Digital Age Perspectives: A Thanksgiving WHIRL

One of the powerful gifts that educators can give to their students is perspective. Helping the students see a topic, whether it be fractions, DNA or poems from an angle that they have never seen before is one of my favorite challenges as an educator. Technology makes this challenge a little bit easier and today’s WHIRL blog provides you with interactive, higher order thinking resources for teaching students about the First Thanksgiving and European Colonization in America.

I once designed a lesson called “Thanksgiving Perspectives” where I asked my students the typical questions: “Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving?” “What was the first Thanksgiving like?” "Do you think that the European Colonists and the Wapanoag Native Americans were friends (as the picture above implies)?" and “What did they eat at the first Thanksgiving?” I gathered their responses into a mind-mapping tool. Then I showed them the picture of the Mayflower and asked them to imagine themselves as a Wampanoag child who worked hard to help his family live off the land (I would embellish this story) then I would ask them to imagine looking up from the beach one day and seeing this massive floating ship headed toward the shore. How would they feel? What would they think? Then I would flip their thoughts and ask them to imagine being a child from Holland who was told by their parents that they were leaving for a new land because of religious persecution and that they would likely never see home again. How would they feel? What would they think?

I then took them through an investigation based on the activities within this Plimoth Plantation site: You are the Historian! Investigating the First Thanksgiving -- This interactive site facilitates student exploration and sheds light on what the “First Thanksgiving” was really like! It explores several myths and a primary document written by Edward Winslow, an English colonist who was present for the event that we now refer to as the “First Thanksgiving. It also provides several interactive activities, simulations, sound recordings and helpful images to assist with student understanding and engagement. It certainly changed my perspective on what Thanksgiving is really all about!

Here are some additional resources that you may find helpful as you explore colonization, Thanksgiving and the perspectives of both the European Colonists and the Wampanoag People:

1. The First Thanksgiving from Scholastic -- Learn about the journey on the Mayflower, compare/contrast the lives of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag, and the Thanksgiving feast.

2. The Jamestown Online Adventure -- This site is an interactive simulation that requires the students to make the hard choices that European Colonists has to make when they arrived in their new world. The decisions that the students make impacts whether or not their settlement survives. Bob Dunn created this resource. You can find his site at http://www.historyglobe.com

3. Colonial House -- This site from PBS helps students understand what life was like for the European Colonists.

Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!
~Amber Rowland, TRC Project Coordinator

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