Justin+Cummings

[|The American Revolution]

This lesson plan is based around role-playing and acting. The students will do many activities that are based around "becoming" another person or acting as though they are interacting with important figures in American history. Before starting the activity the students must create a concept map or outline that explains what their ideas are for the project. Students will be involved in 1 of the following 4 activities. 1.) Mock interviews with important historical figures such as George Washington and Paul Revere . The format for these interviews is open to whatever the students choose to do. 2.) Students will put themselves in to groups of the people that were involved in the Revolution and explain why they fought, and how conflict could have been avoided. The groups can take the role of the British, Colonists, the French or the Indians. 3.) The students will have to act out certain critical events that took place during the Revolution such as the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party . Creativity is a must and any kind of prop is highly encouraged. 4.) The students will have to create a biography about the women that played important roles in the American Revolution. Pictures, books, or poems can be used in order to create the biographies.

The final step of this activity is to present their final projects in front of the class. For each group the other students will write down comments or questions that will be given to the group. The group will then turn in their project to the instructor to be graded. The group will be graded based on: the work that they did before the project started (concept map), completion of requirements, and each students own reflection of the project.



Response by Madeline Wayham

This project has a lot of active participation and critical thinking. I think they will have a comprehensive understanding of the American Revolution after this project. Also in order to do the activities they must have a lot of prior knowledge to draw from. Perhaps before doing to concept map they could read a story together or watch an educational documentary about the revolution.

Response by Katherine Gregory

I like this activity and think it could be intertwined with my lesson plan since they are so closely related. My lesson plan suggested ending with watching a movie like Johnny Tremain while trying to identify the role that each student had previously possessed. I think this could be a nice conclusion for your lesson as well; though the movie could be altered if necessary.

Response by Alyssa Stutzer

This activity would be very worth while in a classroom setting because it would allow the individual to be creative and find fun unique ways of developing ideas about historical events and people in American history. I would have the students able to choose which of the 4 activities they would like to pursue so that they could each spend some time discovering about an important time in history.