The+Witch+Trials+(Rebekah)

Lesson: Scaffolding Project before reading //The Witch of Blackbird Pond//

 * Level/Subject:** High School Literature/English Language Arts classes

EL.HS.RE.02 Listen to, read, and understand a wide variety of informational and narrative text, including classic and contemporary literature, poetry, magazines, newspapers, reference materials, and online information.
 * Standards:**

EL.HS.RE.03 Make connections to text, within text, and among texts across the subject areas. EL.HS.RE.04 Demonstrate listening comprehension of more complex text through class and/or small group interpretive discussions across the subject areas. EL.HS.RE.05 Match reading to purpose--location of information, full comprehension, and personal enjoyment.

EL.HS.RE.06 Understand and draw upon a variety of comprehension strategies as needed--rereading, self-correcting, summarizing, class and group discussions, generating and responding to essential questions, making predictions, and comparing information from several sources.


 * Objective:** Students will be able to write a paragraph correctly identifying the setting and 2-3 circumstances surrounding the Salem Witch Trials and will include one trigger that allowed the witch trials to flourish.

Access to computers and Internet Class set of the novel //The Witch of Blackbird Pond//
 * Materials:**


 * Learning Principles:** Psychosocial moratorium principle, amplification of input principle, multiple routes principle, intertextual principle, multimodal principle, discovery principle, cultural models about the world principle, dispersed principle.


 * Procedures**:

Part 1: Students will watch a video that outlines some of the facts and history of the Salem Witch Trials: []

After watching the movie, students will write down 2-3 important points from the story. Each student will share one thing they learned with the rest of the group. Teacher will facilitate student led discussion on the Salem Witch Trials focusing on triggers that created an atmosphere in which the the trials were allowed to flourish.

Part 2: Students will work alone or with a partner and work through the game/simulation of their own trial: []

NOTE TO TEACHERS: If you choose to admit guilt you live, if you deny being a witch you will end up being hung.


 * After finishing the simulation, students will list their names on the board under the titles __Lived__ or __Died__.
 * Students will have a discussion of what they believe led to their outcomes and why they believe the community allowed these witch hunts to go on. Final question for discussion: "Are there issues in our community that are based in fear, misunderstanding, and hate like the events in the Salem Witch Trials?"

Students will write a one page essay on the circumstances surrounding the Salem Witch Trials. It will need to include the setting, two or more circumstances surrounding the Salem Witch Trials, and one trigger which allowed the trials to occur.
 * Assessment:**