I was bored with the usual lessons about the Causes of the American Revolution. For many years when teaching the Causes, I’ve talked about taxes, taxes, taxes with a smattering of protest and violence, and an ultimate break from the British Empire. I wanted to be more creative. I wanted my students to think about mid-to-late 18th century American politics from different angles. I wanted my young historians to have more to chew on besides “taxation without representation.” This year, I think (read: hope) I got it. Much love to the Museum of the American Revolution as a lesson plan they posted is the one from with this lesson plan was largely developed.

I began the unit with a video made by Royal Holloway University of London. I thought it would be fun to show a British video about “the American War for Independence.” Conversations about the title of the video were enlightening and fun, as students saw a bit into the British side of our American story.

Post-video, I asked students to go to the board and write what they thought caused the American Revolution based upon prior knowledge and/or the video we watched. What did most of them write? That’s right! Taxes! That was the moment I challenged them: could it really have been that simple? No way. History is far more complex than that.

Over the course of a week or so, I had students do reading at home from their text book (We use National Geographic’s American Story) and fill out a chart as they read– I didn’t want to go into depth about any particular law, save the Stamp Act because it is my absolute favorite (It DOES bring the drunken mob into the fray because of that nasty little tax on cards & dice, after all). The chart had headings such as “Limits on Freedom,” “Taxation without representation,” “Non-violent colonial protest,” and “Violent colonial protest.” This allowed students to explore different ways the Revolution could have manifested and categorize their thoughts. Did colonial protest force the Revolution upon them? Was the oppression that came along with different Parliamentary laws the reason the colonists rebelled? Was it a combination of things? How do the Great Awakening and Enlightenment complicate the story? Which people aren’t included in the story I’m reading and where do they fit?

In class, we explored primary source documents like Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation, political cartoons, and the Charleston Nonimportation Agreement, we talked about the role class and race, and we read other historians’ perspectives to further fill in our charts as well as gain exposure to different ways of thinking. My favorite class period was the one in which we took pebbles and a scale to debate the pros and cons of the colonists’ staying in the empire. Students worked in pairs and used their notes as well as a reading provided by The Museum of the American Revolution (scroll to Thematic Overview 4) to identify the advantages and disadvantages the colonists had within the British Empire. Students could use between one and four pebbles to give “weight” to their pro or con. The conversations they had about whether something they identified was positive or negative (“Can it be both?!” “I disagree. I think it is something different…”) was great for both learning the content and their social emotional learning. They debated salutary neglect, whether having rights to fight for was better than having no rights at all in another government, and whether the Proclamation of 1763 was really “that bad.” I was so impressed with their conversations!

The final push for developing their opinion about factor(s) that caused the American Revolution was to read the way several different historians viewed the subject. I provided them with five different historians’ opinions and asked them to choose three to read. This was followed by them discussing either the same historian or explaining different ones to each other depending on the pairs they were placed in to check for understanding. Afterward, they did a graffiti lesson in which they wrote whether they agreed or disagreed with each historian and why. Their summative assessment is to write a paragraph as a historian writing what their take on the Causes of the American Revolution is. They may use all of their notes and evidence from class while writing- no memorization is required of adult historians, therefore young historians should have all the sources they need on-hand to defend their opinions.

You can find the lesson plan in this Google Doc. The supporting materials are linked throughout this post and in the document. If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me! The best way? via twitter @historyherway.