Connecting Literature to the Social Studies Classroom

The History Behind the Story

In this day-long session, teachers will investigate primary sources connected to picture books on Abenaki and early settlement history of the region. Brush up on your early settlement era knowledge, learn strategies for helping students investigate primary sources, and develop writing tasks directly connected to the Common Core. Teachers will leave with primary source packets connected to each picture book. The day will focus on three topics:

The Abenaki
In Malian's Song, by Marge Bruchac, a young Abenaki girl recounts the 1759 English attack on her village. This session will use maps and early documents to explore the relationships between the Abenaki and English settlers.

Early Settlement
Giants in the Land, by Diana Applebaum, tells the story of the giant pines used for masts for the Royal Navy in the days of early settlement. Tricking the Tallyman, by Jacqueline Davies, is set in 1790 and tells the story of the dilemmas of the tallyman who must deliver a count of the citizens of Tunbridge, Vermont. In this session we will look at town charters, maps, and the first United States Census to understand settlement issues in Vermont and New Hampshire.

Early Farming and Industrialization
Bobbin Girl, by Emily McCully, is the tale of a mill girl in 1830s Lowell, Massachusetts. Donald Hall's The Ox-Cart Man reveals the rhythms of the agricultural year and economy. This session will explore the lives of New Hampshire and Vermont children and their experiences on the farm and in the mills through letters, photographs, farmer's almanacs and other sources.

Cost: $150

Time: 8:30 am - 3:00 pm

Dates and Locations:

January 24, 2017: The Learning Collaborative, Dummerston, VT
January 30, 2017: Sugar River Development Center, Claremont, NH

REGISTER HERE

Using Maps to Learn about Early Village Life

What was village life like in Vermont after settlement? What did they do for food, clothing, and shelter? How and where did they travel? The James Whitelaw maps of 1796 and 1810 provide a window into that world.  These maps show the major buildings in each Vermont community.

Begin by providing your students with a visual image of life at settlement. One possible image is
Thomas Cole's painting, A Home in the Woods. While it is romanticized, it still provides the types of details that students need to "enter" into the Whitelaw maps. Use visual thinking strategies to gather details students see in the picture. Categorize those details into "food," "clothing," and "shelter."

Now find your own town on the Whitelaw map and have students do the following:

Check off any of the following that appear on the map--the key is at the top of this post and is also located on the bottom right of the map. Hopefully they will have some questions about these terms and will want to do a bit of research.

_________ Meeting Houses         _________ Grist Mills       _________ Swamps

_________ Forts                           _________ Saw Mills        _________ Dwelling Houses

_________ Falls                           _________ Fulling Mills    _________ Grammar Schools

_________ Ferries                        _________ Iron Works

_________ Bridges                      _________ Mountains

Now answer these questions:

Where are the churches and other large public buildings located?

Where are the mills and factories located?

What can you see on this map that would help settlers in your town make their cloths?

What can you see on this map that would help settlers in your town build their homes?

What can you see on this map that would help settlers in your town bake their bread?

Where do the roads go?

What might you conclude about your town from this map?

What questions do you now have?

Early Settlement in the CT River Valley Unit Frame

The purpose of this unit is to study the early settlement of the Upper Connecticut River Valley using primary sources and the landscape. Students follow an inquiry model where they gain background knowledge to the topic, generate questions about the people who settled this region, and then launch an historical investigation culminating in a historical cemetery quest that they can share with their community.




Enduring Understandings

• The Abenaki first lived and named the area we now call Vermont and New Hampshire.
• The Connecticut River Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire was primarily settled by colonists from Connecticut and Massachusetts.
• Town meeting was the main political institution in VT and NH communities.

Essential Question

What is the relationship between culture, humans, and geography?

Focusing Questions

• Who first lived in this area we now call Vermont/New Hampshire?
• Where did the first European settlers come from? Why did they come to this area?
• Who settled here and how did they live?
• What did they do to organize their towns?

Background Information

• Who first lived in this area we now call Vermont/New Hampshire?
• Where did the first European settlers come from? Why did they come to this area?
• Who settled here and how did they live?
• What did they do to organize their towns?

Bibliography

Chartering a Town

Chartering a Town

Towns and cities in Vermont and New Hampshire were formed by charters. A charter is the document that grants a group of people known as proprietors the right to form a new town. New Hampshire’s royal Governor, Benning Wentworth, issued most of the charters for the towns along the Connecticut River.

By reading a charter students will find out the size of their town, when it was chartered, the names of some of the first settlers, and what they had to do after they got their land.

Focusing Questions

When was my town chartered?
How large was my town?
What did the first settlers need to do after they got their land?

