ethen_lp

Designer: Matthew Ethen, Edison H.S., Fresno Unified School District

Publication Date: (Revised) September, 2005

Standards (Include analysis skills): Grade 11 U.S. Standards (As applied to Advanced Placement U.S. History)

11.1 Students analyze the significant events in the founding of the nation and its attempt to realize the philosophy of government described in the Declaration of Independence.
- (11.1.1) Describe the Enlightenment and the rise of democratic ideas as the context in which the nation was founded.
11.3 Students analyze the role religion played in the founding of America, its lasting moral, social, and political impacts and issues regarding religious liberty.
- (11.3.2) Analyze the great religious revivals and the leaders involved in them, including the First Great Awakening….

Key Concepts (CA Concepts Collection II/Vocabulary):

Super Concepts – Change/continuity; rights
Grade 11 Concepts – (The Nation’s Beginnings) Constitution, democracy, natural rights

Learning Outcome/ “Big Idea”/ “Essential Learning” (Objectives):

Students will identify and explain the most fundamental differences between the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening. Students will also identity and consider what the two concurrent movements had in common.
Students will explore the extent and ways in which the Enlightenment and Great Awakening shaped the causes of and course of the American Revolution.

Specific Objectives:

Students will categorize key vocabulary according to the descriptive and explanatory features of the Enlightenment versus the Great Awakening.
Students will identify leading thinkers of the Enlightenment / Great Awakening and summarize their intellectual contributions to the movement (orally and/or in writing).
Students will identify Enlightenment and/or Great Awakening influences reflected in the actions of the United States’ “founding fathers,” the framing of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution and the debates over the meaning of these documents.

EL/Inclusion Strategies: As applicable to a fast-paced and more abstract Advanced Placement classroom setting, the following ELD accommodations will be incorporated into the activities: graphic organizers / VENN diagrams, rich overhead transparency images (Modified TCI Visual Discovery) and role-play discussion/debate (Modified TCI Experiential Exercise).

Materials: Overhead projector and transparencies of activities and primary sources; reference copies of the course text, The American Pageant. Optional: primary source readings, dictionaries; other U.S. or European (Enlightenment) history texts as desired.

Opportunities to Learn/Perform (Procedure): What will students need to do to achieve knowledge and skills identified in standards and learning outcomes?

Assign appropriate homework reading and note-taking from a main course text (e.g. The American Pageant, pp 66-104).

Modified TCI Preview / Prewriting
- Present “Key Concepts / Vocabulary” as a handout or overhead transparency and, using assigned homework reading and note-taking from The American Pageant as background knowledge, create a Venn Diagram or compare/contrast chart to organize and show the meaning and relationships of the terms below.
- Advise students to review the entire list before beginning and to think about major-to-subordinate ideas before beginning the graphic organizer.
Optional TCI Interactive Notebook: Direct students to propose “the best way” of visually displaying the key ideas and vocabulary of the Enlightenment and Great Awakening. Have students sketch their proposals in their notebook.
- Debrief, model and explain sample graphic organizer options (e.g. Venn diagram, illustrated timelines, cause-effect flowcharting); also, a preplanned TCI Mind Map format may be used.
Sample Instructions/format
- Provide students with a handout or overhead transparency and direct them to “organize the terms below using the key terms Enlightenment vs. Great Awakening as organizational anchors and major concepts.”

Key Concepts / Vocabulary

Philosophy (of government) Religion Democratic Ideas

Denominationalism George Whitefield Established Churches

Reason Faith John Locke

Sacred Secular Morality

Natural Rights “New Lights” Natural Laws

“Old Lights” Fundamentalism (Religious) Revivals

Separation of Church and State Ideological Science

Deism Jonathan Edwards (to be) “Born Again”

Tolerance Benjamin Franklin Protestantism

Monitor student work and provide whole-class or individual guidance as desired. Optional: Recommend that students refer to their textbook notes or consult course texts / dictionaries as desired.
Debrief student graphic organizers using the “TCI shoulder-partner” and/or whole-class methods as time allows. Display a teacher-designed overhead transparency for compare and contrast purposes and continued lecture-discussion. Allow for questions and discussion as desired regarding the placement and organization of terms.

