Life of a Patriot Soldier- Part II

TAH Fall 2009

Carolyn CristofaloMatt Upham

Lisa Cullen

Surrounding UnitStudents have been studying the American Revolution prior to completing today’s Common Sense activity.

They have been exposed to several text and media resources that have depicted the lives and viewpoints of the Patriot soldier, as well as the perspective of those who had remained loyal to the king.

Sample Text: My Brother Sam Is Dead

Sample Film: “The Patriot”

Specifically for this activity, students have learned how writing was a major tool used to gain support for the Patriot cause. They will be expected to use this prior knowledge in completing the assignment.

Background: Common Sense

Common Sense was a 47-page pamphlet that was distributed in Philadelphia in January 1776; over 500,000 copies were sold.

It was published anonymously.

The author, Thomas Paine, argued that citizens, not kings and queens, should make laws; this was a bold idea at the time.

Common Sense changed the way many colonists viewed their king, supporting instead the need for economic freedom and for the right to military self-defense.

Declaring Independence

Colonial leaders and soldiers rallied behind Paine’s Common Sense.

June 1776: the Second Continental Congress formed a committee to write a document declaring the colonists’ independence.

Created a seal for the new country with the motto “E pluribus unum.”

Declaration of Independence (1776): formally announced the colonists’ freedom from British rule.

A strong divide ignited between the Patriots and the Loyalists, or the colonists who chose to side with the British.

Common SensePERHAPS the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not

yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

As a long and violent abuse of power is generally the means of calling the right of it in question, (and in matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry,) and as the king of England hath undertaken in his own right, to support the parliament in what he calls theirs, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpations of either…

[Introduction]

AssignmentStudents will work in pairs to read the introduction to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and complete a related writing activity; the reading and writing activities will be differentiated according to the students’ abilities.

Activity I: Read the introduction to Common Sense with your partner. Complete the vocabulary handout as you read.

Activity II:After reading the document, write to your relatives back home in England, urging them to support the ideas put forward in the pamphlet (supporting colonial independence).

Sources

www.earlyamerica.com

United States History and New York History: Beginnings to 1877, Holt McDougal (2009)