Content objectives
My lessons center on fiction, non-fiction, and image-texts that provide a particular perspective. But are these sources all creating the same narrative story/image when they are about the same historical event? Are there discrepancies that exist between primary sources related to the same event in history? What do readers do when they discover these discrepancies? Why would writers/engravers/artists create narratives that are myths? What were the authors’ trying to conceal? These are the central questions that provide the basis of this unit and will guide the students’ reading and writing, thinking and creating as they work with primary sources.
Fifth graders at my site participate in a Document-Based Questions unit (DBQ) where they must analyze primary sources to answer a conceptual question. I am modeling this unit around those same basic tenets. We will be analyzing the main resource that students are given as curriculum content, their social studies textbook. They will research to discover if they agree/disagree with the facts and images that are presented, and then use this information to participate in a group discussion and write their individual essays. In conjunction with the analysis of the text/images provided in the social studies curriculum, students will also be reading the excerpt from Raphael’s book and discussing his claims that the common narrative about the events of the winter at Valley Forge is one of the myths of the American Revolution. We will end with an emphasis on creating an image- text that will demonstrate their understanding that history is a matter of perspective and that the students’ perspective is also valid with evidentiary support.
Background information
The reality of the winter of 1778 in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, was that soldiers were in a fertile and bountiful area of the colonies and yet they were starving by the thousands. One segment of this myth is that soldiers endured this hardship without grumbling or complaining due to their belief in their country. But, according to John Rhodehamel, “Hundreds of officers resigned their commissions or took long furloughs to escape the grimness and squalor of Valley Forge,” (4). Washington did stay in camp throughout the winter, petitioning the Continental Congress and the states to provide the necessary supplies and rations to sustain the troops camped throughout the region. But the troops took to foraging the surrounding countryside to find food for survival. The local farmers preferred to sell their food provisions to the British military, because the British paid in gold, whereas the Continentals paid with their own script or in IOUs. Private Martin stated that “he received orders direct from the quartermaster-general to go into the country on a foraging expedition, which was nothing more nor less than to procure provisions from the inhabitants for the men in the army…at the point of the bayonet.” (5) Although not originally sanctioned by Washington, he later declared foraging to be necessary for their survival and he allowed the troops to clear the countryside of food and supplies. If this method did not solve their problem of food poverty many soldiers just ran away and went back to their homes. In several reports it was noted that eight to ten men deserted every day from Valley Forge. This paints a very different picture of daily life from the conventional one: where troops endured their pain and suffering with tremendous resolve, putting all their faith in their cause. Soldiers repeatedly demanded that they be fed, clothed, and paid as promised. The soldiers were very focused on their own existence and the treatment they were receiving from the Continental Congress and superior officers. They did not just joyfully go about their tasks each day, subsisting on fire cakes and water, instead, they cried “No Meat! No Meat!” continually threatening to mutiny which created even greater concern for Washington and the officers. “If these matters are not exaggerated, I do not know from what cause, this alarming deficiency or rather total failure of Supplies arises; But unless more Vigorous exertions and better regulations take place in that line, and immediately, this Army must dissolve,” wrote Washington to the Continental Congress on December 22, 1777. (6)
There is another story that General Washington, at a desperate time during the winter, knelt down and prayed to Almighty God to watch over his soldiers and to assist him in leading his troops with wisdom. This myth is debunked by the fact that “General Washington had not been known to kneel down because it would have soiled his uniform which he detested. He was also not known to kneel in prayer even during church.” (7) This was a tale developed by Parson Weems in his seventeenth edition of his book about the life of George Washington. This false information has since been turned into paintings, prints, stained glass window displays and even statues. This is a prime example of one person’s suppositions being taken as the absolute truth about an experience and this narrative being passed down through generations and then becoming truth to those who hear it or see it depicted.
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