a logical argument; forming logical arguments components of an ethical argument; ethical arguments

CHAPTER 3

LESSON ONE: THE FIRST AMERICANS

Who were the first Americans? How did they get here? When did they get here?

Our first lesson begins at the beginning: with the emergence of homo sapiens in Africa about 100, 000 years ago. Students learn how and why humans migrated into the Americas approximately12, 000 years ago, during the Ice Age. We learn about the different regions they settled into, their dependence on animals and crops, and the diverse cultures they established.

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CHAPTER 4

LESSON TWO: NATIVE AMERICANS in the 1400s

The land that became the 13 colonies was populated by a wide range of Native American tribes. In this lesson, students will be assigned to one of the regions that became a colony and learn about the native peoples who were living there in the 1400s. What were these societies like? What roles were possible for men, women and children? How did they trade, farm, cook, craft and hunt?What languages did they speak? What did they believe? How many of them were there? We will get a closer glimpse of the native peoples of what became the 13 colonies.

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CHAPTER 5

LESSON 3: AUTHORITY TO RULE

Long before the British began colonizing other parts of the world, they began questioning the authority of their own King/ Queen to rule. The most intense questioning was prompted by an abusive and incompetent monarch, King John.

This resulted in the Magna Carta, or the Great Charter of 1215. This limited the powers of the throne and established protections that many point to as an early bill of human rights. We will examine the Magna Carta and consider how it might be seen as a precursor of the Declaration of Independence.

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CHAPTER 6

LESSON 4: EUROPEAN EXPLORATION OF THE AMERICAS

By the late 1400s, Europeans and Native Americans have their first encounters with each other. We will look at how a taste for Asian goods, technological advancements in boat-building and outright greed drove the maritime quest for a shortcut to India which resulted in Columbus’ landing in Hispaniola. The central role of trade in propelling exploration and the speed of European establishment of trade posts and colonies will be traced through maps and timelines. We’ll learn about the role of the Catholic Church in early colonization.

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CHAPTER 7

LESSON 5: WHAT IS A CHARTER?

Charter school students will define the term “charter”. They will see how this definition maps to charters provided to independent groups empowered to create a colony in a far-away land; including providing services typically provided by the government. Students will learn about the role of charters in the formation of many of the 13 colonies; they will distinguish between charters and royal charters---and learn why the British crown ultimately decided to convert all charters to “royal charters”. Students will continue to work in their assigned colony team.

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CHAPTER 8

LESSON SIX: PROTESTANT

REFORMATION

How did the Protestant Reformation drive the formation of the 13 colonies? From Massachusetts to Rhode Island to Pennsylvania to Maryland, we’ll learn how different religious groups took advantage of colonization to practice their religion in peace. We will use a timeline to trace the history of the Protestant Reformation and see how it fractured the British population; creating vulnerable subgroups among those attached to the old Catholic faith or more extreme in their commitment to the Reformation movement’s ideals.

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CHAPTER 9

LESSON SEVEN: THE MAYFLOWER

Following from our introduction to the Protestant Reformation, we’ll meet the 102 passengers of the Mayflower; a merchant ship designed to transport goods, not people, across the English Channel---not the far flung Atlantic Ocean. What drove these mostly (but not entirely) English pilgrims to leave the religious refuge they had found in the Netherlands to create a new home in an unfamiliar, “undeveloped” land? Who gave them the authority to do this? What had they agreed to in exchange for this new land? To whom were they beholden?

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C H A P T E R 10

LESSON EIGHT: COLONIES AS A PROFIT CENTER

In this lesson, we take a big picture look at the flow of people and goods within the Triangular Trade. The central role that unpaid and unfree African workers played in the extraordinary economic success of the colonies will be discussed. We will learn about the growing importance of the colonies, and of the American colonies in particular, in British economic wealth and power. We will also look at the growth in population in the 13 colonies from the early 1600s to the late 1700s and evaluate the demographics of this population.

