unit overview: fever 1793

Sam Sather Social Studies Unit: Fever 1793

April 25, 2016

Unit Overview: Fever 1793

Content Area: Social Studies Grade Level: 5

State Standards Connections: Standards Covered: Social Studies - Geography for Life

Standard 1 Students will understand the world in spatial terms. Objective 1 Use maps and other geographic tools to acquire information from a spatial perspective. d. Collect and interpret geographic data using maps, charts, population pyramids, cartograms, remote sensing, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Standard 2 Students will understand the human and physical characteristics of places and regions. Objective 1 Interpret place by its human and physical characteristics. a. Examine human characteristics, including language, religion, population, political and economic systems, and quality of life. Objective 3 Evaluate how culture and experience influence the way people live in places and regions. Standard 5: Students will understand the interaction of physical and human systems. Objective 1 Explore how humans change the environment and how the environment changes humans. b. Explain how historical events affect physical and human systems.

English Language Arts – Reading: Informational Text Standard 10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band independently and proficiently. Continue to develop fluency when reading documents written in cursive. Writing Standard 1

Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information. Speaking and Listening Standard 1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Multiple Intelligences: Logical-Mathematical Bodily-Kinesthetic Spatial Interpersonal Linguistic

Understanding: While many community values are lost throughout the Yellow Fever epidemic, there are active responsible citizens who care for those affected by the disease. Yellow Fever was a race and class epidemic. Crisis bring out the best and worst in people.

Essential Question: In what ways do epidemics underscore themes of race and socioeconomic conditions? Does a person’s station in life determine the rest of his/her life? Is Civic Responsibility suspended when one’s life is at risk?

Students Will Know: The following concepts: The ways that different people/groups respond to crisis, the relationships between the people who lived in Philadelphia and where they worked, lived, had businesses, the role African Americans played during the epidemic, class disparities and the privileges or lack there of that accompanied them.

Students Will Understand: A person’s role and status charts the course of their life in every way. Being poor, a minority, or of the working class contributes to increased mortality.

Unit Overview

(continued)

Lesson One: Background/Information Components Lesson Two: Mapping & Primary Sources

Lesson Three: Social Class Disparities Lesson Four: Civic Responsibility

Lesson Five: Philadelphia & African Americans Part I

Lesson Six: Philadelphia & African Americans Part II

Lesson Seven: Authentic Assessment Prompt/Culminating Activity Reading Schedule:

• Chapters 1-5 • Chapters 6-10 • Chapters 11-16 • Chapters 17-21 • Chapters 22-25 • Chapters 26 - Epilogue

Lesson One

Lesson Title: Background/Information Components about Philadelphia & Yellow Fever Grade Level: 5

Content Area: Social Studies

State Standards Connection: Standards Covered: Social Studies - Geography for Life

Standard 2 Students will understand the human and physical characteristics of places and regions. Objective 1 Interpret place by its human and physical characteristics. a. Examine human characteristics, including language, religion, population, political and economic systems, and quality of life.

English Language Arts – Reading: Informational Text Standard 10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band independently and proficiently. Writing Standard 1 Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.

Multiple Intelligences:

• Interpersonal • Linguistic • Logical-mathematical

Personal Objective: Students to make connections between people, place and

events. I want students to begin to intuit which questions to ask and create hypothesis about why or what might happen next based on those natural promptings.

Essential Questions: What was unique about Philadelphia in 1793? Why was Philadelphia the capitol of the United States at that time?

Vocabulary Focus: Quakers Daughter of Liberty

Materials: Journals http://www.historyofphilly.com/media/#http%3A%2F%2Fi.historyofphilly.portalbounce.com%2Fen%2Fuser-media.html%3Fv%3D659 Fever: 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson Handout with Reading Schedule & Rubric to go into journals

Anticipated Time Frame: 60 minutes Engage and Launch: 5 Minutes Explore/Do: 30 Minutes Explain/Summarize: 10 Minutes Elaborate/Extend: 15 Minutes Evaluate/Assess: 0 in class minutes

Instructional Procedures

Engage and Launch: (5 minutes) Post the essential questions on the board and explain to the students.

