Lesson Plan

Social Studies (History)

Students will:

• Analyze, synthesize and evaluate historical information
• Analyze the principal characteristics of the Winslow family's experiences during their move to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick from 1783 to 1785

Language Arts

Reading (APEF CGO R 4 / WCP GO R 3.2 / QC Reading 2)

• Read and demonstrate an understanding of non-fiction materials (primary and secondary sources) from different periods, with an emphasis on analyzing and assessing information, ideas and themes

Writing (APEF CGO W 10 / WCP GO W 4 / QC Writing 1,2)

• Select and use appropriate writing forms with a focus on essays
• Revise and edit their work, independently and collaboratively

Oral and Visual Communication (APEF CGO O/V 2.1 / WCP GO O/V 5.1 / QC Oral 1)

• Use listening techniques and oral communication skills to participate in classroom discussions

Enhancing Students' Interest

• Watch a video depicting life in British North America in the late eighteenth century.
  • Canada: A People's History - Episode 5: A Question of Loyalty - Chapter 7: Brave New Worlds
  • A Midwife's Tale

Small-Group Work

• In groups, brainstorm differences in the lives of people living in their part of Canada today and those living in late eighteenth century British North America.
• Students create a table of positive and negative things about living in each period.

Large-Group Work

Discuss/debate:

• Which period they would have preferred to live in, based on their knowledge of the period.
• Preconceptions about life in different periods: where such ideas come from and how preconceptions can be tested.

Read the introductory text on primary and secondary resources on the Student Handout.

Introduce students to the Winslow Letters site. Navigate the various sections: The Winslows, Historical Context, The Letters. Show students the Letter Search Page.

Discuss which sections of the site are primary and which are secondary sources.

Examine one of the letters referenced in Snoop: Read Other People's Mail and discuss the advantages of primary versus secondary sources. (See the chart on the Student Handout.)

Key questions:

• Is this letter a primary or a secondary source?
• Does this make it more or less valuable as a source? Why?
• What are some of the problems with sources such as this? (examples include bias, reliability, omitted information)
• What are some of the problems with secondary sources? (bias, distance from the original events)

Consider the class of immigrant that the Winslows represented: Loyalist refugees.

• Impoverished but with some resources (had servants, could buy their land).
• Relatively comfortable compared to many other refugees.

Bias might include:

• race (comments about slaves)
• gender (women's or men's experience)
• religion (attitudes towards Catholics)
• class (attitude towards servants)
• nationality (comments about the Acadians)
• politics (conservative versus liberal).

Individual Work

Introduce students to the essay assignment. They can be asked to develop a thesis and use sources from the site to support their arguments.

Educators may choose to have the class develop a rubric based on the Assessment Criteria, or other criteria.

Discuss how - or whether - their impressions of late eighteenth-century life in the Atlantic Colonies might have changed as a result of their research.

Possible Extension

Students could create an inventory of items that an Loyalist immigrant to New Brunswick would need, first from their own brainstorming session, and then from other sources.

They could then research the price of these items or determine their equivalent price in today's terms to gain an understanding of the costs of immigration.

Finally, they could make a chart of the benefits of life as a Loyalist immigrant in New Brunswick versus life in England.