Colonial Broadsides: A Student-Created Play

• Review the lesson plan. Locate and bookmark suggested materials and other useful websites. Download and print out selected documents and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing.
• Either this lesson or the complementary EDSITEment lesson, Colonial Broadsides and the American Revolution, would work well as a culminating activity for a class studying the causes of the American Revolution.
• An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera, available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website American Memory, offers an Introduction to An American Time Capsule, featuring excellent background information on broadsides and other printed ephemera.
• Concerning the broadside No Stamped Paper to be had, available on American Memory, the Introduction to An American Time Capsule states: "Revolutionary leaders used widely circulated newspaper extras to publicize colonial solidarity and encourage future concerted efforts against British measures. 'No Stamped Paper to be had' reports a variety of colonial efforts intended to force the repeal of the hated Stamp Act of 1765, including Boston printers vowing to continue printing papers without stamps, New York and Philadelphia merchants resolving not to import British goods, New Jersey freemen declaring that they would ignore the act and all who support it, and public hangings of the effigy of the stampman in Halifax and the effigy of the Lt. Governor in New York."
• Review the interactive timeline The Coming of Independence: Key Events from the EDSITEment resource Learner.org. Notice that this timeline offers much more than a list of events; you can access useful introductory secondary texts for virtually every event on the timeline with a single click on the T symbol in the right-hand column.
• Selecting a broadside when browsing or searching leads you to a bibliography page. Clicking on the thumbnail on the bibliography page leads to the image page. The image page offers one click access to higher quality digitized copies of the original (.jpg and TIFF files), bibliographic information, and a full text version of the broadside in contemporary typeface. The full text option is in the heading. URLs provided in this lesson lead to the bibliography page.
• If desired, set up a large-scale timeline or other device in the classroom on which students can post broadsides.

• Students can browse An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera for other documents of interest.
• Students can create their own broadsides about current issues of interest to young people.
• Students can produce facsimile broadsides for other important historical events.
• Students can establish relationships between specific broadsides and the grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence. These could be illustrated in a list, slide show or through links from the text of the Declaration.
• EDSITEment offers a related lesson, Declare the Causes: The Declaration of Independence -- Understanding Its Structure and Origin. Though designed for younger students, it can be adapted for middle school.

Selected EDSITEment Websites

• American Memory
  • An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera
  • Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789
• National Archives Educator Resources: Written Document Analysis Worksheet
• The Internet Public Library
  • The American Revolution
  • Revwar.com
• Learner.org
  • The Coming of Independence: Key Events