Part 1: Background: The Relationships between the Puritans, Native American, and the French
Part 2: The Common and the Meetinghouse: Exploring the Outside Environment
Part 3: The Meetinghouse Interior
Part 4: Artifact Exploration
Part 5: Artifact Exploration, continued: Artifacts in Memorial Hall Museum
Part 6: The Wells-Thorn House
Please note: This is a multi-part lesson, so it is divided into two sections, each comprising three parts. Clicking on the part name above will take you to the appropriate section.
Part 1: Background: The Relationships between the Puritans, Native American, and the French
One 45-minute class period, and homework time.
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Primary and Secondary Sources:
1. Student Background Essay: Relationship between the English, the French, and the Native Peoples
Other:
1. Poster board
2. Marker Pens
3. Social Studies notebooks
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In Preparation for Teaching |
1. Read and copy Student Background Essay: Relationship between the English, the French, and the Native Peoples
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Activities |
Materials in Context |
1. Distribute background essay and instruct students to read the first paragraph of the essay without taking notes. Then ask them to re-read the paragraph, underlining key ideas.
2. Instruct students to write down and then look up in the dictionary any words or phrases that are unclear.
3. Instruct students to read the rest of the essay, following the steps above.
4. Discuss the reading with students, and ask them to assist with creating a class list of key ideas.
5. Ask students to think of questions that they might want answered about what everyday life was like for the English settlers. Create a poster on which these questions are listed. Have students copy these into their social studies notebooks as well, leaving a space after each to fill in an answer when they find one.
6. Instruct students to keep a separate page in their notebooks for listing any other questions that occur to them during work on the activities.
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Student Background Essay: Relationship between the English, the French, and the Native Peoples
Student notebooks
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1. Instruct students to reread Student Background Essay: Relationship between the English, the French, and the Native Peoples
2. Ask students to make a list of five important ideas they found in the essay in their social studies notebooks.
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Part 2: The Common and the Meetinghouse: Exploring the Outside Environment
One 45-minute class period, homework time, and 20 minutes of follow-up time the next day.
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Primary and Secondary Sources:
1. Teacher Background Essay: The Common and the Meeting House
2. Modern-day photographs of the Common area, including the Common, the buildings surrounding it (in the area once contained in the palisade), and Meeting House Hill, the sycamore, and the area represented in the Barber woodcut
3. Photograph of Brick Church
4. Modern map of Old Deerfield Village, with stockade indicated
5. John Warner Barber woodcut of Deerfield, from Cities and Towns of Massachusetts, published in 1839
6. Drawing from memory by Deacon Nathaniel Hitchcock (1812-1900), of the 1729 Deerfield meeting house, in PVMA Collection
7. Woodbridge drawing of Deerfield, 1728, in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
8. Image of the current Deerfield Post Office designed to look like the second Meetinghouse.
9. Deerfield town map, 1671 (fragment)
Other:
1. Social Studies notebooks
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In Preparation for Teaching |
1. Read Teacher Background Essay: The Common and the Meetinghouse
2. Copy or print and assemble documents and photographs for all students.
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Activities |
Materials in Context |
1. Distribute copies of present day photographs of the Common, the Brick Church, and the modern map of Old Deerfield Village.
2. Instruct students to orient themselves to the map using the pictures and to find the various buildings on the map. This is what they would see if they stood on Meeting House Hill today. The sycamore tree and the road are the only things left from the time of the first English settlers. Locate the sycamore tree on the map.
3. Instruct students to look at the modern map, and identify the center of town, and the common.
4. Lead students in a discussion of the word "common" and what might have existed there. (Teacher note: the "common" was land in the center of town, owned by all the people "in common." It was used for pasturing animals. No house lots were allowed on the common.)
5. Distribute copies of the Barber woodcut, and instruct students to examine it, noticing what they can recognize from the photographs and map of today. This picture was done in 1839. The church is the same "Brick Church" (called the Meeting House back then) as the one we see today. It was built in 1824, the fifth meetinghouse to be built in Deerfield. The artist chose not to picture the bricks.
6. Distribute copies of the Hitchcock drawing. This meetinghouse was built in 1729 and taken down in 1824, when the present-day one was built. It was built on "Meeting House Hill," a little to the south of the present-day Brick Church. The section with the steeple was not there in 1729, but was added at a later date. Ask the students to cover up the steeple section and describe what the building looks like without it. You can see how much the building resembles an ordinary house, even though it is much larger. Refer to teacher background essay to discuss the importance of the bell and the clock. Discuss the implications of this drawing having been made from memory.