I will begin the lesson asking the students to imagine the people around them becoming mysteriously ill and dying suddenly— this is after they turn yellow, bleed from their nose, gums and ears while suffering hallucinations. Now, imagine that half the people you know become so scared that they suddenly leave town…just pick up and leave. Leaving behind their homes, sick family members, their businesses and responsibilities. They just leave to escape the mysterious disease. Local leaders leave too. Some people throw sick family members out onto the street and leave them to die so that the other people in their home don’t “get it.” Those who don't leave have no idea how to stop it OR how to protect themselves AND resources like food and water and medical care are becoming increasingly hard to come by. By the time the dying stops, of which no one can figure out why, one in ten people you know have died—friends, family, neighbors.

I will explain that we will be watching a video about the city of Philadelphia in the late 1700’s to kick off a social studies unit on Yellow Fever.

Explore/Do: 30 Minutes

Post these questions and go over them BEFORE showing the video. Explain to the students that the video will talk to each of these questions and that they need to listen for them and record the information in a Fever Journal. This first entry needs to be dated and will serve as the first entry in a series of entries/activities/reading summaries for this unit.

• What makes Philadelphia the capitol city in the United States at that time? • What is the catalyst that is creating an atmosphere of opportunity in Philadelphia?

• Describe the different groups of people that make up Philadelphia’s communities o Who are the workers? o Who are the leaders? o Who are the business people?

• What are some cultural bits of information? • What is one thought as to where the fever is coming from? • How did Yellow Fever change Philadelphia?

Watch the video:

http://www.historyofphilly.com/media/#http%3A%2F%2Fi.historyofphilly.portalbounce.com%2Fen%2Fuser-media.html%3Fv%3D659

Explain/Summarize: 10 Minutes Initiate a discussion with the class as to what they saw, their responses/reactions to the questions I posted. Ask them/facilitate a conversation that ultimately leads to and answers: After watching this video, what ways do you think the Yellow Fever epidemic highlight disparities in Philadelphia’s society?

Elaborate/Extend: 15 Minutes Show the students the cover of Fever 1793. I will explain to the students that this a historical fiction novel that takes place in Philadelphia in the year of 1793. I will be sure to mention that Philadelphia was the capitol of the U.S. at that time and ask what they think was unique about Philadelphia in 1793? Why was Philadelphia the capitol of the United States at that time?

Read chapters 1 and 2 out loud to students. Chapter 2 ends in with the words, “Polly’s dead”, this should hook students and get them excited to begin reading immediately and find out what happens next.

Pass out the reading assignment schedule, explaining that the class will be reading the book as a group at school, during daily five alone or as a “read to someone,” and at home.

Exit Ticket will be their journal entry responses to the questions about the video.

Evaluate/Assess:

• Formative assessments will occur throughout as I listen to student responses to open-ended questions.

• Summative assessments will occur with the journal entries I collect and read.

Adaptations for Accelerated, ELL, Special Education

• Write the vocabulary words and definitions on the board as the students in the engage

portion provide them. • Students will be reading portions of the book aloud. • Instructions will be repeated individually if needed. • If there is extra time or early finishers, students can do read on from Chapter 2 to

Chapter 5 to fulfill the Chapters 1-5 expectation

Lesson Two

Lesson Title: Mapping & Primary Sources Exercise Grade Level: 5


State Standards Connection: Social Studies - Geography for Life

Standard 1 Students will understand the world in spatial terms. Objective 1 Use maps and other geographic tools to acquire information from a spatial perspective. d. Collect and interpret geographic data using maps, charts, population pyramids, cartograms, remote sensing, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

Multiple Intelligences: Logical-Mathematical Spatial Interpersonal Linguistic Bodily-Kinesthetic

Personal Objective: The students will make natural connections via the study of

history, government, economics, culture, and geography by referencing census logs. This lesson will help students learn about Philadelphia as they collect, organize, analyze, map, graph and compare different information through a variety of activities. Students will also have the chance to compare data and utilize math skills.

Essential Questions: What stories do the maps we study tell us? Why is “where” important? How do maps reflect history, politics and economics?

Vocabulary Focus: Apprenticeship Free African Society

Apprentice Quarantine Epidemic Pestilence Yellow Fever

Materials:

https://www.census.gov/schools/facts/pennsylvania.html http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/dashboard/PST045215/4260000 http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/philadelphia-and-its-people-in-maps-the-1790s/

Small maps of Philadelphia for each student to put in their journals

Large classroom map of Philadelphia (this will look just like the small version but much larger so that it is easy to see and read throughout the classroom).



