THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Target Grade: 5th
Target Subject: Social Studies - The American Revolution

Target Population: This lesson includes history, map skills, writing, and incorporates technology if powerpoint technology is available to the children. The students have already studied poetry and newspaper articles, and this lesson will utilize some of those skills. Fifth graders are also required, by Virginia Standards of Learning, to develop skills in research, and this lesson will provide opportunities for them to synthesize information from sources provided by the teacher as well as record and summarize that information in written and pictorial form. Each group will present their particular battle, so the class will not only learn from those battles they researched, but they will also learn from other groups. The powerpoint presentations will be extremely helpful since it is an inclusion classroom and will appeal to then visual learning style of certain students.



Objective: Students will research a battle of the revolution and present what they have learned. The presentations will use powerpoint if the technology is available. The presentations will contain criteria for assessing their mastery of the information such as the date of the battle, key people, key vocabulary, and the importance of the battle.


Materials:
Powerpoint Program on classroom computers
Books - for research on battles - From Colonies to Country
- Build Our Nation


Lesson Procedure:
1. Introduce the lesson by asking children questions that they have about battles of the American Revolution. Write their questions up on the board
and tell students that they are going to find the answers to their questions.
2. Divide class into 7 groups (depending on the number of students and the number of battles the teacher wants them to research). Assign a battle to each group:
1. Lexington/Concord
2. Battle of Bunker Hill
3. Battle fo Trenton
4. Battle of Saratoga
5. Valley Forge
6. Battle fo Charleston
7. Yorktown

3. Give students, in their groups, time to research from various sources.
4. Students will assemble and synthesize the information in order to create a powerpoint presentation. The following lists what should be included on each slide. (Students should also include graphics to make their presentations interesting and appealing)
Slide 1 - name of the battle
Slide 2 - date of battle and why was battle important (was it a turning point)
Slide 3 - key characters on Patriot side
Slide 4 - key characters on the British side
Slide 5 - Other key vocabulary or phrases (example “shot heard round the world”)
Slide 6 - create a catchy newspaper headline
Slide 7 - create a 4 -line poem about your battle
Slide 8 - (if possible) load an image of a map of the battle area and summarize the startegy used in the battle
Slide 9 - a quote from a primary source (if possible)
Slide 10 - Other interesting information you want to include
Slide 11 - Closing summary - ideas important to remember

Evaluation:
The powerpoints will be presented to the entire class. Each group should have included all of the required information, as well as be able to expand on vocabulary and key figures.

Modifications/ Variations:
1. May need to have a lesson beforehand on powerpoints presentations, or teach it throughout this lesson.
2. The map and strategy slide would depend on capabilities of software to transfer photoes from a scanner to the powerpoint slide.
3. More graphics should definitely be available to students for their slides.
4. More slides may be added should the teacher feel that more needs to be assessed.
5. if powerpoint programs are not available to the children, they can creat a poster with the same information, as well as creat a model or map of the battle scene in order to describe strategy.