Think, Pair, Share: Have students draw a picture of what they see when they imagine the first

Thanksgiving between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags.

• • Where are we?
  • Who is there?
  • What are they doing?
  • What facial expressions do they have?

Vocabulary Review: Define mood and ask: How can you tell what your friend’s mood is? What evidence do you use? Possible answers include body language, facial expression, tone of voice, etc.

1 Word Whip: Have students swap drawings with a partner. Explain that they are to choose one word to describe the mood of their partner’s drawing and find two pieces of evidence to prove the mood. Allow time for students to share their words to describe the mood of their partner’s drawing including their evidence and reasoning. Ask students to note the patterns or trends in the words their classmates chose (you might have a scribe record students’ word choices on the board).

Conclusion: The story we often hear about the first Thanksgiving is happy. It centers the ways that Wampanoag people and Pilgrims cooperated with each other, but it doesn’t reveal the full story including what led up to the first Thanksgiving and what followed after it. As historians, it is our job to look for the historical context that surrounds an event so that we can better understand why it happened and how it impacted people. This lesson will be investigating the first Thanksgiving in historical context so that you can create a fuller picture of what happened.

Creating a Timeline

Have students:

1. 1. Watch The Tragic Truth Behind Wampanoag, Squanto, & the Thanksgiving Story (3 minutes)
   2. Read Why the Wampanoag Signed a Peace Treaty with the Mayflower Pilgrims

After viewing the above media, have students work with a partner to create a timeline of at least 7 events that puts the peace treaty signed by the Wampanoag and English settlers into historical context.

• • Identify at least 3 events that occurred before March 1621 that might explain why the Wampanoag signed a peace treaty with the Pilgrims.
  • Identify at least 3 events that occurred after March 1621 that might explain why the peace treaty didn’t last.

Create a collective timeline on the board. Have each group send one representative to the board to add an event from their personal timeline to the collective timeline. Each addition should include: the date, the event, and how it may have influenced at least 1 other event on the timeline. See below for additional resources on creating timelines:

• • Timeline Description & Graphic Organizer
  • Timeline Template (Vertical)
  • Timeline Template (Horizontal)

Comic Strip: Have students choose 2 events from the collective timeline: one from before and one from after the peace treaty was signed that you feel provide the most insight into why the peace treaty was signed and dissolved. Students should use those two events to create a three-panel comic strip that depicts the first Thanksgiving in historical context. Students should include a caption for each drawing that explains what is happening.

Exit Ticket: Have students exchange drawings with a partner and answer the following questions on an index card:

1. 1. How has the mood of the comic strip changed with the addition of historical context?
   2. Why do you think historical context is important? Support your answer with evidence and reasoning from this activity.

Have students watch and reflect on Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s TED Talk: The Danger of a Single Story

1. 1. Students can analyze the TedTalk in the context of the story of Thanksgiving by answering the following questions: What is a single story? Why do you think its dangerous to have a single story about a person, place, or event from history? Where do single stories come from? How can we fight back against single stories? Students should provide evidence to support their reasoning.
   2. Students can write about their own experiences with single stories using the following questions as prompts: What was a single story that you believed in? Why did you believe in that single story? What were the consequences of believing in that single story? What do you wish you had known or done differently? Why do you think single stories are dangerous and what can we do to combat single stories about ourselves, others, and history?

Opening

Lecture: Yesterday, we learned about what made “The first Thanksgiving” between the Pilgrims and Wampanoags possible and what happened after that fateful dinner, when their alliance began to crumble. You may be wondering why we still celebrate a dinner that happened over 400 years ago – before our country was even officially a country – and you wouldn’t be alone! In fact, Thanksgiving was not recognized as a significant moment in American history until over 200 years after it happened. The English settlers, who meticulously documented their experiences in a new land, definitely didn’t think it would be significant enough to warrant a national holiday. They only mentioned it in a footnote! Nevertheless, on July 15th, 1863 – in the midst of a bloody Civil War – President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for the last Thursday of November to be set aside as a day of “Thanksgiving and Praise.” Ever since, all across the country, students like you have celebrated and learned about this moment in our nation’s history during this week. Today we’ll explore why and how this holiday came to be celebrated nationally.