Engage and Launch: (5 minutes) Post the essential questions on the board and explain to the students. Exploring census logs and a mapping activity will be a part of this unit in which the students will learn about pre and post-Yellow Fever Philadelphia. This lesson will serve as a vehicle for introducing the U.S. Census Bureau as an example of a primary source to the students and how primary resources can be utilized to fortify and deepen understanding of a place.

I will explain that the U.S. Census Bureau is the leading source of statistical information about the nation’s people, places, and economy, providing not only snapshots of the nation’s population size and growth, but also detailed portraits of the changing characteristics of our communities.

Questions I could ask to engage the students and pique their curiosity about using the U.S. Census Bureau as a primary resource for important information include:

Have you heard of a “census”? What is a “census”? How do you think the information on the U.S. Census Bureau informs us?

a) Let’s research the following 2010 Census information for Philadelphia:

a. Do you know the population/how many people live in Philadelphia?

b. What is the percentage of women versus men in Philadelphia?

c. How many persons are under 18 years old?

d. Is it possible to find out by percentage how many people are African American, White, Asian, Hispanic or American Indian?

e. What is the average rent in Philadelphia?

f. What is the population per square mile in Philadelphia? What does that mean?

As I am asking these questions, I will take the opportunity to model how to use the site. I would follow the discussion about the U.S. Census Bureau with an explanation that today we will be doing a mapping activity in which the students will use the US Census site as well as The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia website as primary sources to create a map of Philadelphia during the 1790’s.

Explore/Do: 30 Minutes Show the class our large classroom map, lead a discussion that helps us to determine north, east, south, and west directions.

Explain to the students that they will be breaking into 7 groups: Population Density & Density of Structures and People, Stores and Shops (bakers, grocers, tavern keepers, Residential Patterns by Class, Bad Areas: Hell Town, Slaves & Slave Owners, African America Heads of Households, and a group who will map out important places in the novel.

Each group will be tasked with using the websites provided to find relevant and interesting information about Philadelphia for their group assignment. I will emphasize that the data they collect must help the class as a whole to begin to visualize Philadelphia pre-Yellow Fever. They will work together to come up with a visual way to communicate data they find (icons or colors). The students will use a small map of Philadelphia to map out their findings. This map will go into their journals. Students will have 20 minutes to work on this research. I will suggest that data that would be important to collect would be:

• Where were most of the businesses? Were all businesses in one area or did it depend on the type of business as to where it was located?

• Where did white people live? • Where did ethnic minorities live? • Why was Philadelphia so densely populated? • Where did the wealthy live? The poor?

The group who will be mapping the important sites in the book will research and show on the map the following places:

• •Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers • Water Street

• Front Street • Dock Street • High (Market) Street • City Hall • State House • Benjamin Rush’s house • Pennsylvania Hospital • Bush Hill Hospital

Explain/Summarize: 10 Minutes The groups will each come up with a 2-minute snapshot they can present to the class about the group they were assigned. During their presentation, some members can talk about their findings while the others can place visual icons OR colors on the large classroom map. Students should use their small maps to reference while adding their visual data to the large map, being sure to include a key as to how to read their symbols.

Elaborate/Extend: 15 Minutes Ask the students to take a look at what our classroom map now looks like. Ask the students to share their thoughts and observations about what they now know about Philadelphia.

• What was Philadelphia like in 1790? • Can you see any economic or racial patterns emerging on the map? • What stories is the map starting to tell us?

Journal Activity: Based on their map activity and the readings so far, what can we deduce about Mattie and her mother? Eliza? Mattie’s grandfather? The coffee house where much of the story has taken place so far? How was the life of a 14-year-old in 1793 different from a 14-year-old today?

Evaluate/Assess:

• Formative assessments will occur throughout as I listen to student responses to open-ended questions and discussions. Formative assessments will occur during the presentations and placing markers on maps.

• Summative assessments will occur with the journal entries I collect and read.


• Write the vocabulary words and definitions on the board as the students in the engage portion provide them.

• Students will be working in groups. • Instructions will be repeated individually if needed.

