Boston University



Kristin ArabaszArlington Public Schools, MAOverview: The following lessons are designed for 10th grade U.S. history students at an honors level, which has been the level I’ve taught for the past few years. These lessons aren’t designed to be taught contiguously but rather to be interspersed throughout the year in the appropriate time periods/units in which they fit.Lesson 1: Smallpox, Inoculation and Slavery in Boston: 1721 Essential Questions:How did the Puritans view the concept of inoculation? What problems did this discovery present for them? Objectives:Students will summarize Puritan values and ideals. Students will evaluate the then-novel concept of inoculation in the context of Puritan Mass Bay and decide whether or not they would recommend its use. Students will analyze a poem and short article about the subject that introduces new information.Learning Process: Summarizer/introduction (5-10 minutes): on their own, students will list five key values/ideals the Puritans in Mass Bay held. The teacher will ask for volunteers to share answers and record answers on the board, making sure that the notion of predestination/fate/accepting god’s will is one of the responses. Small group and whole class discussions (20 minutes): Students will break into small groups of three to four to read and respond to the following prompt: “You’re a respected Puritan religious leader and scholar and you’ve just discovered a potential preventative measure for a deadly disease that has previously ravaged your community. You decide to test it on three test subjects, all of whom survive. You know that the community will seriously consider your recommendations on this issue – what should you do?Consider the following as you formulate your answer: -What issues does this dilemma raise for you? -What are your possible courses of action? Ultimately, what action should you take? -What impact might your choice have, both positive and negative?-Would you take the vaccine yourself, despite the risks?Students will discuss in small groups; then, a whole class discussion will follow in which students share their responses. Summary of the issue (5-10 minutes), adapted from “The Case of Smallpox (and Slavery) in Boston” and the Boston Globe Magazine article “A Revolutionary in the Smallpox War,” both given to us by Barbara Brown on the first day of the institute. Teacher will present symptoms of and statistics on deaths from smallpox, the 1721 outbreak in Boston, Mather’s studies of inoculation’s success in Turkey and his own test cases, the backlash against the novel idea amongst Boston’s medical community and ultimately the credit Boylston (an otherwise less than eminent physician) received when it proved effective. Analysis of Susan Donnelly’s poem “Inoculation” from the New Yorker and discussion (20 minutes): students will read the poem in their original small groups and respond to the following prompts:-What themes or big ideas do you see in this poem? What tensions or conflicts are present?-What new information is presented here? Would this information have affected your previous decision on whether or not to recommend inoculation? Teacher will ask for groups to share their answers: these should include the themes or tensions between religion and science and perhaps slavery and knowledge (two ideas that we don’t often associate). Assessment: This will be mostly informal within the lesson (student responses to the prompts and overall participation), but the content and ideas would ultimately be included on a unit test and/or quizzes. Also, the teacher could have students complete the following for homework: Read the biography of Onesimus () and record any three new pieces of information and explain how each supports the themes/big ideas or tensions discussed during the poem analysis activity. MA Frameworks links:I couldn’t find any, aside from “slavery” as an issue of debate during the Constitutional Convention and its growth in the 19th century South. Searches for “Boylston,” “Mather,” “smallpox,” “vaccination,” and “inoculation” yielded no results. It seems the DOE doesn’t consider this a significant topic, but I think that teaching one lesson outside the frameworks is fine. Lesson 2: What happened to Crispus Attucks? Depictions of the Boston MassacreEssential Questions:How did various artists choose to depict the Boston Massacre? How is each of these depictions examples of propaganda? How does Crispus Attucks’ presence (or absence) impact the effectiveness of a depiction of the event? Objectives:Students will summarize the British policies of the 1760’s and their impact on Boston.Students will analyze two different depictions of the Boston Massacre.Students will create a front page for a colonial newspaper that features one of the images and explains their reasons for choosing it.Students will evaluate Crispus Attucks’ presence in the images and how it affected their decision. Learning Process: Summarizer/introduction (10 minutes): students will record three British policies of the 1760’s or earlier, what they did, how they affected Bostonians and the reactions Bostonians had to them (this might include the Navigation Acts, Molasses Act, Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Townshend Acts and should note how all were taxes that especially impacted merchants and their customers in port cities like Boston, which led to heightened tensions between colonists and British officials). Small group work with images (20 minutes): each group will be provided with copies of each image, and teacher will project color versions at the front of the room. Each group will also receive a large piece of paper to create their final product. STEP 1 - Each group will first analyze both images to determine which one they’ll use by discussing their answers to the following questions (this will also help with the homework assignment that follows): -What happened at the actual event? -According to your summary, how accurately does each image depict the event? -What details do you notice in each? What might these mean?