Learning Goal: Students can explain the characteristics and atmosphere in the colonies that began to cause people to consider rebellion.
America The Story of Us: Ep. 1 - Rebel
In order to understand what was happening in the colonies at the time that the American Revolution occurred, we will be watching the first 20 minutes of the first episode of "America the Story of Us". As you watch, please fill out the conversational roundtable. *We will watch the second half next class.
Now that we have watched the first part of the episode, lets have a conversation about what life was like in colonial America. We will share our answers from the conversational roundtable.
As you talk, try to answer the following questions:
What was it like to live in Colonial America?
How did the colonists overcome the unexpected struggles they faced?
If you were a colonist, in what ways would you feel more connected with the culture of the colonies? How would you feel connected with England?
If you lived in England, why would you make the choice to move to the colonies?
The World At a Glance: 1680-1760
The decades before the Revolutionary War play a crucial role in influencing the colonists and their eventual decision to create their own country. Check out the map below to see what is going on in the world where our story begins.
The French and Indian War or The Seven Years War
Together we will read the following articles to understand what the French and Indian war was and how it greatly affected the colonies.
Throughout the this unit, most of your homework will be put in a blog where you can be creative with how you respond to each day's prompt. In this blog you can pretend to be a colonist living somewhere in North America, a native American, a time traveler who has gone back to this era, or you may simply respond to the writing prompts each day. Feel free to be as creative as you want, just make sure to fully answer the daily questions. *If you would rather not have a blog and simply write your answers on a piece of paper, you may do that too.
Please follow the steps below to create your own blog:
Once you are into Blogger click the "New Blog" button. (It may ask you to create a +google account, just follow the directions it gives you to do this.
Create a title and URL for your blog.
Pick a theme
Click "create blog" (if it asks you to create a domain, click "no thanks")
Next, click "new post" to create your first post on your blog. When you are done, hit "publish" and you may see what your blog looks like by clicking "View Blog" up in the left hand corner of the screen.
Please fill out the survey below telling me what your URL is to your blog.
For your first post, please describe life in North America before and during the French and Indian War. Make sure you tag the post with "Colonial Atmosphere". To get ideas flowing, try to write at least 3-4 of the questions below:
Where in the colonies do you live?
What is good about living in the colonies?
What is difficult?
Why did you go to North America?
How is life different from what you expected it to be?
How do you feel about England?
What have you heard about other parts of the colonies?