Quickwrite: Have students think about a holiday that they celebrate. It could be connected to their religion, culture, or simply the country you live in! Using what they recall about the holiday, have students answer the questions below.

1. 1. What is the name of the holiday you chose?
   2. How do you celebrate this holiday? I.e. What do you do to celebrate the holiday?
   3. Why do you celebrate this holiday? I.e. What is the purpose of the holiday?
   4. What is one thing this holiday reminds you of or teaches you?

Bonus: Do you know where this holiday comes from or when it was created?

Think, Pair, Share: Have students share their answers with a partner and create a list with the similarities between the two holidays. Have one student from each pair share one similarity aloud to the class. Assign one person to act as a scribe and record each group’s similarity on the board. Have students put a check mark next to any similarities from their list that are stated by other groups to avoid repeats and encourage active listening.

All holidays exist for a reason – to teach us something, to make us believe, value, or do something, or to warn us not to believe, value, or do something. Holidays are one tool that societies use to socialize us.

Optional Turn + Talk: Have students turn to a familiar table-mate and discuss the following questions…

• • Where is a place that you have been socialized?
  • What were you socialized to do, believe, or value?

Teachers should model an appropriate response to help define the term and build healthy relationships in order to create space for students to take risk. This activity is meant to be optional for students to engage however they feel comfortable.

Activity

Framing: Remind students that in the previous lesson, many identified that their partner’s original drawing of the Thanksgiving feast had a “happy” mood. Briefly recap the definition of “historical context” and explain that when viewing the historical context of Thanksgiving, the events that led up to the celebration of the holiday were anything but “happy.” Explain that students will work together to analyze primary and secondary sources to hypothesize why the historical context of Thanksgiving is more complex.

Group Work: Project this timeline on the board for the whole class to view. Have students analyze/annotate the following sources: “How the ‘Mother of Thanksgiving’ Lobbied Abraham Lincoln to Proclaim the National Holiday” or “How the Meaning of Thanksgiving Changes to Match the Times.” Students should look for evidence that explains why the events on the timeline occurred. Towards the end, have a representative from each working group write one explanation up on the board.

Think, Pair, Share: When and why did the country generally choose to celebrate Thanksgiving? (Possible answers: When they were struggling, after a war/conflict, when they needed to bolster the economy etc.)

Differentiation: To challenge some (or all) of your students, students can read the transcript of Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation to determine why Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863. (See Resources: “Evaluating Primary Sources” handout).

Activity (Continued)

Lecture: Explain that U.S. Presidents often decided to formalize the celebration of Thanksgiving when the country was experiencing or had just experienced violence and conflict (i.e. The War of 1812, The Civil War etc) in order to remind the country of a time when they had experienced peace and unity (i.e. The Peace Treaty between the Wampanoags and Pilgrims).

Think, Pair, Share: What do you think the impacts of Thanksgiving becoming a national holiday are? Are there any dangers associated with celebrating Thanksgiving?

Lecture: Explain how by only celebrating their peace – and ignoring the conflict that precipitated and followed it – we risk falling into what Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche calls “The Danger of a Single Story” about English settlers’ interactions with indigenous people that overemphasizes one moment of peace while ignoring centuries of violence. This is called…

• • Cherry Picking = selecting information that supports a particular position while ignoring relevant contradictory evidence.
  • Sanitizing = making something more acceptable by removing, hiding, or minimizing any unpleasant, undesirable, or unfavorable parts.

Closing

Jean Leon Gerome Ferris’s 1912 illustration, The First Thanksgiving, 1621 was completed as part of series, Pageant of a Nation, depicting key moments in US history. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

Exit Ticket: Imagine you are a docent at the Library of Congress and you’re giving a tour to students who are learning about the history of Thanksgiving.

Jean Leon Gerome Ferris’s 1912 illustration, The First Thanksgiving, 1621 was completed as part of series, Pageant of a Nation, depicting key moments in US history. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

• • Write what you would say to them as/after they view this painting.
  • Use at least 2 of the vocabulary words we’ve learned over the past two days in your speech: historical context, mood, socialization, sanitize, cherry pick, the danger of a single story

Have students choose a different national holiday and research its history. Students can choose one of the 12 national holidays listed by the Congressional Research Service or one from their religion, culture, or home country.

