I will read the "found break-up note". This is a note I have written out, acting as a student, but am telling the students the janitor found this note last night while cleaning. This note will be a pretend break-up between two students, and will list reasons for it. This will grab the students' attention and get them engaged.
I will then reveal it was a fake note, and the students will then be asked to complete a quick admit slip asking what they know to be the Colonies' reasons for breaking up with Great Britain.
I will then show the parody video: "Too Late to Apologize" and instruct the students to take quick notes of things/phrases/terms that stand out to them.
This will give them visuals and set the tone for the atmosphere during this movement.
They will then use Pirate Pad (piratepad.net) to write their own "Declaration of Independence" from someone (parent, boyfriend/girlfriend, etc) stating grievances and publish them for each other to see and comment on.
We will then discuss this activity listing some of their reasons and compare them to the grievances of the colonists.
This entire activity will be done on computers in the classroom to have a discussion/debate solely online. This is intended to analyze the concepts of the Declaration of Independence, identify grievances of the colonists, and defend their own arguments as well as evaluating others'.
We will close the lesson with an exit slip where I will ask the students to give me a couple reasons they feel the colonists were justified in declaring independence. They will get this crossword puzzle as a vocab activity for homework:
http://www.whenwecrosswords.com/crossword/the_break-up/34297/crossword.jsp