Topical Understandings

Towns were chartered by the Governor.
Towns were typically 6 miles x 6 miles square.
Settlers had to plant a certain amount of land within a certain period of time.
There were other conditions of settlement, such as not cutting the large white pines, and setting aside a plot of land for a minister.

Background Information

Why did settlers come to New Hampshire and Vermont, and where did they come from?

Materials

Copies of your town charter--enough for each student

Procedures

1. Hand out copies of your own town charter (call your town clerk to see if they have a copy or look in your town history).
2. Cut up a photocopy of your town charter into small sections or mark small sections of the charter for students to read and analyze.
Questions to ask students:
• Where was this charter written?
• Under whose authority?
• What is the size of the grant in square miles?
• What shall this town be called?
• How many families are they hoping to have live there?
• What will two events will be held as soon as there are enough families?
• In the future, when will town meetings be held annually?
• When are town meetings held today?
• What must “grantees, heirs or assigns” do within five years? Why?
• Who has rights to the pine trees? Why?
• What is the date of this charter?
3. Report back and discuss.

Literature Connection

Diana Appelbaum, Giants in the Land

Early Settlement Links

Background Information

Freedom and Unity
This exhibit provides good contextual information.

New Hampshire Historical Society Slide Shows
Several slideshows discuss early settlement topics. See especially "Settling New Hampshire Towns" and watch New Hampshire develop from its original four towns in 1623 up to the last town to be recognized in 1966.

Native Americans of New Hampshire
Information, lesson plans, and activities inform students about life among the Woodland Indians who lived in this area and prepare them for the museum traveling program On the Abenaki Trail.

Landscape History of Central New England
This is the website for the book "New England Forests Through Time"

Maps

Old Maps
Here is where you can find copies of old maps such as the 1796 and 1810 Whitelaw maps

Cemeteries

New Hampshire Census Information
Spreadsheet and worksheet for exploring New Hampshire's population

How to Read a Graveyard

This website provides concise, step-by-step directions on how to look at a graveyard as a historian.

Stones and Bones

"Stones and Bones: Using Tombstones as Textbooks" contains content information about what to look for in cemeteries, cemetery symbology, glossaries, burial customs, attitudes toward death, information about marble and granite, folklore and superstitions about death and burial customs. The packet also includes skill sheets and sample activities, including important information about the "do’s and don'ts" of gravestone rubbing, and a resources section that includes a list of organizations, books available from the Barre Granite Association about gravestone memorial art and architecture, and a bibliography.

The Cemetery Quest

This lesson introduces students to data collection and to the families buried in their local cemetery. It also provides resources that can be used back in the classroom to link student work in mathematics and computer technology.

Exploring the Cemetery
This is an introductory lesson for students and teachers about exploring cemeteries.

Town Meeting

Town Meeting Lesson Plan
About Town Meeting Records

Evolution of New Hampshire Town Meeting

Vermont State Archives
The Vermont State Archives includes election history, transcriptions of Vermont’s constitutions, and essays about continuing issues in government.

Who's Who in Local Government
The Vermont Secretary of State's page includes links to guides to the duties of officials elected at town meetings as well as a variety of kids’ guides to local government.

Teaching Early Settlement Bibliography

Background History Books

Jan Albers, Hands on the Land (2002)

Rebecca Brown, Editor, Where the Great River Rises (2009)

Frank Bryan, Real Democracy: The New England Town Meeting and How it Works (2004)

Susan Clark & Frank Bryan, All Those in Favor: Rediscovering the Secrets of Town Meeting and Community (2005)

Colin Calloway, The Western Abenaki of Vermont, 1600 - 1800 (1994)

David Foster, New England Forests through Time (2000)

Benjamin Hall, History of Eastern Vermont (1857)

Jere Daniell, Colonial New Hampshire: A History (1981)

Michael Caduto, A Time Before New Hampshire (2003)

Picture Books

Diana Appelbaum, Giants in the Land (1993)

Jesse Bruchac, Mosbas and the Magic Flute

Marge Bruchac, Malian’s Song (1996)

Lynne Cherry, A River Ran Wild (1952)

Alice Dalgliesh, Courage of Sarah Noble (1954)

Michael Hahn, Ann Story (1996)

Natalie Kinsey-Warnock, The Bear that Heard Crying (1997)

Chapter Books

Joseph Bruchac, The Winter People (2004)

Susannah Speare, Calico Captive (2001)

Books on Historical Inquiry and Teaching with Primary Sources

Joan Brodsky Schur, Eyewitness to the Past (2007)

Perspectives ’76 (1976)