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C H A P T E R 11

LESSON NINE: COMPETITION FOR

COLONIES

As colonies became the profit centers for European empires, the American colonies became a theatre of war between the French and the British. Students will learn about the enormous cost the British paid to protect their American colonies in the protracted French-Indian War. . They will also debate the British solution of getting the colonists to pay for their military defense through increased taxation.

We will begin tracing how this sparked a mutual resentment that would culminate in revolution.

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C H A P T E R 12

LESSON TEN: CONTROL AND COST

We will explore the first major tax introduced to help pay for the French-Indian War: The Stamp Act (1765) was greatly debated in British parliament. We will examine the pros and cons of this debate and recognize that some British politicians correctly anticipated the American reaction. We will learn about the civil unrest of colonists in response to the Stamp Act; a sign of their confidence, stubbornness and determination to stand up for themselves. We will investigate the legality of this taxation in the context of the royal charters.

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C H A P T E R 13

LESSON ELEVEN: AUTHORITY TO

GOVERN

What gave the colonists the legal or moral right to resist new taxes from the British crown? What gives anyone the right to govern anyone else? Do kings rule by right divine in the late 1700s? Or are there other criteria that give leaders the right to exercise authority over others?Do people have to consent to be governed ---perhaps by voting? These are the ideas that Enlightenment thinkers wrestled with ---and that the “Founding Fathers”--and Mothers---contemplated at the time of the revolution. How are these ideas relevant to the issue of who “owns” America?”

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C H A P T E R 14

LEVEL TWELVE: COMMAND AND CONTROL

With the introduction of the Townshend Acts, the British Crown turns up the heat on the American colonists; impinging on their freedom and oppressing them with yet more taxation, taxation that is of course without representation. Fired with Enlightenment ideals and a strong reluctance to give up their hard-earned cash and independence, once-loyal colonists began to whisper of revolution. We will trace the cause and effect relationships in this rapid decline of British-American relations.

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C H A P T E R 15

LESSON THIRTEEN: CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE AND MARTIAL LAW

With each student assigned to one of the 13 colonies, we will ask: Which colonies were most inclined to revolution and why?

Which colonies proved most “loyal” to the Crown and why? What techniques did the Crown use to put disobedient colonists “in their place”? What effect did these practices have? What might have been smarter alternatives? Students will view British policies from the point of view of their assigned colony.

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C H A P T E R 16

LESSON FOURTEEN: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

What was it about the four Townshend Acts that incensed the colonists? Why did the British crown think the Townshend Acts would work? What were the consequences of the Townshend Acts? Why did the British fail to predict these consequences? We will trace the timeline of the Townshend Acts and their effects on British-American relations.

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C H A P T E R 17

LESSON FIFTEEN: THE COLONIES UNITE

Why and how did the thirteen very different colonies unite? What common interests drove them to forge an alliance? Could any of the colonies have established independence on their own? Could some of the colonies have established independence while others remained loyal to the Crown? Maintaining their “colony assignment,”students will evaluate why their individual colony decided to join the others in revolution.

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C H A P T E R 18

LESSON SIXTEEN: REVOLUTION

The British tried to pre-empt a revolution and in so doing, sparked it. Using maps, timelines and primary sources, we’ll glimpse how the revolution ignited in New England. We’ll ask why the British so badly underestimated the resolve and resources of the colonists. We’ll learn about Crispus Attucks and other brave men and women who laid down their lives for independence.

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C H A P T E R 19

LESSON SEVENTEEN: A NEW VISION FOR GOVERNMENT

The Magna Carta, the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, and economics all come together in a Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

We’ll explore how the new nation reflected centuries of developing thought about human rights and authority to govern---while still ignoring the rights of whole groups within their population, including groups that had made monumental contributions to the colonies’ success.

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C H A P T E R 20

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LESSON EIGHTEEN THROUGH 20

DEBATE PREP

Students will spend the final three lessons learning how to formulate arguments regarding the causes of the American Revolution. They will explore the best arguments for the colonies’ right to declare their independence from Britain. They will then debate students of the same age from Great Britain who will argue the British side of the debate! Students will later meet to discuss the issues and ask “what if ” questions regarding some of the major decisions the Crown and the colonists made that changed world history.

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