Introduction
"The French and Indian War doesn't really matter!" exclaimed Sarah Jane.
"What are you talking about? Of course it does!" Henry claimed.
"Really, how?" Sarah Jane questioned.
"Well, um....you know....It was a war so it had to be important!" Henry states forcefully.
"Do you even know what happened durring the French and Indian War?" Sarah Jane asked.
"Not really," Henry shook his head, "Do you?"
Sarah Jane shook her head, "No...that's why it must not really matter!"
Picture retireved from:
http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54f8c25c988340163019…
Task
Your task, as classroom detectives, is to help these two arguing children and answer this main question: does the French and Indian War really matter? To answer this question these students need to know what actually happened during the French and Indian War and what were the consequences. Please help these feuding children!
To help these children we will be creating a class newspaper filled with nine articles on the French and Indian War. As you can see we will only have nine articles so this will mean you will be working in partners. Make sure you choose your partner wisely as this will count for a grade!
Good Luck!
Picture Retrieved from:
Process
To solve these questions and track down the answer you must do the following:
1. First things first, let's find out who fought in the war! Head on over to this website and let's do some digging!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmoDHHwgiNc
Be sure to take some notes while watching this video, it could be very influential for your article.
2. While watching the video, you saw this political cartoon:
What does this cartoon mean? Check out this blog:
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2013/06/join-or-die-americas-first-political-cartoon/
Write a short paragraph explaining what this cartoon means and how you think it effected the war.
3. One more thing before we get going, what is a war without battles? Check out this interactive timeline:
http://www.wqed.org/tv/specials/the-war-that-made-america/timeline.html
This timeline shows the war from three different perspectives: British, French, and American Indians. Write three sentences from each perspective on the war and how it affected them.
Now that we have all our answers we must put these answers together with a partner in the form of a newspaper report. For more direction continue on to the evaluation page!
Evaluation
Your final project is to create a newspaper article on the French and Indian War. There are nine topics you can choose from. Once one is chosen you cannot do it again so you must tell the teacher which topic you want to do and she can tell you if it is available or not. The topics to choose from are listed here:
- Who was involved and why?
- What were the main causes of the war?
- Who did the American Indians get along with better and why?
- Who was George Washington and what role did he play in the French and Indian War?
- What did Benjamin Franklin do in the French and Indian War?
- What were some of the major battles in the war?
- Write a piece from the perspective of the French on the war
- Write a piece from the perspective of the American Indians on the war
- What ended the war and what were the consequences of it?
Also, each group must write an additional short opinion paragraph on:
- If the French had won the war, how do you think America would be different today?
Each newspaper article must be at least:
- 5 paragraphs long (this means an introduction, three body paragraphs, and one conclusion paragraph)
- must answer the topic fully
- must be typed
- have good grammar and spelling
Once all the articles are turned in as well as your short opinion piece. The articles will be put together and a class newspaper will be created. Each pair will present their article and what they learned while writing the article.
Conclusion
Thank you for all your hard work! Sarah Jane and Henry now fully understand the French and Indian War. THey understand that this war was extremely important in shaping America and that it should never be overlooked. Most importantly, they learned that it really does matter!
Good Luck on your future discoveries classroom detecitives!