Subject Areas |
History and Social Studies
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U.S. History - Colonial America and the New Nation |
Literature and Language Arts
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American |
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Time Required |
| One 45-minute class for review (activities 1 and 2)
Two to four 45-minute classes for activities 3 and 4 |
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Skills |
| Collaboration
Interpreting primary documents
Using a search function online
Establishing a chronology of events
Leading and participating |
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Additional Data |
| Date Created: 06/17/02 |
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Date Posted |
| 6/17/2002 |
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Colonial Broadsides: A Student-Created Play
IntroductionGutenberg
printed his first in 1454. They are still printed today. They are broadsides:
notices written on disposable, single sheets of paper printed on one side only,
intended to have an immediate impact on readers. Broadsides
did have an impact in colonial America. They delivered the latest news and much
more: government proclamations, public service announcements, opinion papers,
advertisements, and entertainment updates. Broadsides address virtually every
aspect of the American Revolution, providing a wide range of suitable classroom
topics. In this lesson, students will use the resources of the Library of Congress's
Printed Ephemera Collection to experience the news as the colonists heard it. Note:
For an introduction to and a complementary lesson on broadsides, see the EDSITEment
lesson plan, Colonial
Broadsides and the American Revolution. Guiding Question:In
what ways can you connect broadsides to events leading to the American Revolution?
What attitudes and political positions are revealed in the broadsides? Learning
ObjectivesAfter completing the lessons in this unit,
students will be able to - List important events leading to the
American Revolution in chronological order
- Discuss the connections between
broadsides and the American Revolution.
Preparing to Teach this
Lesson
- Review the lesson plan. Locate and bookmark suggested materials
and other useful websites. Download and print out selected documents and duplicate
copies as necessary for student viewing.
- Either this lesson or the complementary
EDSITEment lesson, Colonial
Broadsides and the American Revolution, would work well as a culminating activity
for a class studying the causes of the American Revolution.
- An American
Time Capsule: Three
Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera, available on the EDSITEment-reviewed
website American Memory,
offers an Introduction to An
American Time Capsule, featuring excellent background information on broadsides
and other printed ephemera.
- Concerning the broadside No
Stamped Paper to be had, available on American
Memory, the Introduction to An
American Time Capsule states: "Revolutionary leaders used widely circulated
newspaper extras to publicize colonial solidarity and encourage future concerted
efforts against British measures. 'No Stamped Paper to be had' reports a variety
of colonial efforts intended to force the repeal of the hated Stamp Act of 1765,
including Boston printers vowing to continue printing papers without stamps, New
York and Philadelphia merchants resolving not to import British goods, New Jersey
freemen declaring that they would ignore the act and all who support it, and public
hangings of the effigy of the stampman in Halifax and the effigy of the Lt. Governor
in New York."
- Review the interactive timeline
The Coming of Independence: Key Events from the EDSITEment resource Learner.org.
Notice that this timeline offers much more than a list of events; you can access
useful introductory secondary texts for virtually every event on the timeline
with a single click on the T symbol in the right-hand column.
- Selecting
a broadside when browsing or searching leads you to a bibliography page. Clicking
on the thumbnail on the bibliography page leads to the image page. The image page
offers one click access to higher quality digitized copies of the original (.jpg
and TIFF files), bibliographic information, and a full text version of the broadside
in contemporary typeface. The full text option is in the heading. URLs provided
in this lesson lead to the bibliography page.
- If desired, set up a large-scale
timeline or other device in the classroom on which students can post broadsides.
- Additional reading on this subject can be found at American Memory's
Read
More About It.
Suggested Activities
A Student-Created Play Based on Colonial Broadsides Note:
If your class has already completed the complementary EDSITEment lesson, Colonial
Broadsides and the American Revolution, you may wish to begin with activity
number 3, below. 1
If desired, begin with a review of important
events prior to the American Revolution. Share the timeline The
Coming of Independence: Key Events from the EDSITEment resource Learner.org.
Students can explore the links to additional information and documents. 2
If your class did not complete complementary
EDSITEment lesson, Colonial
Broadsides and the American Revolution, introduce the class to broadsides.
