What caused the American Revolution? 4th Graders Write Newspaper Articles to Relive the Boston Tea Party

       Our fourth graders have been busy learning all about America's history this month with their teacher, Ms. Brooke Patterson. After beginning the year studying early explorers and the impact they had on our country, students studied the early colonists and the events leading to the American Revolution. They spent time learning about the French and Indian War, the Stamp Act, the Boston Tea Party and so much more. In their integrated Social Studies and Language Arts class, they wrote newspaper articles from the point of view of a Boston reporter the day after the Boston Tea Party. They creatively and accurately described what happened at the harbor and included the feelings of both American Patriots and British Parliament. 4th grader Lilly Rose included a fictional quote by King George III, imagining what he might say in an interview: “Well, what the colonists did was terrible, disruptive, and uncalled for. Parliament thinks this should be thrown into the rubbish and that we should come up with another act to punish the colonists for what they did.” Students not only demonstrated their knowledge of what happened, they were able to engage in perspective-taking, practice writing in different voices, and consider the different components and layout of a newspaper page.
       Once they understood the causes of the Revolution, students researched battles and heroes during the war in cooperative groups. They also created their own timelines, put the events in order, and added to an ongoing timeline often referred to in their classroom. Over the next few months, students will continue their studies in discovering how America became what it is today!
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