Lesson Three

Lesson Title: Social Class Grade Level: 5



Standard 2 Students will understand the human and physical characteristics of places and regions. Objective 1 Interpret place by its human and physical characteristics. a. Examine human characteristics, including language, religion, population, political and economic systems, and quality of life. Objective 3 Evaluate how culture and experience influence the way people live in places and regions. Standard 5: Students will understand the interaction of physical and human systems. Objective 1 Explore how humans change the environment and how the environment changes humans.

English Language Arts – Reading: Informational Text Standard 10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band independently and proficiently. Continue to develop fluency when reading documents written in cursive. Writing Standard 1 Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information. Speaking and Listening Standard 1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Multiple Intelligences: Bodily-Kinesthetic Interpersonal Linguistic Spatial

Personal Objective: For students to draw connections between social standing and

wealth and the privileges or lack there of that are associated - especially during times of crisis.

Essential Questions: In what ways do epidemics highlight disparities in society?

Vocabulary Focus: Inhumane Immoral

Materials: Three stations of food Bag with a small amount of #1’s, a larger amount of #2’s, and a bit larger amount of #3’s Paper plates and napkins



Engage and Launch: (5 minutes) Post the essential questions on the board and explain to the students. Start out with a prewrite answering the following question on the assigned reading: In Chapter 7, page 52: Why does Mattie say “We did not belong here. I did not belong here?” (p. 52)

Why is Mattie’s mother so excited about the invitation to tea at the Olgivie’s? Why is Mattie so unenthused? How do think the Olgivie’s view people from social classes different than their own? (p. 51) How do they specifically view Mattie and her mother?

Explore/Do: 30 Minutes Have three stations set up in the classroom. At Station #1 have a table containing delicious and enticing food and dessert such as pizza and cookies or pastries. At Station #2 have a table containing healthy food such as granola bars, apples, cheese sticks. At Station #3 have a table containing dried up potatoes, cabbage leaves and stale bread.

While the students are writing, uncover all of the tables so they can see what each holds. As the students finish their prewrites, have them pull a number out of a bag (1, 2, or 3). Be sure to have just a few number 1’s which will represent the upper class or rich, the most of number 2’s, which will represent the middle class and number 3’s which will represent the lower class.

Once everyone is finished and have a number, have them go to their respective stations and fill a plate with food from ONLY that station.

Have a discussion while all of the students are eating about how they feel about what they have to eat and what they notice about what each station offers. Ask the number ones how they feel about what they have as compared to the 2’s and 3’s. Ask the other numbers the same question. Ask number 1’s if they feel like they should share. Ask the other numbers the same question and/or if they feel like other numbers should share.

Connect the activity to the chapters we have read for this day – Chapters 6 through 10. Explain that Station #1 represents the upper class/Olgivies and those who have the option and means to leave the city if they choose to get away from the Fever. Number 1’s remained fairly healthy. Explain that Station #2 represents Mattie and her family – business owners and working class who had some means although most stayed in the city where many were affected by the Fever. About half the population of Number 2’s ended up sick with Yellow Fever. Explain that Station #3 represented Free Blacks such as Eliza and the poor, who had no option to leave the city and were impacted the most by the Fever epidemic – more than half contracted and died from the Fever.

Initiate and facilitate a conversation about what perspectives each group might have. For instance, the 1’s might feel bad for the other numbers but probably won’t share their options. Number 2’s might want more but are grateful for what they have. Number 3’s might feel bitter at the injustice of their circumstances.

Explain/Summarize: 10 Minutes Use this discussion to assess if the students have made connections between how they felt in the activity to how it might have been to be in Philadelphia at the time of the epidemic. Explain that an estimated 17,000 Philadelphians left their homes and headed to the Pennsylvania countryside. “Those who stayed," notes one observer, "were cautious how they went about the streets, so that the city appeared in a degree to be depopulated." The remaining citizens belonged mostly to the lower and middle classes of society. They were the servants, the merchants, the smiths and the urban poor; the people who had no country estate to flee to and no money to pay exorbitant rents that some rural landlords had demanded. With the exception of the few elites who stayed out of a sense of duty or a desire to protect their property, these common citizens were left without city officials, doctors, and other traditional pillars of the community.

Ask the students how Yellow Fever highlight the unfairness between social classes?

