Thursday, April 17, 2008
Nine Step Lesson Plan
Concept to teach: Federlist Party, Republican Party, Setting up Excutive Branch, Election of 1800, George Washington, Alexander Hammilton, Tomas Jefferson, and John Adams.
Essatial Queston: Do you think republic helped the nation to get where we are today? Why?
Connection: K W L sheet. What I already Know, What I want to Learn, What I have Learned.
Direct Teaching: Hand out summary have each table read it and take notes. Then answer questions.
Step-By Step Explanation - Step 1: Using the piece of paper handed to you, pair up with your partner. Once with partner, I will throw another piece of paper at you. Open the piece of paper to see what topic you have.Step 2: Research about the topic you have received.Step 3: I will split the class into federalists and republicans. If you are a republican, then find out how the republicans felt about this topic. Write a letter to George Washington why he should be in support of your party. If you’re a federalist do the same except persuade him to go with the federalists.Step 4: Turn them in, and the most persuasive will receive a prize.
Student-Centered Activity- You will be handed a topic and read about it in the history alive book. you will either be federlist or republican and then you write a letter to goerge washington saying what you think about the topic in either republican or federlist point of veiw.
Assessment: Walk around the class making sure everyone gets it.
Closer: Ask questions.
Creative Writing: Mr. President, George Washington
George Washington
George Washington became known as "The Father of Our Country". He is an important person in the history of the United States.
George Washington was born on February 22, 1732 in Westmorland,
Virginia. Born into a planter family, George's parents, Augustine
Washington (father), and Mary Ball Washington (mother), George wasraised to have good morals, manners, and body of knowledge requisite for
an 18th century Virginia gentleman. George's great-grandfather came from England and became a landowner in America. He owned more than 5,000 acres of land. George's father, Augustine, settled in Westmorland County, Virginia. This is where George was born to Augustine and his second wife, Mary Ball. They had five more children after George was born. His father died when he was 11, and he helped his mother take care of the plantation. When he was sixteen he went to live with his half brother, Lawrence, who had inherited Mount Vernon from their father. Later on George would inherit the estate from Lawrence since Lawrence did not have any surviving children. George married a widow , Martha Custis. They never had children of their own, but they raised Martha's two children, John Parke Custis, who was called "Jacky", and Martha "Patsy" Custis. Then after Jacky's death in the war, they adopted two of his children, their grandchildren.
George Washington was elected Commander in Chief of the Continental Army by the Second Continental Congress in May 1775. For the next six years, he led his ill-trained troops in a grueling war with Britain. Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the United States on April 30, 1789. He is often referred to as the father of the nation because of his leadership and influence in the founding of the United States. These are just some of this amazing things that this man accomplished in his lie time. In my opinion these are two big things he did.
Men came to Philadelphia to meet with the First Continental Congress. Washington thought he would be a good man to be general of the army, so he showed up in a uniform he had designed himself. The men agreed he would be the best person for the job.
The people of America wanted to be free of the rule of England and fought for that freedom.
The people wanted to make him king, but he thought the country needed a different kind of government. They elected him president in 1789. He received a unanimous vote by the men who were doing the electing. Every one of them voted for him. He served for two terms; 8 years, as president. The people wanted him to run for a third term, but he said, "No", and went back to the plantation.
He later returned and became Commander in Chief of the Army.
In 1799 he became ill with a sore throat. The doctors in those days did not know how to treat an illness, and some think their treatment caused his death.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Step by Step Explanation for Activity (Student Centered Activity)
Step 1: Using the piece of paper handed to you, pair up with your partner. Once with partner, I will throw another piece of paper at you. Open the piece of paper to see what topic you have.
Step 2: Research about the topic you have received.
Step 3: I will split the class into federalists and republicans. If you are a republican, then find out how the republicans felt about this topic. Write a letter to George Washington why he should be in support of your party. If you’re a federalist do the same except persuade him to go with the federalists.
Step 4: Turn them in, and the most persuasive will receive a prize.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Friday, April 4, 2008
Summary of Early Republic
The arguments didn't stop there. Next, there was the issue of how much power the executive branch should have and how it should work. They eventually decided that there would be three parts, the Department of State, Department of War, Department of Treasury.
