WEBSItes and documentaries
Liberty! The Road to the Revolution - This PBS website provides descriptions of the important battles, a timeline of events, videos and documentaries of the battles and events leading up to the battles, an interactive game, and perspectives of everyone involved, including the colonists, British militants, other countries around the world, and the natives to American.
History Channel Documentaries - This website provides short documentary clips about specific events during and around the American Revolution.
"Washington Crossing the Delaware" - This website gives important information about the famous painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River. This painting is referenced in Lesson 1.
The French and Indian War - The National Park Service is a government funded website that gives information about our country's national parks, but also lesson ideas for teachers who want to teach about the relationship between American history and our national parks.
Teacher Background Information
Detailed Lesson Plan
History Channel Documentaries - This website provides short documentary clips about specific events during and around the American Revolution.
"Washington Crossing the Delaware" - This website gives important information about the famous painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River. This painting is referenced in Lesson 1.
The French and Indian War - The National Park Service is a government funded website that gives information about our country's national parks, but also lesson ideas for teachers who want to teach about the relationship between American history and our national parks.
Teacher Background Information
Detailed Lesson Plan
Continual education
All of these resources were important to my background and learning for this unit before teaching it. I learned after watching these documentaries, exploring these websites, and researching the American Revolution that I did not have adequate enough knowledge beforehand to teach my fifth grade students appropriately. I also learned that a heavy historical unit such as this one has many historical perspectives, as in many points of view on the same topic. In a unit in which we are studying events Fromm over 200 years ago, it is easy to just choose the "basic" history and only one perspective. However, it is still important to include every side of the story in history.
Specific to this unit of the Revolutionary War, students will see different perspectives throughout the unit. I recall only learning the colonists' points of view in school, but based on the documentaries and websites above that give detailed descriptions of every side of the war, there were considerations from the British, French, and Native American points of view as well.
Specifically, the first lesson about the settlers coming to America is when a typical lesson might start to show the negative sides of the British and why the colonists felt the need to come to America to escape religious persecution. Further research from the History Channel documentaries and PBS unit showed more reasons for the settlers to move and that they benefitted as well as Britain frpm the move, so it cannot be seen as purely an escape from British religion. Another crucial part of seeing different perspectives was based on the research I did and sources I found explaining the French and Indian War. There were four sides to this war: the French, the Indians, the British, and the colonists. Based on learning about the positives and negatives that came from this war from each group's point of view, I included this important information in my lesson about the French and Indian War. I asked students to make predictions about how each group would be affected and then went back and looked at the consequences based on the outcomes of the wars.
Based on the websites and documentaries above, I learned so much more about the Revolutionary War that contributed to more in-depth teaching. I was able to grasp multiple historical perspectives on the settlement of America, the French and Indian War, the battles of the Revolutionary War, and the famous art depictions of that time period. These are all important to student learning so that they can fully grasp the history of a topic and not just one side of a story.
Specific to this unit of the Revolutionary War, students will see different perspectives throughout the unit. I recall only learning the colonists' points of view in school, but based on the documentaries and websites above that give detailed descriptions of every side of the war, there were considerations from the British, French, and Native American points of view as well.
Specifically, the first lesson about the settlers coming to America is when a typical lesson might start to show the negative sides of the British and why the colonists felt the need to come to America to escape religious persecution. Further research from the History Channel documentaries and PBS unit showed more reasons for the settlers to move and that they benefitted as well as Britain frpm the move, so it cannot be seen as purely an escape from British religion. Another crucial part of seeing different perspectives was based on the research I did and sources I found explaining the French and Indian War. There were four sides to this war: the French, the Indians, the British, and the colonists. Based on learning about the positives and negatives that came from this war from each group's point of view, I included this important information in my lesson about the French and Indian War. I asked students to make predictions about how each group would be affected and then went back and looked at the consequences based on the outcomes of the wars.
Based on the websites and documentaries above, I learned so much more about the Revolutionary War that contributed to more in-depth teaching. I was able to grasp multiple historical perspectives on the settlement of America, the French and Indian War, the battles of the Revolutionary War, and the famous art depictions of that time period. These are all important to student learning so that they can fully grasp the history of a topic and not just one side of a story.
Texts
Harcourt fifth grade North Carolina Social Studies textbook - the Teacher edition and Student edition of this textbook are used throughout this unit to provide students a text source of information.