Background information is important in laying the foundation for the start of the war, but it is also important to discuss the "who's who" of the Revolutionary War. The teacher can use a chart organizer labeled with different categories for clothing and everyday life paired with pictures taken from the text
If you lived during the time of the American Revolution
by Kay Moore to show how life was very different for the Patriots and the Loyalists.
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The teacher will use the same text to sort out the two groups of people. This will help the students associate the word with the image that represents the loyalist or the Patriot. Students can also paste phrases like "freedom from England," "Redcoats," "Daughters of Liberty," and "Lobster backs" into the chart. Phrases are also an acceptable means to learning new vocabulary terms. In the textbook, the students will also see how the vocabulary is used in sentences to convey the appropriate meaning of the word. Then they will be asked to use the vocabulary in their own sentences. Every day there will be a "Do now" which will have a vocabulary word posted on the chalkboard to review previous terms and learn new terms.
Higher-level vocabulary knowledge will increase the comprehension of the unit's content and eventually result in higher testing scores for close reading of passages like the Degrees of Reading Power Test and the Connecticut Mastery Test dealing with non-fiction text.