Elaborate/Extend: 15 Minutes Next, have the students write a two-paragraph response piece in which they address how they felt during the activity and how they would have felt in Philadelphia’s society, using their number

to determine their “station” in society, during the epidemic

Evaluate/Assess:

• Formative assessments will occur throughout as I listen to student responses to open-ended questions and discussions.

• Summative assessments will occur with the journal entries containing the response piece that I collect and read.

Adaptations for Accelerated, ELL & Special Education: Have the early finishers include a paragraph in their journal entry on any of the following three topics: What would they have done if they had lived in Philadelphia during the time of the epidemic? Compare and contract the experience of the rich to those who are poor in regards to the fever. Describe the Olgivies. Compare their social class to Mattie and her mother’s social class. Why do you think Mrs. Ogilvie invited Mattie and her mother to tea?


• Instructions will be repeated individually if needed.

Lesson Four

Lesson Title: Civic Responsibility

Grade Level: 5


State Standards Connection: Social Studies For Life: Geography Standard 5: Students will understand the interaction of physical and human systems. Objective 1 Explore how humans change the environment and how the environment changes humans. b. Explain how historical events affect physical and human systems. English Language Arts –

Writing Standard 1 Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information. Speaking and Listening Standard 1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Multiple Intelligences: Bodily-Kinesthetic Interpersonal Linguistic Intrapersonal

Personal Objective: For students to start to think about civic responsibility. For students to feel prompted to wonder, “what would I do?” if I were the farmer.

Essential Questions: Is Civic Responsibility suspended when one’s life is at risk?

Vocabulary Focus: Citizen Citizenship Pros Cons

Materials: Handout containing information about the fear frenzy the Fever is causing, different points as to what is happening specifically and how some people/groups are helping.



Engage and Launch: (5 minutes) Post the essential questions on the board and explain to the students. I will begin the lesson telling the students that we are now getting ready to read Chapters 11 – 16 and that today we will focus on Chapter 11. We will quickly review what we have read so far and I will touch on the last two lessons (Philadelphia Background/Informational, mapping activity and Class Disparities).

Ask the students:

Can you think of a time when you had to make a hard decision (or know someone who has) in which you had to weigh the pros and cons to help you decide what to do? The pros and cons of something are its advantages and disadvantages, which you consider carefully so that you can make a sensible decision Explain that today’s lesson will be about tough decisions.

Explore/Do: 30 Minutes Launch into a discussion about community ideals and citizenship. Define cit izenship: Someone who understands interconnectedness, respects and values the other citizens in their community, has the ability to challenge injustice, and takes action in personally meaningful ways. A cit izen is a person owing loyalty to and entitled by birth or naturalization to the protection of a state or union. As a class read Chapter Eleven together with different students reading different paragraphs. After reading, ask the students what their thoughts were while we were reading. Ask some of these questions as the discussion and time allows: What was happening during this chapter? What evidence from the chapter supports those thoughts? How do you think Matilda felt when she couldn’t wake up her grandfather at first? What do you think she thought when her grandfather started to cough upon waking? What do you think about the men guarding the town of Pembroke from people possibly sick with the fever? Class activity: 10 minutes Explain to the students that they are going to weigh the pros and cons about a tough situation and to come up with a decision as to which “side” they would take. Complicated Issue: Do you think the farmer and his family should have finished taking Mattie and her grandfather to a new town OR do you think they did the right thing leaving Mattie and her grandfather without even their food, clothing or water like they did? Be sure the students understand what the issue is by asking questions. Break the student up into pairs and ask them to decide among themselves what the farmer and his family should have done or if what they did was the right choice. Provide the students with a graphic organizer and information that describes how scary and unknown the situation is, what most people are doing, what others are doing instead. Show them the graphic organizer and explain that it says at the top: The Farmer should help Mattie and her Grandfather Explain that for every time they list a reason to not help, they need to also list a reason to help and vice versa; the students must have an equal number of items in both columns.

FOR EXAMPLE: Agree – the farmer has a wife and a child that he needs to protect Disagree – The farmer and his family are probably not in danger IF Mattie and her Grandfather do have the fever because they are out in the open and probably won’t get it. Pass out handouts to each group of students that contain information about the fear frenzy the Fever is causing, different points as to what is happening specifically and how some people/groups are helping.