Share with the class the broadside No
Stamped Paper to be had from the EDSITEment-reviewed website American
Memory. (NOTE: Click the thumbnail for access to the image page. There, as
described in the Preparing to Teach section above, you have one-click
access to the full-text (modern typeset) version of the broadside as well as higher
quality images.) Discuss what can be learned from
this broadside about the Stamp Act and the colonists' reaction to the Stamp Act: - Why
does the broadside begin with the story of the hanging in effigy of a stampman?
- What different locations are mentioned in the broadside? Why?
- What
sorts of actions does the broadside report? Why?
- Why does the section
from New York on November 6th bother to mention that the crowd stopped at the
coffee house?
- What attitudes about the king are expressed? What do they
reveal about the state of the rebellion?
- What attitudes about bureaucrats
are expressed? What do they reveal about the state of the rebellion?
- What
sorts of people are described as taking action against the Stamp Act? Why did
they take action? Why are they mentioned?
3
Inform students that they will be working in
small groups to analyze one broadside. Each group will develop a set of questions
(such as those above) to use in leading a discussion with the class. - Assign
a different broadside to each group or allow students to select their own by searching/browsing
An American Time Capsule: Three
Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera on the EDSITEment resource
American Memory. Make
sure students understand how to search, browse, and access the bibliographic information,
full text, and higher quality versions of a document. See the last note in the
section above, Preparing to Teach this Lesson, or the detailed information in the
Tips section of Colonial Broadsides and the American Revolution.
- Allow
time for groups to read the full-text (modern typeset) version of their assigned
broadside and to do any research about the event to which their broadside relates.
Links from The
Coming of Independence: Key Events, available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website
Learner.org, provide good basic information
about important events. Click once on the T in the right-hand column. Also, see
the links from the EDSITEment resource Internet Public
Library, provided below in Selected EDSITEment Websites.
- If desired,
a Broadside Analysis Worksheet is available to help students examine a
particular broadside. This worksheet is based on the Written
Document Analysis Worksheet from the EDSITEment resource Digital
Classroom. Make sure students understand that they will not necessarily be
able to fill in every item for every broadside. For example, some broadsides do
not reveal the author.
- Each group is responsible for designing discussion
questions related to the document and for selecting a sentence (or two) from the
document that sums up its contents and attitude. The group should not read the
entire document to the class.
- Duplicate sufficient copies of the selected
broadsides to share among the class. Proceed chronologically as each group leads
the class in discussion about its document.
4 Based on their research, student groups can
now put together a class play about the events leading up to the American Revolution.
Each group should create a short, simple skit (no costumes or scenery) based on
its broadside. Here's one way you might organize the class for the skits. -
The student groups will base their skit on the broadside they analyzed above.
- Within each group, one student should serve as the narrator, who will announce
the start of each skit using the chosen sentence (or two) from the broadside,
as well as the date, location, and any other pertinent facts.
- The broadsides
were previously handed out, so distribution of them at this point is unnecessary
unless a group used a different broadside. In that case, someone from the group
could play the part of the delivery person, making distribution of the broadside
part of the skit and the spectators participants.
- Proceed chronologically
until all of the groups have had an opportunity to present their skits.
- A
short discussion of the various broadsides could follow the class's presentation,
with students classifying each broadside into categories as it is presented (subjective
or objective, official document or news report, pro-British or pro-American, informative
or inflammatory, possible effects on public opinion).
- You can have a central
place in the classroom for "posting" broadsides, such as a timeline. If the postings
are done in chronological order, this will reinforce lessons about the dates of
major events.
When all of the skits have been
presented, debrief the class through discussion. What was the cumulative effect
of the broadsides on students' ideas about life in the colonies prior to the American
Revolution? Did becoming familiar with a range of broadsides make the events leading
up to the American Revolution seem more slow or more rapid than students had previously
thought? What surprising elements came to light through the broadsides? Did students
come across broadsides indicating support for the British Crown? For rebellion?
How does the spread of news on the Internet compare to the spread of news through
broadsides? Extending the Lesson Selected
EDSITEment Websites
Standards Alignment
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