Journal Article

This is the link to an interesting article published in American Heritage that argues that an incident on February 25th, 1775 at the North River Bridge in Salem, Massachusetts was the true beginning of the Revolutionary War, not the Shot Heard 'Round the World at Lexington and Concord that would be fired two months later.

http://www.americanheritage.com/content/all-king%E2%80%99s-horses%E2%80%A6-and-all-king%E2%80%99s-men

 Barnes, Eric W. "All the King's Horses...And All the King's Men." American Heritage. 11.6. (1960): 56-87.

Non-fiction Readings

Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past by Ray Raphael.  This is a book that debunks myths that many people believe about the American Revolution such as the midnight ride of Paul Revere.  The book not only tells the real stories but tells the reader where and why the myths developed and why they carry on.  This book is appropriate for high school readers.

The American Revolutionaries:  A History in Their Own Words 1750-1800 Edited by Milton Meltzer.  The book is a collection of first hand accounts of the American Revolution from the perspective of people across many ages, genders and races who witnessed the Revolution first hand.  Published in 1987 the book won a variety of young adult reading awards.

Text-based Primary Documents

This is a link to the back and forth correspondence on October 17 and 18th, 1781 between General Washington and General Cornwallis discussing the terms of surrender. 

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/revolution/letters.htm


This is the full text of the Declaration of Independence, arguably the most important document in United States history. 

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

Visual Media

 

This is a youtube link to the first episode of the "Liberty!: The American Revolution" PBS six part documentary.  There are also links to the other 5 parts on the right hand portion of the screen.  The documentary is well organized, thorough and very well done.  It's worth watching the whole series for yourselves but in terms of classroom use I would show clips that cover whatever specific event or events from the Revolution you wish to emphasize.  The documentary series uses historian interviews, primary sources and re-enactments to tell the story of the revolution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmo9oBJJXr8

Curriculum Materials

This is a link to PBS' teacher resource guides about the American Revolution.  There are six separate teacher guides that all connect to PBS' "Liberty! The American Revolution" film series.  They are comprehensive and follow the entirety of the Revolution beginning with the decision to split from England through the Federalist/Anti-Federalist debate over the development of the constitution.

http://www.pbs.org/ktca/liberty/teachers.html

This second link is from the Library of Congress.  It is a comprehensive collection of links to a variety of sources that a teacher can use when covering the Revolutionary War in their classroom.  The links are listed by topic and come from an array of places all of which are reputable (PBS, BBC, NY Times and various historical foundations).  I did not examine every site, but nearly every link I went took me to a site with a wealth of information including a teacher's guide and/or lesson plan.

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/additionalresources/relatedresources/ushist/chrono/revoluti.html

This last link is connected to the one above and looks great for any unit you are teaching.  It isn't perfect because it takes a little more time to find what you but you can use the Library of Congress website and search for lessons plans and other classroom materials by grade level and subject that connect to individual state standards. There are a huge number of materials that are broken up by course including US History I and II as well as World History I and II

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/ 

Research for Students

 

This is the Massachusetts Historical Society website.  The link takes you to a student section which has links to a variety of topics having to do with the Revolutionary War.  The site is very user friendly.  When you click on a topic the site gives you a brief overview with links to a variety of primary sources having to do with the topic selected.  The website also includes tips for students on how to conduct research using a primary source.

http://www.masshist.org/revolution/students/index.php

Cheatsheet for Trumbull's Painting

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/KeyTrumbullsSurrenderOfLordCornwallis.jpg

John Trumbull's "Surrender of Cornwallis"

http://classroom.monticello.org/assets/620x/00000021.jpg

This is John Trumbull's "Surrender of Lord Cornwallis."  The original is a 12 ft. X 18 ft. oil painting that hangs in the rotunda in the Capitol.  The painting depicts Cornwallis surrender to General Washington at Yorktown on October 19th, 1781 which effectively ended the Revolutionary War although the Treaty of Paris would not be signed for another two years.  In the painting are several important Revolutionary War figures including George Washington, Baron von Steuben, Marquis de Lafayette and Count Rochambeau among others.  It's a great resource to refer back to when teaching the Revolution because so many major players are depicted.  This piece of art can also be used as part of a Do Now activity asking the students to make observation about the art or write a short paragraph about what Washington or Cornwallis is thinking about in the picture.

Paul Revere Boston Massacre Engraving

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/revolutionary-war/battles/paul-revere-boston-massacre.jpg

This is an engraving made by Paul Revere that depicts the Boston Massacre of March 5th, 1770.  There is a collection of text based primary sources included in another blog entry that connect to this piece of art.  For a lesson plan that I created I had the students consider this depiction of what transpired and compare it with a variety of first hand accounts and testimony of people present at the Boston Massacre.  It becomes clear to the students that Revere used this engraving as a piece of propaganda to encourage the colonists to join his cause for revolution.  The lesson teaches kids to consider the validity of a source and also analyze an event from a variety of perspectives in order to piece together the truth.

This is a link to a site that is devoted to the Boston Massacre Trial that has all of the primary source material like the testimonies and first hand accounts that I used for my lesson

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/bostonmassacre/bostonmassacre.html