Witches in the Colonies
Description
Article Body
In this lesson, students use primary sources related to the U.S. Constitution (specifically, Madison’s notes on the convention) to better understand the Preamble to the Constitution. This provides a great opportunity to teach an important element of historical thinking—the use of multiple sources to better understand the significance and meaning of one source. This is also an important part of contextualizing documents, or understanding how they relate to events and conditions at the time they were written.
The lesson guides students through the process of closely reading an important historical text. The steps in the lesson are clear and easy to follow, and breaking the Preamble down one clause at a time gives students a great opportunity to understand the purpose of one of the most important documents in the history of the United States, in addition to helping them learn how to read a text closely and carefully. Additionally, the "check for understanding" questions after each clause give teachers multiple opportunities for evaluating students' comprehension and modifying instruction. Depending on students' levels of understanding, teachers may want to supplement the provided questions with more probing questions of their own.
