Curriculum Projects, Readings, and Resources
Curriculum Project 
How will you share your experience in Lexington and Concord with your students? How can you immerse them in the same environment without leaving your classroom?
Participants will work in teams of 2 or 3 to develop a lesson plan that addresses at least one of the framing questions posed for the week. (Participants would work with colleagues who are teaching similar grade levels.) Each lesson plan will integrate documents, landscapes, and artifacts from visited historic sites and repositories in order to highlight the complementary nature of the resources under study. In addition to creating a lesson plan, participants will work together throughout the week to create a digital archive of photographs representing pertinent landscapes and artifacts.
Materials:
1) At least one document from the Coming of the American Revolution website (funding courtesy of the NEH) http://www.masshist.org.revolution
2) At least one feature of the landscape (could be a natural feature of the landscape, a historic structure, a monument, etc.)
3) At least one artifact
Locating Materials:
Documents are already available though the Massachusetts Historical Society's Coming of the American Revolution site: http://www.masshist.org/revolution.
Landscapes can be found throughout your tours of Lexington, Concord, and Boston.
Artifacts can be found in any of the institutions or historic sites you visit.
- The National Heritage Museum has virtual tour of the museum on its website: http://monh.everyscape.com/. This can give you a sense of the physical space of the museum and provide some images of artifacts.
- MIMA has some images of the Battle Road on its website http://www.nps.gov/mima/photosmultimedia/index.htm.
Creating a Digital Archive:
Participants (including project staff) will create their own virtual archive of images (both still and moving) of landscapes and artifacts visited during the institute. These images will be posted on the institute website (hosted by the MHS), and participants will then have access to this entire visual archive when creating their lessons and when they return to the classroom. By creating this archive participants will become more familiar with the institute website and the technology they will use in their lesson plans.
- Participants with digital cameras will take still and moving images of the landscape and artifacts throughout the course of the institute. Participants should photograph anything that captures their imagination!
- Project staff will assist participants with loading these images to the institute website.
- Participants will be responsible for creating captions for each image they load to the website. Captions should include basic information (location, date, and photographer), but could also include questions or thoughts about the image.
Creating Your Lesson Plan:
Each group of 2 -3 participants will:
1) Select at least one framing question from those provided for the institute.
2) Select (at least) one document, one landscape feature, and one artifact to use as evidence in answering the framing question.
3) Generate 5-8 main ideas that students will need to understand in order to answer the framing question. (Think of these as your traditional content objectives.)
4) Create an overall student assessment that requires students to use all of the included documents, and landscapes, and artifacts.
Each individual within the group will:
1) Select one of the documents, landscapes or artifacts used in the lesson.
2) Create a brief historical introduction to your selected item (no more than 150 words).
3) Generate 4-5 critical thinking questions for your selected item.
Workflow and Due Dates:
Project co-director Kathleen Barker will be responsible for coordinating the creation of participants' projects and the digital archive. She will also assist participants with loading their images to the institute website. Kathleen and teacher-facilitator Duncan Wood will meet with participants on Monday afternoon to introduce project requirements and expectations. Duncan will be available to meet with participants and their groups throughout the week to help them make connections between the various resources being presented. He will also work with them to ensure that their selected documents, landscapes, and artifacts are well-integrated into their proposed classroom activities.
We will provide participants with dedicated times during the week to work on their projects and receive feedback from project staff (Wednesday and Thursday). Participants will have access to computers and printers at the Concord Free Public Library in order to gather materials and create their lessons.
Participants will present drafts of their projects to the entire group on the last day on the institute (Friday afternoon). Final, typed projects (including links to all relevant documents and images) will be due two weeks from the completion of the institute. Completed lesson plans, including contributions from both participant teams and individual participants, will be available on the institute website. Hosted by the MHS, this website will be free and accessible to all.
Readings 
Bibliography
Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967.
*Cronon, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang, 1983.
Donahue, Brian. The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004, pages 155-220.
Donahue, Brian. "Husbandry in Colonial Concord: GIS as a Tool for Environmental History," in Anne Kelly Knowles, ed, Placing History: How Maps, Spatial Data, and GIS Are Changing the Practice of History, 151-178. Redlands, California, ESRI Press: 2008.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Concord Hymn".
Gross, Robert: The Minutemen and Their World. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001. (25th Anniversary Edition)
Gross, Robert. "Commemorating Concord," vol. 4, no. 1 (October 2003). http://www.common-place.org/vol-04/no-01/gross/
Gross, Robert. "The Celestial Village: Transcendentalism and Tourism in Concord," in Conrad E. Wright and Charles Capper, eds., Transient and Permanent: The Transcendentalist Movement and Its Contexts. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1999.
Massachusetts Historical Society. Selections from The Coming of the American Revolution, 1764-1776, http://www.masshist.org/revolution Digitized documents from the Society's collections to be used online before, during, after workshop-originals will be shown at MHS to participants.
Mires, Charlene. The American Revolution Handbook. NPS, 2008.
National Park Service. Honored Places: The National Park Service Teacher's Guide to the American Revolution. NPS, 2007.
National Park Service. Hour by Hour: Chronology of Incidents Relating to the 19th of April, 1775 The Opening Day of the War of the American Revolution. NPS, 1958.
Raphael, Ray. A People's History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence. New York: Harper, 2002.
Thoreau, Henry David. Selections from Walden: "Resistance to Civil Government,", and "Slavery in Massachusetts".
*Vickers, Daniel, ed. A Companion to Colonial America. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2003. [Chapters on ecology, Indian History, African Americans, and Women and Gender]
*Wood, Gordon S. The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History. New York: Penguin Press, 2008.
*Suggestions for further reading; not required.
Daily Schedule of Readings (tentative)
Monday
Gross, The Minutemen and Their World, 3-108
Tuesday
Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.
Primary Sources from the Coming of the American Revolution, www.masshist.org/revolution.
Wednesday
Donahue, The Great Meadow, 155-220.
Donahue,. "Husbandry in Colonial Concord: GIS as a Tool for Environmental History," 151-178.
Gross, Minutemen and Their World, 109-32.
National Park Service. Honored Places. [Lesson one]
National Park Service. Hour by Hour.
Thursday
Gross, Minutemen, 133-93.
Raphael, A People's History of the American Revolution, chapters 3 and 6.
Friday
Gross, "Commemorating Concord," http://www.common-place.org/vol-04/no-01/gross/
Gross, "The Celestial Village: Transcendentalism and Tourism in Concord," 251-81.
Emerson, "Concord Hymn".
Thoreau, "Resistance to Civil Government," and "Slavery in Massachusetts".
Additional Resources
Minuteman National Historical Park: http://www.nps.gov/mima/index.htm
National Heritage Museum: http://www.monh.org/
The Old Manse: http://www.thetrustees.org/places-to-visit/greater-boston/old-manse.html
The Coming of the American Revolution (Massachusetts Historical Society): http://www.masshist.org/revolution/