-What can you guess about the artists’ motivations for each? STEP 2 - Next, each group will decide which image they’d chose and build a newspaper cover page around it using the following guidelines: -The name of the newspaper across the top of the page -The image of your choice, with a creative and suggestive title for the image and a brief caption below it-An explanation of why your paper chose the image: what impact do you hope it will have? What made it more significant or appealing than the other?Groups present their work to the class and explain their choices (20 minutes). Teacher will tally the choices by group to see which image was more popular overall. Teacher will then explain that the image featuring Crispus Attucks in the center was actually created during the abolitionist movement in the 19th century, despite often being misattributed to Henry Pelham (Pelham’s actual carving was much closer to Revere’s – in fact, Revere basically copied Pelham’s work). Teacher may also show other examples of abolitionist propaganda (the packed slave ship, the “am I not a slave and brother” medallion) or other examples from other events/periods of history with which students might be familiar, such as the world wars to show very clearly the intent of propaganda. Homework assignment (5 minutes) – see below.Assessment: For homework, each student must write a brief 1-2 paragraph editorial to accompany the work they did in class. The editorial must: -Summarize the event itself and provide a brief context for it-Choose 2-3 details from the image that supports that version of events-Explain the influence (propaganda value) of the image they chose-Explain why their paper chose not to publish the other image-Explain how/why the centrality of Crispus Attucks in the second image affected their decision MA Frameworks links: USI.4. Analyze how Americans resisted British policies before 1775 and analyze the reasons for the American victory and the British defeat during the Revolutionary war. (H) USI.5 Explain the role of Massachusetts in the Revolution, including important events that took place in Massachusetts and important leaders from Massachusetts. (H) A. the Boston Massacre Lesson 3: What would you risk to protect someone? Boston and the Fugitive Slave LawEssential Questions: What does the story of the Crafts reveal about Boston’s reaction to the Fugitive Slave Law and its role in the Underground Railroad?What risks did individuals take to help themselves (and others) reach freedom?Objectives:Students will predict the ending of the story involving William and Ellen Crafts’ escape to the north and Lewis Hayden’s role in their journey before.Students will decide whether they would risk their own (academic) safety for that of a classmate through a simulation. Students will analyze Boston’s role in the abolitionist movement by viewing a DVD clip and then touring the Black Freedom Trail online and writing responses to each. Learning Process:Introduction: story of the Crafts’ escape and arrival in Boston and reactions, adapted from the chapter from Black Bostonians and notes from the Black Heritage Trail Tour (15-20 minutes): Teacher will give an overview of the role of the largely black Beacon Hill neighborhood of the 19th century and its role in sheltering runaway slaves, highlighting the story of William and Ellen Craft. Teacher will relate how Lewis Hayden sheltered the Crafts and how a slave catcher arrived at his door to demand their return. Students will be asked to pair up and write their predicted ending to this story, including the Hayden’s response: did he protect or give up the Crafts? If the former, how did he keep them safe and get rid of the slave catchers? Teacher will ask students to share responses.Simulation activity and discussion: what would you risk to protect someone? (15-20 minutes): teacher will choose a handful of volunteers (three is about right) and give each a choice: they may either draw a slip of paper from a hat full of different consequences OR draw a slip of paper containing the names of others in the class. If they choose to draw from the first hat, the slip of paper may be blank (have no consequence) but it also may carry a negative consequence, like an extra homework assignment. If they choose to draw from the second hat, the classmate whose name they draw will have to do the extra homework. (Teacher can decide later if they actually want to follow through with this, or determine other consequences instead). The individuals cannot abstain and must draw a slip from one hat or the other. The idea is for students to understand the position that individuals like Lewis Hayden were in: they often had to decide whether they should give up others to protect themselves. Fortunately, in this case, Hayden chose the opposite. The teacher should ask for student reactions and responses to the activity, its purpose and its outcome. DVD clip from Slave Catchers, Slave Resisters from the History Channel and ticket to leave (20 minutes): this program provides a great overview of slave resistance in the U.S. from the colonies through the Civil War. The clip I’d show starts around 55 minutes and includes discussions of “runaway syndrome” or “Draptomania,” the original fugitive slave law’s institution, Boston’s hostile reaction to slave catchers, the story of the Crafts and Hayden and other case study of a runaway (Anthony Burns) who, unlike the Crafts, was forcibly returned to slavery from Boston. (The program also has segments on David Walker and Nat Turner’s rebellion that are useful). Assessment: Reaction to the activity and/or the DVD clip as a “ticket to leave.” What surprised you? What did you find noteworthy or significant? What insight did you gain as a result of these activities? Homework: students will tour Boston’s Black Heritage Trail online at and write a paragraph response to the following question: why was Boston a focal point of the abolitionist movement? Visit any 3-4 sites on the tour and explain the events at that location help to answer the question. MA Framework links: USI.31 Describe the formation of the abolitionist movement, the roles of various abolitionists, and the response of southerners and northerners to abolitionism. (H) ................
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