TCI Interactive Notebook Idea
- Based on the activity so far, verbally direct students to contemplate “the best way of understanding the Enlightenment and Great Awakening?”

1. As a complementary compare/contrast juxtaposition?

2. As a contradictory charting of the “pro’s” versus “con’s” of each?

3. As an outline of the sacred versus secular aspects of each?

Prompt students to consider other alternative ways of exploring these topics.

TCI Processing / Extension:
- Students may role-play one of the following 18^th c. Colonial Americans and strive to represent their Enlightenment and/or Great Awakening world-views accurately:

George Whitefield Benjamin Franklin

Jonathan Edwards Thomas Jefferson

Option: Teacher or self-selected students act as moderators of debate.

(Modified TCI Experiential Exercise) Role-play characters may discuss issues such as:

Provide a summary of your intellectual and cultural movement and why it is most important to British colonial America.
The consequences of the preferential and/or established status of the Anglican Church (aka, Church of England) in British North America
The value and meaning of Native American spiritual beliefs
The implication of American slavery and its ongoing growth
The proper form of government for the settlements of British North America
To what extent and in what ways did the Enlightenment shape the “Road to Revolution?”
To what extent and in what ways did the Great Awakening shape the “Road to Revolution?”
Identify and explain the most fundamental differences between the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening. What did the two movements have in common?

Optional Debrief:

(Modified TCI Visual Discovery / Response Group) Display overhead transparency visuals relating to key individuals and documents of the Great Awakening. Using these primary sources direct students to propose hypotheses regarding the propaganda uses and biases contained in these images.

Optional TCI Interactive Notebook Ideas

* Based on the role-play experience, direct students to write a “biographical” journal entry that recounts their experience during the role-play discussion. If students did not play a part, have them assume the role of a typical colonial American. All students will respond to the prompt: “The ______ position was most convincing because….”

* Direct students to complete a quick-write to compare personal experiences with key concepts: “To what extent and in what ways do you live your life according to “Enlightenment values and ideas?” To what extent and in what ways do you live your life according to “religious / Great Awakening values and ideas?”

Technology Component: Optional use of Collegeboard.com/ap website and online test-banks or primary sources on the Enlightenment and First Great Awakening.

Resources (Indicate primary sources):

College Board “Outline for Course Coverage, AP U.S. History.”
The American Pageant, 12^th edition, by Kennedy, Cohen, Bailey.
Primary source readers, e.g. Enduring Voices, Boyer; Opposing Viewpoints: Puritanism, Greenhaven press.

Assessment (Description of two or more assessment tasks with specific direction, questions and prompts):

Optional: TCI Interactive Notebook Processing

Develop a thesis statement to answer and complete these practice prompts:

*The Enlightenment most powerfully shaped the development of American colonial society by…?

*The Great Awakening most powerfully shaped the development of American colonial society

by…?

*To what extent and in what ways did the Enlightenment and/or Great Awakening shape the

“Road to Revolution?”

Optional formal testing/grading: Write an AP format 35-minute in-class open-ended essay

2002 AP US History Open-ended Essay Prompt

Compare the ways in which religion shaped the development of colonial society (to 1740) in TWO of the following regions:

New England Chesapeake Middle Atlantic

Rubric to explain criteria

A modification of the generic free-response Advanced Placement essay rubric will be used to provide feedback (Below). Option: Students may self-score and/or compare scores with shoulder-partners.

