ORC Lesson Plan

The grade this lesson is meant for is 8th grade and the subject is early U.S. History. Specifically the U.S. going from colonies to an independent country. Students will be expected read the chapter in small groups and complete a chart that will inform them about the events that led to the revolutionary war. They will have the event name, such as the Boston Tea Party, and they will have to give an explanation of what happened, how both the patriots and the loyalest felt about the event, and draw a picture to go along with it. This way they know all the events that led our independence and how people during that time felt about it. The drawing is just to make it a little more fun and easy to know what happened just by looking.

This lesson plan meets a few of the common core standards for 8th grade history. One would be historical thinking and skills. This says to use primary or secondary sources to examine events and the different perspectives about them. We use a secondary source, the textbook, to understand events the led to the revolutionary war and how different people felt about them. Another standard this meets is colonization to independence. One of the standards within this standard says to understand the dissatisfaction with England and how it helped launch the American Revolution. That is exactly the point of this lesson, to understand the events that led to the American Revolution. 

Before implementing this lesson I would first teach my students about all of the events leading up to the war. I want them to have a basic understanding of it before i send them into the activity. After that I would make them get into groups of two and pass out the activity and tel them to use their books in order to fill in the empty spaces. The thing I would think might pose problems is people getting into groups and getting distracted. If that was the case I would change it to independent work. What my students might have a challenge with is using the book. Some students don't like to use their books or the way the books word things can be confusing to some but that's why I'd be there to watch over them and answer any questions they had. This is what my students would end up with after the activity.

Here is a link to the activity.

http://civics.sites.unc.edu/files/2012/05/AmericanRevolution11.pdf