Kathleen Ralph & Stephanie Mackey

ED 431: VIL Lesson Plan

OVERVIEW & CONTEXT
Your name:

Kathleen Ralph and Stephanie Mackey

Grade level and school:

Smith Elementary, 5th Grade

Title of lesson/activity:

Visual Inquiry Lesson

Teaching date(s) and time(s):

Thursday, February 26, approximately 10 am

Estimated time for lesson:

20-40 min.

Overview of lesson: Provide a

short description of the lesson (34 sentences). Include the central
question you are addressing in the
lesson.

Students will be analyzing and interpreting two

pieces of artwork depicting the Boston Tea Party.
They will make observations, inferences, and
interpretations that will help them answer the central
question, What really happened at the Boston Tea
Party in December 1773? How can we know what
happened at a historical event? Students will be
working individually, in small groups, and as a
whole class to answer the central question using their
observations, inferences, and interpretations.

Context of lesson: Describe the

unit of study, including the lesson
that comes before and after your
lesson, and explain how these
lessons help develop a big idea or
disciplinary practice.

Students will have already studied the Revolutionary

War and the Boston Tea Party in their Revolutionary
War unit. Some of the students will have recently
read the book An Artist for the Revolution which
discusses how history can be influenced by various
perspectives, especially through artwork. This prior
knowledge will give students a foundation from
where they can then explore and interpret the central
question. After this lesson, the students will engage
in a debate. Half of the students will be in support of
the British taxing the colonists and the other half of
the class will be in support of the colonists refusing
to pay taxes.The combination of the previous lesson,
this lesson, and future lessons will give students a
clearer picture of the tension between Britain and the
colonies.

Background research: Include

all sources you referenced in
creating this lesson. In 1-2

Image 1: A British engraving by W.D. Cooper.

Boston Tea Party. The History of North America.
London: E. Newberry, 1789

Kathleen Ralph & Stephanie Mackey

ED 431: VIL Lesson Plan
paragraphs, describe what
background knowledge you
learned that will help students to
get a more complete
understanding of the image and
historical context.

Image 2: The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor

(1846) by Nathaniel Currier. Currier was born in
1813 outside of Boston, MA.
Organized and carried out by a group of Patriots,
known as the Sons of Liberty. The Sons of the
Liberty were composed of males of all walk of
colonial life and trades.
Result of taxation without representation
British were imposing large taxes the importation of
British tea into America. Colonists began smuggling
tea in America to circumvent the tax.
British imposed more taxes on other goods, as well
as tea. Smuggling continued, and smuggled items
became more expensive than the British goods.
Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773,
at night, in Griffins Wharf in Boston. Over a
hundred people participated, from all ages and
backgrounds.
To hide their identities, the men attempted to
disguise themselves as Mohawk Indians.
Three American ships were involved that were
carrying British tea.
Adjusted for inflation, the Boston Tea Party caused
over $1700000 worth of damage, which was 92000
pounds of tea.
No one was injured or killed
After the Boston Tea Party, the Intolerable Acts were
enacted, further uniting the colonists against the
British.
http://www.bostonteapartyship.com/boston-teaparty-facts
Although this site is a .com site, I believe it is a
reputable site because it is the website of the Boston
Tea Party Museum. The website does not list an
author or sources for the article.
50 members of The Sons of Liberty boarded 3 ships
in the Boston Harbor dressed as Mohawk Indians.
Boston Tea Party was a protest of British tax
policies.
342 crates of tea were dumped into the ocean in
response to a parliamentary act which imposed
restrictions on the purchase of tea in the colonies.

Kathleen Ralph & Stephanie Mackey

ED 431: VIL Lesson Plan
Boston Tea Party occurred during the boycott of
English tea.
http://www.pbs.org/ktca/liberty/chronicle_boston177
4.html
http://www.pbs.org/ktca/liberty/popup_teaparty.html
We believe that PBS is a very credible source of
information.

LEARNING GOALS
Central question:

What really happened at the Boston Tea Party in December

1773? How can we know what happened at a historical event?

Specific learning goals:

1-2 goals which relate to
the central question in
the lesson.