7. Introduce the purposes of the meetinghouse in community life (see teacher background essay).
8. Distribute (or direct students to take out copies from Lesson 3) the 1728 Woodbridge drawing and the photo of the current Deerfield Post Office, which was built to resemble the 3rd meetinghouse. In the Woodbridge drawing, instruct students to notice at least two meetinghouses, which may indicate that old ones were often kept even after new ones were built. Compare all four meetinghouse renditions. Notice how each building looked at first like a house, but over time, it began to look like a church. Discuss how the buildings are alike and different.
9. Instruct the students to use the Woodbridge drawing to identify some of the village structures and activities in or bordering on the common area, such as the cow, half-houses, road, and the person with the horse.
10. Distribute (or direct students to take out copies from Lesson 3) the 1671 map fragment. Help students recall which parts of Deerfield are shown on this map. (Lead them to see that the map stops just about where later maps show the common starting. Only the north end of the town can be seen.)
11. Instruct the students to reexamine the modern map with the stockade outlined. Inform students that the stockade (or palisade) was built in 1690, as protection from a possible attack by Native Americans. Some families with houses outside the stockade built little houses within the stockade for safety. Discuss with students what the stockade represented in daily life of the period.
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Photos:
Meetinghouse Hill, view 1
Meetinghouse Hill, view 2
Deerfield Street, view 1
Deerfield Street, view 2
Deerfield Street, view 3
Meetinghouse, view 1
Meetinghouse, view 2
Modern map of Old Deerfield
Barber woodcut
Hitchcock drawing
1728 Dudley Woodbridge drawing
Post Office, view 1
Post Office, view 2
1671 map
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1. Starting in class after the discussion, instruct students to use their social studies notebooks to list each of the photographs, pictures, or maps they were given.
2. Ask students to write three things they notice about each item.
3. Have students complete unfinished class work for homework.
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1. Instruct students to review their homework assignments. Discuss whether any of the questions listed on the poster at the end of Activity 1 have been answered. Make a note of any that have been answered. Then ask for and add any new questions they might have.
2. Instruct students to write these answers in their social studies notebooks in the question section from Activity 1 and to continue to add to the question page in their notebooks.
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Part 3: The Meetinghouse Interior
One 60-minute class period, homework time, 45-minute class follow-up time, and assignment time for rewrite of journal entry.
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Primary and Secondary Sources:
1. Student Background Essay: The English Settlers in Deerfield
2. "Seating the Meeting House" - Copy of Plan reported to the town about 1777-1778, Sheldon, George, A History of Deerfield, Volume 1, Greenfield, Massachusetts, 1895-1896.
3. Plan for Seating the Meeting House, 1788, PVMA.
Other:
1. Poster board
2. Marker Pens
3. Social Studies notebooks
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In Preparation for Teaching |
1. Read and copy Student Background Essay: The English Settlers in Deerfield
2. Copy or print the two Meeting House seating plans for students.
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Activities |
Materials in Context |
1. Distribute Student Background Essay: The English Settlers in Deerfield, and instruct students to follow the reading and note-taking protocol introduced in Lesson 4, Part 1 (Read the first paragraph of the essay without taking notes. Re-read the paragraph, underlining key ideas. Write down any words or phrases that are unclear, and look them up in the dictionary where possible. Complete the reading repeating these steps.)
2. Instruct students to use this essay to answer (in their social studies notebooks) any questions from Activity 1 list.
3. When a student is finished with step 2 above, pair that student with another who has finished. Ask them to compare their answers, and add to their lists any answers they may have missed.
4. Distribute the two seating plans for the meeting house and ask students to explain what they are. Note that the printed one, dated 1777, comes from The History of Deerfield, and was constructed from an earlier record.
5. Discuss the differences between the two plans (pulpit turned around, some names in different places, etc.)
6. Ask if any names are women. Discuss.
7. How many people are listed on each?
8. Records indicate that there were about 40 black slaves in Deerfield at this time. Where did they sit? (They sat in back or in the gallery, which is not shown in either plan.)
9. Where do you think women with children sat? (probably in the gallery, or with their husband/father).
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Student Background Essay: The English Settlers in Deerfield
"Seating the Meeting House" from the History of Deerfield
Seating of the Meetinghouse (1788)
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1. Instruct students to complete the answers to questions on the question lists, using the Student Background Essay: The English Settlers in Deerfield
2. Ask students to imagine that they are twelve-year-old Puritans living in Deerfield at the first turn-of-the-century (1680-1720). Instruct students to write a diary entry in your social studies notebooks describing what the Lord's Day was like, including what you did and what meeting was like.
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1. Discuss any new answers to questions on the poster and list any new questions that have come up.
2. Instruct students to add the answers and new questions in their social studies notebooks on their special question page.
3. Divide students into small groups. Instruct students to share their diary entries with one another, being sure to listen for accuracy in each piece of writing.
4. Instruct students to correct any inaccuracies in their own diary entries and produce a new draft of their piece with the title "How I Spent the Lord's Day."
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