Explain/Summarize: 10 Minutes When the students have finished, have each partnership tell the rest of the class whether they think the farmer and his family should have helped Mattie and her Grandfather or not and why. Pose the question: Is Civic Responsibility suspended when one’s life is at risk? Why or why not?

Elaborate/Extend: 15 Minutes Utilizing the same strategy employed above, have the students answer the following question in their Fever journals: Do you think it was fair of the town council of Pembroke to prevent fever victims from exiting or entering the city?

Evaluate/Assess: 0 in class minutes • Formative assessment will occur as I glean students perceptions of the concept of

citizenship before and after lesson. • Formative assessment will occur as I observe students carry out self-directed inquiry in

order to form opinions and judgments by reflecting on meaningful content and writing in their journals.

• How the students to engage in productive discussion about civic ideals.




Lesson Five

Lesson Title: Pennsylvania and African Americans – Part I Grade Level: 5



Standard 2 Students will understand the human and physical characteristics of places and regions. Objective 1 Interpret place by its human and physical characteristics. a. Examine human characteristics, including language, religion, population, political and economic systems, and quality of life. English Language Arts – Reading: Informational Text Standard 10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band independently and proficiently. Continue to develop fluency when reading documents written in cursive. Writing Standard 1 Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information. Speaking and Listening Standard 1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Multiple Intelligences: Bodily-Kinesthetic Interpersonal Linguistic Intrapersonal

Personal Objective: For the students to have a solid understanding about African Americans and what was going on right before the epidemic as far as Free Blacks, societal views, abolitionists, abolition, and religion.

For students to have a good working knowledge about African Americans and Philadelphia for the next lesson on African Americans.

Essential Questions: Does a person’s station in life determine the rest of his/her life?

Vocabulary Focus: Abolition/abolitionists Salvage

Prohibited Obligation Shroud

Materials: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3narr1.html http://historyofphilly.portalbounce.com/en/user-media.html?v=893 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p97.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p246.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h465.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h465t.html



Engage and Launch: (5 minutes) Post the essential questions on the board and explain to the students. Review what we have talked about the last few lessons about Philadelphia. This lesson will be the foundation for Part II of this lesson by providing background on African Americans and Philadelphia.

Explain that they will be spending time researching Philadelphia and the African American Experience pre-Yellow Fever. Students will receive a list of URL’s in which to explore and by this time via the reading they should have had a few glimpses into African American life.

Explore/Do: 40 Minutes (I am taking time from Explain/Summarize) Hand out the materials and resources and have the students work in pairs to research the information. Explain that during their research they need to write down three questions – they can come from the research OR from the readings from the novel.

After 20 minutes, come back together as a class and have them pass their three questions to the front. Mix up the questions and randomly pass out three other questions to the various groups.

Have the students work on the three new questions they have received by looking for information within the research to respond to with. Have them discuss the questions and record

their thoughts.

Explain/Summarize: 10 Minutes Have the students present their questions and thoughts to the class. I will allow/hope for natural discussion to take place while being sure to prompt the students with questions as needed.

Elaborate/Extend: 15 Minutes Wrap up and explain to the class that we will be continuing on in the next lesson with an exploration about African Americans and their role(s) during the fever. Ask students what they think might change or happen to African Americans with the advent of Yellow Fever.

Journal Activity: Considering what you have learned thus far about economics and race, please predict if there will be any disparity/chance of survival based on wealth and/or race.




Lesson Six

Lesson Title: Pennsylvania and African Americans – Part II

Grade Level: 5



Standard 5: Students will understand the interaction of physical and human systems. Objective 1 Explore how humans change the environment and how the environment changes humans. b. Explain how historical events affect physical and human systems.

English Language Arts – Reading: Informational Text Standard 10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band independently and proficiently. Continue to develop fluency when reading documents written in cursive. Writing Standard 1 Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information. Speaking and Listening Standard 1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Multiple Intelligences:

Personal Objective: For the students to compare and contrast primary sources.

For the students to think critically about the content in each of the documents and decide which one is most valid. For students to question if one can really change the course of their life if their station in life all but dictates their future; to ask if that future be changed?

Essential Questions: If it’s published is it true? Does a person’s station in life determine the rest of his/her life?