Washington and the government was finally able to be set into motion. Right as they started off, they came across a major problem: they were broke. The arguments went on for a very long time until they came to the decision that they would have a whiskey tax. This problem wasn't settled that easily, though. The whiskey drinkers in the west protested and refused to pay the tax. They lowered the tax which satisfied most of the men, but not the ones in Pennsylvania. They refused to pay the tax on whiskey and became violent. Two men stepped forward to attempt to solve this problem, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Thomas Jefferson was the leader of the Republican party, and Alexander Hamilton was the leader of the Federalist party. Hamilton deployed 1300 US troops to control them. This worked, but infuriated Jefferson. He thought that it was violating peoples rights to send armed troops to use threats to calm them. After this, the two men become rivals.
There wern't issues in only the United States, across the Atlantic Sea, France was having a revolution. The French people didn't like their king and overthrew him. France then became a democracy. Jefferson and his party found this as a victory for spreading democracy across the world. Things soon became out of control in France, though. There were massive killings of women, men, and even children. People were dragged out of their homes by mobs and stabbed on the street to death. This embarrassed and disgusted Jefferson.
After running as second term, Washington decided to not run again. Since republicans and federalists were still in their divide, Washington decided to address that in his farewell speech. He warned both partys to end their fighting or else it would tear the nation apart. He reminded them of the ties that kept them together. With that, Washington was out of office.
Washington's warning did not reach Alexander Hamilton. Born in the West Indies and raised in the Caribbean, he was not about to back down. Hamilton got into politics when he moved to the United States. Washington spotted him while he was fighting the the war and made him his assistant. Alexander Hamilton then married one of the most wealthy women in all of New York. He then had it made for him. Using his father in laws connections he eventually became the leader of the Federalist party. His party mainly believes that power should not be put in the people's hands, but in the hands of the government and of the “best” people (the rich and educated people). They also believed that humans cannot make decisions on their own and they would revert to war and violence. Hamilton and the federalists wanted to expand the economy from just agriculture to a lot of other things. To do this, they would promote business and trade. This required money, which the government did not have, so Hamilton suggested a national bank. At first, congress and the republicans were opposed to this idea, but Hamilton convinced them (just congress) that it was a good idea, and the first national bank was built. Federalists strongly opposed the way that the French were behaving in their revolution.
Thomas Jefferson was almost the opposite of Hamilton. He was born a farmer with ten siblings. He got into state politics as a tobacco planter and represented Pennsylvania in congress. Thomas Jefferson and the republicans believed that humans could make good decisions on their own. Jefferson had faith in wisdom and goodness. Republicans favored democracy and felt that the government should govern as least as possible leaving most decisions the public. They also favored a strong state government as opposed to national. Republicans believed that future to out country was left in the hands of plain farmer. They also favored an economy based on agriculture. One reason why republicans were trying to stop the federalists from building a bank was because they though that banks were anti-farmer. Republicans were in support of France until they sent a representative to the US who was disrespectful or as Jefferson would describe, “hot headed”. The representative wanted the US to draw a war with Britain, which US didn’t want to do.
Since Washington had not run again, it was time for another election. Republicans wanted Jefferson to win, and Federalists wanted John Adams to win. Adams ended up winning but three votes in the Electoral College. During his presidency, three major things happened. The first was the Alien (immigration) act. This is where illegal citizens immigrated into the US and become citizens. This was not passed because immigrants usually vote republican and Hamilton didn’t want support to go to the Republicans. The second thing was the Sedition act. This allowed and encouraged rebellion against the government. At the time, this was illegal, so of course, the republicans and federalists fought. The third major even was the nations capitol moving to the District of Columbia in between the southern and western states. This was Hamilton’s idea.
After Adams’ term, there was another election. It was again between Jefferson and Adams. This caused corruption in the Federalists party because Hamilton didn’t support Adams any longer. In the end, that divide may have cost Adams the reelection, because after a tie in the Electoral College and a revote, Jefferson won, concluding this chapter in our country’s history.