Connection to C3, Michigan GLCEs, and Connection to

Common Core
activities

Students will be able to

find similarities and
differences between the 2
pictures depicting the
Boston Tea Party.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.5.6 [CCSS]:
Analyze multiple accounts of the same
topic or event, noting important similarities
and differences in the point of view they
represent.

This will be achieved

through the class and
group discussions. At
the end of the lesson,
the students will
have had an
opportunity to
discussion their
observations,
interpretations, and
inferences in small
group settings as
well as class-wide.
Through the
discussions of both
pictures, students
will be able to speak
about the similarities
and differences
between the two
depictions of the
Boston Tea Party.

Kathleen Ralph & Stephanie Mackey

ED 431: VIL Lesson Plan
Students will be able to
use what they observed
when looking at the two
images to explain why
the authors might have
depicted the same event
differently and how that
helps us know what
really happened at the
Boston Tea Party.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.5.9 [CCSS]:
Integrate information from several texts on
the same topic in order to write or speak
about the subject knowledgeably

This goal will be

achieved through
answering the central
question. The central
question is, What
really happened at
the Boston Tea Party
in December 1773?
How can we know
what happened at a
historical event?
The students will be
expected to answer
this question while
integrating their
observations,
interpretations, and
inferences of the two
pictures.

Students will be able to

D2.His.6.3-5 [C3 Framework]:
explain why the authors
Describe how peoples perspectives shaped
of the two pictures
the historical sources they created
depicted the Boston Tea
Party in the way that they
did.

During our
discussion of
different
interpretations and
inferences, student
thinking will be
scaffolded in a way
that has them explain
why the pictures of
the same event were
depicted differently
because of the
authors.

Students will be able to

use what they observed,
inferred, and interpreted
from the two depictions
of the Boston Tea Party
and explain how the
colonists and British felt

In order to discuss
why the authors of
the pictures depicted
the way that they
did, the students will
need to understand
what the colonists

5 - U3.1.3 [GLCEs]:
Using an event from the Revolutionary era
(e.g. Boston Tea Party), explain how
British and colonial views on authority and
the use of power without authority differed
(views on representative government)

Kathleen Ralph & Stephanie Mackey

ED 431: VIL Lesson Plan
about the taxing the
colonists at this time.

and British felt about

taxes. We will use a
discussion at the
beginning of the
lesson to gauge how
much background
knowledge the
students have on the
Boston Tea Party and
will fill the gaps in
their prior
knowledge if
necessary.

ASSESSMENTS
Type of assessment

Connection to learning goals: 2-3 sentences explaining

how this assessment addresses the learning goal(s) you
identify above.

Observational Assessment

During group and class discussions, we will circulate the

room and observe the conversations. This will help us
understand whether or not the students are noticing
differences and similarities between the two pieces of art,
addressing CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.5.6

Exit Ticket, Written

Assessment

This assessment will help us learn the students

understanding of the central question, What really
happened at the Boston Tea Party in December 1773?
How can we know what happened at a historical event?
We will review these exit tickets after the lesson.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.5.9

ATTENDING TO THE LEARNERS

Anticipating student ideas:
Explain what you think will be
students prior knowledge
about the content, including
the alternative ideas or

We believe that the students will have an understanding

of the events that took place at the Boston Tea Party, why
the Boston Tea Party happened, as well as what
implications it may have had. However, as the students
are learning this from an American textbook, they may

Kathleen Ralph & Stephanie Mackey

ED 431: VIL Lesson Plan
challenges you anticipate
students might face and how
you plan to work with each of
these challenges during the
lesson. Also explain your
ideas about how students are
likely to respond to the tasks
in the lesson and how you
might use these likely
responses to focus students on
the intended content.

have only learned about it from an American perspective.