Stronger essays 9-8-7-6
- -Has a clear, well-developed thesis
- -Is well-organized
- -Addresses the terms of the prompt
- -Supports the thesis with specific evidence

Mixed essays 5-4
- -Contains a thesis, perhaps simplistic or superficial
- -Responds to the terms of the prompt unevenly
- -May contain major errors
Weaker essays 3-2-1-0
- -Thesis confused or absent
- -Misunderstands the prompts or omits major parts of the task
- -Contains multiple major errors

General rubric requirements for this activity

Use of the “Think AP” expository voice
Use of identifiable paragraphs and topic sentences
Use of accurate roleplay voice and character bias
Appropriate use (in context) of at least 10 key terms

Sample Overhead Transparency

Directions:

Organize the terms below using the key terms Enlightenment vs. Great Awakening as organizational anchors and major concepts.

Key Concepts / Vocabulary

Philosophy (of government) Religion

Democratic Ideas Denominationalism

George Whitefield Established Churches

Reason Faith

John Locke Sacred

Secular Morality

Natural Rights “New Lights”

Natural Laws “Old Lights”

Fundamentalism (Religious) Revivals

Separation of Church and State

Ideological Science

Deism Jonathan Edwards

(to be) “Born Again” Tolerance

Benjamin Franklin Protestantism

Reflection:

1. What did student samples reveal?

Student samples did reveal a variety of approaches; from Venn diagrams and word-webs to “T-charts” and more conventional note-taking style outlines. Most students (in our Think AP exam timed test and plan your answer pacing….) were able to produce a reasonable organization of the key Enlightenment and Great Awakening concept clusters. We did practice a similar grouping strategy earlier in the course relating to our “Salem Witchcraft Trial” simulation/experiential activity and students demonstrated “lessons learned.”

Because AP class-time is always so short, I did not have time to debrief the entire list of concepts as I would in a non-AP course. As the year progresses, I will refer back to this activity (and others like it) and to the “graphic organizer” approach to planning AP open-ended and document-based essays. I may also toy with the idea of collecting samples/notes in the future and keeping them for open-note plan of answer use in an upcoming class exam.

2. What do I need to model, change or adjust regarding criteria, assessment and opportunities to learn?

Pacing is always a challenge in AP; “So much history, so little time!” Therefore, I constantly urge students to prepare for each day’s class with careful at-home reading and note-taking from our assigned text. I do attempt to provide a spiral curriculum of ever more in-depth essay planning and ongoing consideration of major (usually, also CA standards-based) concepts. Consequently, we will refer back to the Enlightenment and Great Awakening concepts in terms of course themes like “the development of the American national identity” and as long term “causes of the Road to Revolution.” My ongoing assessment of activities like this lesson is also found through AP exam format testing and the students’ ability to incorporate this type of higher order vocabulary into class discussions, simulations and their coursework as a whole. In the future, I will pass samples of student diagrams and word webs around the room the next day to quickly debrief and also try various formats out myself during the time allowed to the students.

The “live” debate went reasonably well; though I will think about ways to involve more of the (too large?) class, possible by voice-vote, asking questions. One variation of the live discussion we held that I do about three times yearly is a “mini-debate” where students debate in small groups (similar to a response group in many ways). I monitor the class as it engages in simultaneous mini-debates and debrief the class as a whole to draw out major points.

Answers to your questions

Is this a strategy you will continue to use throughout the school year?

Yes; I strive to introduce and model as many essay planning strategies as possible. Also, I encourage students to experiment with note-taking and brainstorming strategies in general to become more efficient and effective users of text and class lecture/discussion. For the AP format, there is always time provided “to plan your answer” and I struggle to reinforce the critical importance of planning to my students: “well begun is half-done J “

Is it always necessary to prep the students who will be presenting? Or is this because it is early in the school year or the newness of the content?

Although I think the same students would probably have volunteered had I asked them “on the spot,” I find it is safer to have students volunteer the day before. In the interest of time and fast classroom pacing, I try to accomplish everything as “inobtrusively” as possible. The day before, I passed around a clipboard with a brief description of “tomorrow’s voluntary activity” to solicit the volunteers you witnessed. I do not think they completed any more preparation than the rest of the classes did prior to the live roleplay discussion.