Decide Eliza Paige's Future
Introduction: Students use the web-based Bringing History Home - Decide Eliza Paige’s Future to learn about the lives of mill workers in the early Industrial city of Lowell.
Level: Grades 4-8
Time: 45 minutes
- Lesson Preparation
- Prior Knowledge Required
- Background Information
- Vocabulary
- Anticipated Student Preconceptions/Misconceptions
- Frameworks Connections
- Materials Needed
- Pre-Activity Preparation
- Guiding Questions
- Objectives
- Activity
- Assessment
- Adapting the Activity for other grades
- Bibliography
- Rubric
- Print Entire Lesson Plan
Lesson Preparation
Photocopy “The World of Eliza Paige” reading for homework.
Arrange time in the computer lab
Photocopy: Choices Tracking Sheet (several sheets for each team)
Prior Knowledge Required
Students should have a basic understanding of the Industrial Revolution and “Mill Girls.”
Background Information
See attached: The World of Eliza Paige
Vocabulary
* Boardinghouse: Four story brick building with a kitchen, dining room, and bedrooms built by the mills to house their workers; run by a boardinghouse keeper.
* Brown Lung Disease: a disease caused by inhaling cotton dust which made it difficult to breathe
* Domestic Servant: a person who is employed to do household work (maid)
* Keeper (or Boardinghouse Keeper): Someone hired by the mills to run a boardinghouse and take care of the workers
* Legislature: a group of elected officials who make laws
* Petition: document signed by many people urging a government official to take action on a problem
* Protest: an objection, disapproval or opposition
* Wage: pay
Anticipated Student Preconceptions/Misconceptions
Students may mistakenly believe that:
* Mill owners and overseers treated all mill workers horribly and there were no benefits of coming to Lowell.
Frameworks Connections
Common Core State Standards
Grade 4: Writing Standards
1. Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.
a. Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer’s purpose.
b. Provide reasons that are supported by facts and details.
c. Link opinion and reasons using words and phrases (e.g., for instance, in order to, in addition).
d. Provide a concluding statement or section related to the opinion presented.
Grade 8: Reading Standards for Literature
3. Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.
Grades 3-8: Speaking an Listening Standards:
1. Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade topics and text, building on others’ ideas and expressing own clearly.
Grades 6-12: Writing Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies
4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
Materials Needed
Pre-Activity Preparation
Guiding Question
What were some of the choices faced by the workers who came to work in Lowell’s mills?
Objectives
After completing this activity students will be able to:
* Describe at least two different choices a mill worker might have faced.
* List one cost and one benefit for the workers of the Industrial Revolution
Activity
Introduction
1. The day before you intend to teach the lesson, assign “The World of Eliza Paige” essay as homework reading.
2. Conduct a class discussion based on homework reading:
Ask students:
* Why would someone want to come to Lowell to work? (money, social opportunities, independence etc.)
* What were conditions like in the mills? (hot, humid, dangerous machines, cotton dust, long days etc.)
Web-based Activity
3. Students work in pairs or groups of three. Each group should have several copies of the Choices Tracking Sheet.
4. Direct students to: http://www.uml.edu/tsongas/bringing-history-home
5. Students make choices for Eliza Paige and her life in Lowell. Encourage them to read the “Advice” links offered at the bottom of each page before making decisions.
6. As students move through the game, they keep track of their choices on the Choices Tracking Sheet.
Tracking Sheet Example:
?Choice: Stay at Boardinghouse OR Move
What do you choose? Stay at Boardinghouse
What happened to Eliza because of this choice?
___Eliza has to adjust to her new living arrangements by making new friends and gets a lecture from the overseer.___
7. Students should play the game several times, keeping track of their choices each time, to learn the costs and benefits of different choices.
Assessment
Have each team choose one decision. Then answer the following questions in a short essay.
* What was the decision you had to make?
* What were the two different choices?
* What were the costs and benefits of each choice?
* How did your group weigh the costs and benefits to reach a decision?
* If you were a mill worker in Lowell faced with that choice-what would you have decided? Why?
Adapting the Activity for Other Grades
For younger students (grade 4-5), ELL or students with different learning styles, read “The World of Eliza Paige” as a class to help students understand the difficult words/concepts.
BiblioPaigeBibliography
Grade 4-5 The Bobbin Girl, Emily Arnold McCulley
Grade 5-8 Lyddie, Katherine Patterson
RubricPaigeRubric
See attached rubric.
Print the entire lesson plan:Decide Eliza Paige's Future.