Students might find it challenging to observe differences
in the two works of art or to articulate what they are
noticing since this is a not a task/activity they are used to
doing in class. It might also be challenging for students
to understand how the differences in the two art pieces
translate to differences in historical perspectives. We will
help students work with these challenges by carefully
scaffolding and guiding their thinking throughout the
lesson.
We are hoping that students will actively participate in
the lesson, but we anticipate that some will be
disinterested in analyzing the pieces of art. We will
create motivation by telling students they are collecting
evidence they will later be using in a debate. Also, we are
anticipating that some students may feel more confident
in relaying their observations, inferences, and
interpretations with the entire class, so we are
incorporating opportunities for students to share their
ideas in small groups prior to a whole class discussion so
that more people can share ideas and feel more confident
about sharing with their ideas with the class.
We do believe that once the students understand that the
pictures are depicting the same event but through the
eyes of different groups (British vs colonists), they will
enjoy looking at the two pictures and analyzing them. In
order

Making the content

accessible to all students:
Describe how you will help
ALL students engage
productively in the lesson.
This includes identifying
assumptions made during the
lesson about students prior
experiences, knowledge, and

Students will be able to engage productively because

they will be working individually, in small groups, and as
a class during the activities. This allows for students who
prefer different methods of learning to feel comfortable.
We will also review the events of the Boston Tea Party,
so that each student has a relatively equal understanding
of the events that occurred. This will help all students
feel comfortable with the history of the lesson,

Kathleen Ralph & Stephanie Mackey

ED 431: VIL Lesson Plan
capabilities; making the
representations, explanations,
and/or vocabulary accessible
and meaningful to all
students; and making
connections to students
personal, cultural, and social
experiences during the lesson,
if appropriate.

encouraging participation.
We realize that it might be difficult for students to notice
small details about the two pieces of artwork if they are
simply projected onto the board. To combat this, we will
print out copies of the art for each of the partners to have.
This way, each student will be able to make detailed
observations, inferences, and interpretations on the two
pieces of artwork.

INSTRUCTIONAL SEQUENCE
Materials: List the materials
you will need and the
materials the students will
need. Include quantities and
indicate which are attached.
Also, include image citation
(title, artist, the date or time
period in which it was
created, and the source
where you found the image).

-Two copies of Image 1 and Image 2 to be projected using

the ELMO
-30 copies of Image 1 to be distributed among each
student
-30 copies of Image 2 to be distributed among each
student
**[Sources for Image 1 and Image 2 can be found
in the Background Research section]
-Popsicle sticks with students names
-Pencil for each student (28)
-Notecard for each student (28)

Time frame: Steps describing what the teacher and

For each
students will do/say
step,
indicate how
many
minutes you
think it will
take AND
which
person will
be leading
that aspect
of the lesson.
5 min.

Scripted introduction. Write what you will say

Notes and reminders:

Include management
considerations.

Kathleen Ralph & Stephanie Mackey

ED 431: VIL Lesson Plan
to the students as an introduction to the lesson.
Be sure to include the importance of the lesson,
what it is that you want the students to learn,
and how this lesson links to what has come
before and what will follow it. Also include
what you will say to students about how they
should participate in the discussion.

Stephanie

Kathleen

Today, we are going to be looking at two

pictures of the Boston Tea Party. We know that
you have learned about the Boston Tea Party in
your American Revolution unit, but we want to
show you how, sometimes, learning history
depends on the perspective of the author. For
example, sometimes American history books do
not show everything that truly happened in
history. In order to show this, raise your hands if
you were shown or taught how the colonists felt
when they were being taxed by the British. With
so many hands up, we are guessing that you
might have been given examples of how the
colonists felt being taxed. Now raise your hand
if you were shown or taught how the British felt
when they taxed the colonists. With not as many
hands up, we can see that American textbooks
write things based on their perspective, or their
own attitude, on things that happened.
We are now going to begin looking at two
depictions of the Boston Tea Party and try to
answer the question What really happened at
the Boston Tea Party in December 1773? How
can we know what happened at a historical
event?
We are going start by handing out 1 picture to
each student. For the first minute, we are going
to have each of you look at the image and
simply observe what is in the picture. Then, we
are going to have you turn and talk with a small

Management: Both
stand on opposite sides
of the board, so that
each side of the room
sees our presence

Management: write the

central question on the
board so that the
students can see the
central question
throughout the lesson.