Vocabulary Focus:

Materials: Document analysis worksheet http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/worksheets/index.html Copies of: “A Short Account of the Malignant Fever” (1794) author and publisher Mathew Carey Copies of: “Of the proceedings of the Coloured People during the awful calamity in Philadelphia, in the year of 1793” (1794) Large Venn Diagram on chart paper:



Engage and Launch: (5 minutes) Post the essential questions on the board and explain to the students. Begin by reviewing what we talked about during the last lesson. Ask the students what they know and remember about African Americans and their roles/contributions/history in Philadelphia. Explain that today we will be talking about Cause and Effect as they pertain to events in history and that we will be examining two documents that were published the year after the epidemic:

• A Short Account of the Malignant Fever” (1794) author and publisher Mathew Carey • “Of the proceedings of the Coloured People during the awful calamity in Philadelphia,

in the year of 1793” (1794)

These two documents are examples of cause and effect. The Carey document was published and in response the Jones and Allen document was published. Each was printed as a small book or pamphlet.

Explain that the class will be divided into 6 groups and three of the groups will receive one of the documents and the three of the groups will receive the other document. Both documents have been divided into three parts and each group will be responsible for one part of the document they have been assigned.

Suggest that each group assign roles to its group members: a spokesperson and a scribe. Groups may want to also have a timekeeper – groups will be allowed 20 – 25 minutes to finish their document analysis worksheets.

Explore/Do: 30 Minutes

Model the document analysis worksheet briefly using a completely different subject. Break the students up in to six groups and hand out the worksheets and documents. Have the groups work on the worksheets for the next 20 – 25 minutes.

Explain/Summarize: 10 Minutes Come back together as a class and have each group report on their part of their document.

Have the students record their information on a large Venn Diagram to compare and contrast what the two documents have in common and what is opposing at the front of the class with participation from the rest of the class. Consensus is necessary to place information on the diagram. IF there are divided opinions, have the student record the information on the board.

Elaborate/Extend: 15 Minutes Return to those divided opinions at the end and try to flesh out those opinions and through conversations, attain consensus and have the information added to the diagram. Explain that these two documents are cause and effect. Mathew Carey’s document was published (cause) and Jones and Allen responded (effect) with their document. Discuss that even though the Free African Society saw their willingness to help during the epidemic as an opportunity to change perceptions of blacks, what really happened? Can one can really change the course of their life if their station in life all but dictates their future; to ask if that future be changed?

Have the students respond in their journals.



• Students will be working in groups. • Instructions will be repeated individually if needed. • Differentiated worksheets for SPED

Lesson Seven

Authentic Assessment/Culminating Activity Authentic Assessment: Fever 1793 You will be assigned to work with partners/groups and be assigned to a certain “group” to create a hypothetical disaster plan should a large scale epidemic occur. You will be provided with a disease/epidemic with some facts (how it spreads, symptoms, what impact it is having right now, etc.) about it. In addition to the information you will be given, you and your partner are encouraged to do further research to help you prepare an action plan to best protect your group and stop the spread of the disease/epidemic. You and your partner will use the activity and resulting research findings to prepare an action

plan proposal aimed to minimize the effects of the epidemic. You will propose your action plan to best protect your group to a local government audience. Your presentations must inform local government about: • What the epidemic is and how it is manifested. • The impact the epidemic is currently having. • Who and/or where the epidemic is concentrated. • How your group is particularly vulnerable and your needs to minimize the epidemics impact

on you. • How the epidemic should be handled for all at risk but especially your particular group. • How to prevent a future outbreak.

Written Document Analysis Worksheet 1. TYPE OF DOCUMENT (Check one): ___ Newspaper ___ Letter ___ Patent ___ Memorandum ___ Map ___ Telegram ___ Press release ___ Report ___ Advertisement ___ Congressional record ___ Census report ___ Other 2. UNIQUE PHYSICAL QUALITIES OF THE DOCUMENT (Check one or more): ___ Interesting letterhead ___ Handwritten ___ Typed ___ Seals ___ Notations ___ "RECEIVED" stamp ___ Other