Students should use their research to…

1. 1. Develop a timeline of events leading up to the creation of the holiday including at least 5 events.
   2. Explain how each event might have influenced the creation of the holiday or the way it’s remembered and celebrated in at least 1 sentence.
   3. Answer the questions below using evidence from the timeline to support each answer:
      1. What words, sounds, images, or traditions come to mind when you think about this holiday?
      2. How is your perception of the holiday similar to or different from the original intention or celebration of the holiday?
      3. Why was this holiday created and what does it tell us about the country’s values, beliefs, or history?
      4. If you were to change this holiday (ex. get rid of it, replace it, or change the way its celebrated), how would you change it and why?

Predict: Have students predict what The National Day of Mourning is, and explain how/why they came up with their prediction.

“Cole’s Hill Plaque” recognizes and commemorates National Day of Mourning and is located on the hill where Wamsutta Frank James gave the first National Day of Mourning speech in 1970.

Revise: This plaque which sits on Cole Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where the First National Day of Mourning took place and continues to take place each year. Have students use what they read to write a 1 sentence definition of The National Day of Mourning. Students should make sure that their definition doesn’t include any of the words in National Day of Mourning and could be understood by someone who hasn’t already spent 3 days learning this history.

1 Sentence Whip: Tell students we are going to read the speech that led to the creation of the first National Day of Mourning. Ask students to read the “Background Information” section of the speech individually and make a bulleted list of all of the facts they learned about the speech and its creator. Have each student share one fact from their list and encourage them to put a check mark next to any bullets that match what one of their classmates has already said to avoid repeating facts and encourage active listening. Have a scribe create a collective list of facts on the board and encourage students to add to/edit their list based on what their classmates share.

Choral Reading: Read Wamsutta’s speech out loud as a whole class. Encourage students to keep the context we learned about the speech’s creation in the back of their minds. Ask students to put a question mark next to any words or sentences that confuse them so that they can clarify their meaning with their group in the next section of the activity.

Wamsutta Frank James, a leader of Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head and president of the Federated Eastern Indian League, speaks at the National Day of Mourning with a statue of Wampanoag leader Ousamequin (Massasoit) in the background. Courtesy of United American Indians of New England.

Poetry Alive!: Break students into groups of 2-4 and assign each group a different paragraph in the speech. Tell them that they will be delivering their section of the speech. Everyone in their group must speak at least once. In order to prepare they must…

1. 1. Write the definition for any unfamiliar words in their section above those words.
   2. Create a <10 word summary of what Wamsutta is saying in their section in the margins.
   3. Decide what the most important/powerful sentence in their section is and underline it. Choose how they want to emphasize that sentence when they deliver their section of the speech. Consider saying that sentence in unison or repeating that sentence.
   4. Come up with movements/gestures to represent the most important ideas in their section and decide who will say what when and how.

Have groups line up in the order of their sections and define where each group should exit and enter the “stage.” Review what it means to be a good audience member.

If time allows, have students reflect on what choices others groups made that they thought were particularly effective and why/what about them was effective.

Wamsutta Frank James, a leader of Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head and president of the Federated Eastern Indian League, speaks at the National Day of Mourning with a statue of Wampanoag leader Ousamequin (Massasoit) in the background. Courtesy of United American Indians of New England.

If you want to extend this activity, have students engage in a Socratic Seminar discussion about these questions and other questions they generate themselves using the evidence they’ve already collected.

Students should research a different event where activists like Frank James stood up for Indigenous people’s rights.

• • November 20, 1969: Alcatraz Occupation
  • November 3, 1972: Trail of Broken Treaties
  • February 27, 1973: Activists Occupy Wounded Knee
  • July 15, 1978: The Longest Walk

Have students write a letter to someone they know describing what the purpose of the event was, what happened at the event, and what the impact of the event was as if they had attended it. Students should remember to include a historically accurate date, a greeting, and a closing.

In class, students can swap letters and write responses/reactions to each other. Students should be encouraged to point out similarities and differences between the event they “attended” and the event their partner “attended” in their response.

Field Trips: To complete or preview this unit, you can take your class on a field trip to The Mashpee Wampanoag Museum or Aquinnah Cultural Center to hear directly from indigenous people in your area!