Kathleen Ralph & Stephanie Mackey

ED 431: VIL Lesson Plan
Stephanie

20-25 min.

group. Your small groups are going to be

______ (show them the students they are
working with near them). In your small groups,
we will give you 3 minutes to discuss
observations you made. You will not be talking
about what you think the picture means, why
things are included, or anything like that. You
will only be commenting on observations. To
make sure that we are only making observations,
you must start your questions with I see
_______. After 3 minutes, we are going to
come back as a class and discuss.

Management: group
students with those
sitting near them to
avoid taking up time to
move people to be with
their new groups.

Question Sequence. For each image, write 2- 3

questions for each kind of question.

In this column, write at

least 1 possible student
response for each
question (what you
hope and what might
be more realistic given
students prior
knowledge). For each
of these, write what
your discussion move
might be and the
question or statement
you might use as a
follow-up.

OBSERVATION QUESTIONS
Ask questions that draw students attention to
literally noting descriptive details in the image.
INFERENCE QUESTIONS
Ask questions that enable students to generate
ideas or make inferences based on the evidence
in the image.
INTERPRETATION QUESTIONS
Ask questions that enable students to consider
evidence outside the image, including making
hypotheses about what is happening or why it is
happening, connections to the central
question(s), and judgments about the authors
perspective or bias. Note: For this assignment,
these questions typically involve asking students
to compare and contrast one image to another
(corroboration).

Image 1 Question Sequence

Management: Alerting
students to our
expectations

Expected Student
Responses
AND

Kathleen Ralph & Stephanie Mackey

ED 431: VIL Lesson Plan
Discussion Moves for
Each Student
Response
Stephanie

Observation Questions:
1. What do you see?
2. What do you notice about the boat?
3. What about the city/background?

1.
-Some Indians and
some Patriots on a boat
(who else do you see?)
-Indians holding
weapons
(what are they doing
with the weapons?)
2.
-there are three of
them
(Why are there 3?)
-they are putting stuff
in the water
(What could that be?)
3.
-there are people on the
dock
(Why are they there?)
-there are buildings
with smoke coming out
(What does this mean?)

Stephanie

Inference Questions:
1. How do the people on the boat look?
2. How do you think they are feeling?
3. Why would there be a crowd on the shore?

1.
-sneaky
(Why might they need
to be sneaky?)
2.
-happy
(Why would they be
happy?)
-scared
(what would make
them scared?)
3.
-to watch whats
happening

Kathleen Ralph & Stephanie Mackey

ED 431: VIL Lesson Plan
(Why would there be
an audience? How did
they know it was
happening?)
Stephanie

Interpretation Questions:
1. From this image, what took place during the
Boston Tea Party?
2. How do you think this image was created?
Where did the inspiration come from?
3. This is a British painting. What was it painted
for?

Image 2 Question Sequence

Kathleen

Observation Questions:
1. What do you see?
2. What is the primary focus of this painting?
[What do you look at first?]

1.
-The patriots threw the
tea into the harbor
(What does the
painting tell us about
how the British viewed
this?)
2.
-Someone who was
there said what
happened
(If the people on the
ship were Patriots, who
might have witnessed
the event? Are they
reliable?)
3.
-People in England
(Why might they have
been interested in
seeing this painting?)
Expected Student
Responses
AND
Discussion Moves to
Each Student
Response
1.
-a lot of people
(What are the people
doing?)
-two big boats
(What is happening on
each boat?)

Kathleen Ralph & Stephanie Mackey

ED 431: VIL Lesson Plan
2.
-the people seem to be
in front
(What is in the
background?)
Kathleen

Inference Questions:
1. How do the people seem to feel?
2. What do you think about the crowd on the
shore? Why did the artist place them there?

1.
-happy
(Who are the people?
Why might they be
feeling happy?)
-angry
(why do you think the
people are angry?
Show evidence)
2.
-because they are
important
(why are they
important? What do
you think the people on
the boats think of the
people on the shore?)

Kathleen

Interpretation Questions:
1. What audience was this image created for?
2. From this image, what took place during the
Boston Tea Party?
3. How do you think this image was created?
Where did the inspiration come from?