3. DATE(S) OF DOCUMENT: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. AUTHOR (OR CREATOR) OF THE DOCUMENT: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ POSITION (TITLE): ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 5. FOR WHAT AUDIENCE WAS THE DOCUMENT WRITTEN? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 6. DOCUMENT INFORMATION (There are many possible ways to answer A-E.) A. List three things the author said that you think are important: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ B. Why do you think this document was written? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ C. What evidence in the document helps you know why it was written? Quote from the document. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ D. List two things the document tells you about life in the United States at the time it was written: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ E. Write a question to the author that is left unanswered by the document:

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Yellow Fever: 1793

Imagine the people around you becoming mysteriously ill and dying suddenly— this is after they turn yellow, bleed from their nose, gums and ears while suffering hallucinations. Now, imagine that half the people you know become so scared that they suddenly leave town…just pick up and leave. Leaving behind their homes, sick family members, their businesses and responsibilities. They just leave to escape the mysterious disease. Local leaders leave too. Some people throw sick family members out onto the street and leave them to die so that the other people in their home don’t “get it.” Those who don’t leave have no idea how to stop it OR how to protect themselves AND resources like food and water and medical care are becoming increasingly hard to come by. By the time the dying stops, of which no one can figure out why, one in ten people you know have died—friends, family, neighbors.

What’s going on in Philadelphia at this time:

• Thousands are fleeing the city, especially the wealthy. • Businesses are closed; those who don’t flee often have no source of

income since their employers are gone. The businesses that are closed had provided important goods and services to the people; those goods and services are now not available.

• There are not enough coffin makers in a city where thousands are dying and needing to be buried.

• Farmers from the country refuse to come into the city with foodstuffs. The market places are empty. What food is available in the city has skyrocketed in price.

• Abandoned homes are being looted in the desperate search for food, money, or goods that can be traded for food. Sawdust is being added to the little wheat flour that is available in order to make bread. People are hungry, especially the poor.

• Some ships are refusing to dock at the piers and unload their cargo. Dock laborers are not available to unload ships that do arrive. Buildings near the docks are crowded with sick and dying seamen from many nations. Ships that had already been in the port when the epidemic began cannot leave because vital crewmen are missing. International trade is disrupted.

• Many towns and farming communities outside of the city forbid anyone from Philadelphia to enter their towns to buy food. Only those who have escaped the city early in the epidemic find refuge in those towns. Even then, they were admitted only if they showed no signs of the fever.

• Babies and toddlers are found whimpering in the midst of the dead bodies of their parents. People are afraid to touch the children; no one wants to take them in for fear that they carry the disease. The funds to support the orphans are limited. Those few merciful people who try to help them by taking them to orphanages find those institutions overflowing and with minimal food to feed the tykes.

Notable Exceptions in which Civic Responsibility is maintained and even heightened:

• Mayors Committee – the mayor of Philadelphia, Mathew Clarkson, who has stayed in the city, establishes a “Committee” that volunteers to oversee the poor, the starving, and the sick, to transport victims to Bush Hill, to give relief to the city during this disastrous time. They have obtained a loan of $1500 from the Bank of North America to appropriate funds for supplies and wages. Citizens are making financial contributions, including Stephen Girard. As Bush Hill is set up, simultaneously the Committee organizes a food, clothing and medicine distribution effort to aid the poor who remain in the city. They also set up an orphanage for the hundreds of children without parents. The most gruesome task, without doubt, is collecting the abandoned corpses en masse and burying them. Clarkson’s guidance and visibility are, by all accounts, not to be underestimated.

• The Free African Society – Provides a variety of services to the white community: nursing, washing, cleaning, collecting the dead, and burying the dead. At first the services are free and then, as the epidemic takes a larger toll on the city, and as thousands flee, the workers, white & black ask for a fee for their services. Mayor Clarkson agrees to this arrangement as the city is in need of workers.

• Mattie (a 14-year-old girl who is all but orphaned herself) takes in an orphan

• Mattie’s grandfather assists at Bush Hill (the unoccupied mansion of Andrew Hamilton who is in London; his mansion is on the outskirts of the city, and has been illegally taken over by the city to house the poor, indigent citizens who have contracted yellow fever).

Pros and Cons Sometimes an issue is so complicated it’s hard to take sides.

Use this graphic organizer to help you make a decision.

The Farmer should help Mattie and her Grandfather

Agree Disagree

unit overview: fever 1793

Documents