Independence Now! The American Revolution

Independence Now begins with the First Continental Congress and the Suffolk Resolves, a powder keg that ignited military action and set the scene for "the shot heard 'round the world" at Lexington and Concord. This is a chronological journey that takes the student on to Ticonderoga, the siege of Boston, Bunker Hill, Washington's arrival in Boston, Dorchester Heights, Common Sense, and the Declaration of Independence.

Included in the Student Workbook is the audio drama and a script for Independence Now! This play has been performed for many years at Knott's Berry Farm's replica of Independence Hall in Southern California. It can be read as literature, performed as reader's theater in the classroom, or staged as a school performance. For this edition, we have included a narrator in the character of Mercy Otis Warren who will guide students through the play. Mercy wrote satires mocking British loyalists and government officials. The plays were published anonymously. No one but her close friends, including John Adams, knew that they were written by a woman. Mercy Otis Warren was also the first woman to publish an eye-witness account of the American Revolution.

The Teacher's Guide contains a Correlation to Standards, Objectives, Scope and Sequence, and an Answer Key to questions that appear at the conclusion of each lesson in the Student Workbook. It also includes a Formative and Summative assessment in Easel. Questions in Easel can be annotated and edited for the individual needs of your students. The summative assessment is auto-graded.

This is a project based course that engages students through learning dispositions that involve listening, reading, thinking, analyzing, writing, and performing reader's theater. Student learn about Thomas Paine's dream of a new republic in America -- the first in the world to be ruled by the people -- in his call for Common Sense. We conclude with Jefferson's Declaration of Independence based on Enlightenment principles that guide us, hundreds of years later, through the challenging times we encounter today.