1.
-The Americans
(What year was it
created? Why might
the Americans have
wanted to see the
painting?)
2.
-People threw tea in the
harbor
(This painting was
painted by an
American. What might
this tell us about how
the Patriots viewed the
event?)
3.

Kathleen Ralph & Stephanie Mackey

ED 431: VIL Lesson Plan
-Probably the people
there
(Which people? The
people on the boat or
the shore? How
reliable?)
Kathleen

Compare Images 1 & 2 (Corroborate)

Interpretation Questions:
1. Why are these two pictures shown differently?
2. Why do you think these images were created?
3. From these two images, what do you think really
happened at the Boston Tea Party? What
evidence do you have that proves this?

Expected Student
Responses
AND
Discussion Moves to
Each Student
Response
1.
-They were painted by
people from different
countries/different
years
(Which do you think
had a more reliable
source as their
inspiration?)
2.
-to tell people what had
happened
(what message does
each painting send to
its audience? Is there a
difference?)
3.
-The British were more
accurate
(Why: painted it closer
to the year it happened)
-The Patriots were
more accurate
(Why: more Patriots
were around to
witness)

Kathleen Ralph & Stephanie Mackey

ED 431: VIL Lesson Plan
5-10 min.

Kathleen

Assessment
After we have looked at both of these depictions
of the Boston Tea Party, I want to come back to
our central question, which was What really
happened at the Boston Tea Party in December
1773? How can we know what happened at a
historical event? Turn and talk to a person next
to you about what you think about the central
question.
Could I have volunteers to tell me what you and
your partner were thinking?

Stephanie
5 min.

Now, I would like each of you to flip over one of

the pictures we have passed out. On the back of
one of the pictures, I want you to answer this
central question to the best of your ability. You
may use what you and your partner were talking
about or things that your classmates talked about
with their partner but I want each of you to write
individually.
Scripted conclusion:
Now that we have all answered the central
question, I want everyone to think of 1 thing
they learned from this lesson. It can be regarding
the central question, what the saw in the
pictures, how the authors of these pictures play a
role in history, or anything else! I am going to
wait until everyone has an idea in their head and
has their hand raised ready to share.
To sum up this lesson, we saw today that these
two pictures of the Boston Tea Party depict very
different ideas. This is evidence that history is
truly dependent on who relays the information
of an event.

Kathleen Ralph & Stephanie Mackey

ED 431: VIL Lesson Plan
REFLECTION ON PLANNING
Learning goal for self: State at least one
learning goal that you have for yourself,
with regard to your teaching. In other
words, what are you working on to improve
your teaching practice? If someone will be
observing your lesson, also think about what
aspect of your teaching you would like the
observer to focus on. This may or may not
be the same thing as the learning goals you
have for yourself.

In this lesson, we are hoping on improving

on not giving answers to students. With
this type of lesson, we think the students
will get the opportunity to come up with
answers on their own, which is something
they are not always given an opportunity
to do in their class. We want to make sure
that we do not ask questions or say things
that give away information that they have
not yet discovered on their own.
Also, we are hoping to improve on whole
class management during this discussion.
We have not yet gotten many opportunities
to teach the entire class, so we want to be
able to practice and improve on our
whole-class management skills. We want
to make sure that all students are engaged
in the lesson, and if it is not, we want to be
able to use what we have learned to
redirect their attention to the material we
are learning.

Preparing to teach this lesson: Describe

the things you did in preparation to teach
this lesson. For example: practiced the
activity with the actual materials, answered
the worksheet questions myself, thought
through timing, researched materials, etc.

To prepare for this lesson, we first

researched the Boston Tea Party. We both
had background knowledge on the event,
but we wanted to make sure we
understood the event well enough had to
create copies of the pictures for all of the
students. We then studied the pictures we
are giving the students to anticipate what
ideas we thought the students would talk
about. After using this information, we
created the lesson plan. Finally, we went
through all of the questions we have listed
throughout our lesson and made sure we
were able to answer each of them. We
thought this was important to do because
if the students are unable to answer a

Kathleen Ralph & Stephanie Mackey

ED 431: VIL Lesson Plan
question, we must be able to scaffold their
thinking in a way that will allow them to
get closer to answering the question in the
way we want them to.