Summer SAVY 2017, Session 1/Day 3- Rebels and Revolutionaries (Rising 6th/7th)

Posted by morganr1 on Wednesday, June 14, 2017 in SAVY.

Today, our big question has been ‘Why 1776’?  We thought about why the colonies didn’t declare independence before 1776.  We practiced thinking like historians today by thinking about the word ‘context.’  Each of us thought up examples of context from the events we focused on yesterday, and then we pulled out some examples today as we traveled through July 1776.

We started off the day by looking at the events of 1774 and 1775, from Paul Revere’s Ride to the battles of Lexington and Concord.  Everyone kept track of the turning points that we discussed this morning.  Then, we met back up with our groups from yesterday to finish working on our timelines about the road to war.

This afternoon, we thought a lot about the Declaration of Independence itself.  We imagined that we were representatives at the Second Continental Congress and listed reasons for supporting independence or rejecting it.  Then, we brainstormed items we thought should be included in the list of grievances in the Declaration.  Finally, we compared our lists with the actual declaration and pulled out some grievances we were surprised by.

When we wrapped up, we also thought about what declaring independence allows the colonies to do.  Tomorrow, we will see some of the outcomes of independence in the war and think about different groups affected by the war.

Dr. Kolb