Reading History

In fourth grade, we just launched our new nonfiction unit which is focused on reading history. Our whole unit will focus on the American Revolution, which is a pretty unfamiliar topic to most students. The past can be a hard idea for students to grasp, so we decided to launch this unit with some pictures. Students were asked to decide what was happening in 4 pictures of events surrounding the American Revolution. I was amazed with how quiet it got while students wrote down their thinking. We then went one by one through the pictures again and students had the opportunity to share their ideas with their teammates. I loved hearing students build off of one another’s ideas and respectfully disagree with each other. 

Some students had very creative ideas of what was happening, especially when it came to the picture of Paul Revere. Some students thought he might be a robber riding away from a town. Others thought he was a robber pretending not to be and trying to fool the people into thinking the robber was on the way. Students also had interesting thoughts on the picture of the First Continental Congress. They thought it looked like some kind of celebration because of what the men were wearing and how fancy the room looked. There were a few students who had some background knowledge about this time period, which will definitely help us as we move through the unit.

Now that students are hooked and wanting more information we will dive right into investigating the events that lead to the Revolutionary War. I can’t wait to see all that they’ll discover!