Lesson Plan

Social Studies (History)

Students will:

• Analyze, synthesize and evaluate historical information
• Analyze the principal characteristics of the McQueen family's strategies for survival in the early years of industrializatin in Canada

Language Arts

Reading (APEF CGO R 4 / WCP GO R 3.2 / QC Reading 2)

• Read and demonstrate an understanding of non-fiction materials (primary and secondary sources) from different periods, with an emphasis on analyzing and assessing information, ideas and themes

Writing (APEF CGO W 10 / WCP GO W 4 / QC Writing 1,2)

• Select and use appropriate writing forms with a focus on essays
• Revise and edit their work, independently and collaboratively

Oral and Visual Communication (APEF CGO O/V 2.1 / WCP GO O/V 5.1 / QC Oral 1)

• Use listening techniques and oral communication skills to participate in classroom discussions

Enhancing Students' Interest

• Watch a video depicting life in Canada in the early years of Confederation.
  • Canada: A People's History - Episode 10: Taking the West, 1873-1896
  • Canada: A People's History - Episode 11: The Great Transformation 1886-1915

Small-Group Work

• In groups, brainstorm differences in the work choices for young people in the early twenty-first century and the McQueen children.
• Students create a table of positive and negative things about seeking employment in each period.

Large-Group Work

Discuss/debate:

• Which period they would have preferred to live in, based on their knowledge of the period.
• Preconceptions about life in different periods: where such ideas come from and how preconceptions can be tested.

Read the introductory text on primary and secondary resources on the Student Handout.

Introduce students to the McQueen Letters site. Navigate the various sections: The McQueens, Historical Context, The Letters. Show students the Letter Search Page.

Discuss which sections of the site are primary and which are secondary sources.

Examine one of the letters referenced in Snoop: Read Other People's Mail and discuss the advantages of primary versus secondary sources. (See the chart on the Student Handout.)

Key questions:

• Is this letter a primary or a secondary source?
• Does this make it more or less valuable as a source? Why?
• What are some of the problems with sources such as this? (examples include bias, reliability, omitted information)
• What are some of the problems with secondary sources? (bias, distance from the original events)

Consider the job options opened to the McQueen children and the context in which they searched for work:

• Role of children in sustaining a family economy in the late nineteenth century.
• Gender differences in the education of daughters and sons.
• The different options for men and women seeking work off the farm.
• Changes in transportation that enabled greater mobility in the search for work.
• The work of middle class married women in the home.
• Class and racial differences in job opportunities in the late nineteenth century.

Individual Work

Introduce students to the essay assignment. They can be asked to develop a thesis and use sources from the site to support their arguments.

Educators may choose to have the class develop a rubric based on the Assessment Criteria, or other criteria.

Discuss how - or whether - their impressions of late nineteenth-century Nova Scotia might have changed as a result of their research.

Possible Extension

Students could consult sources on schooling in the late nineteenth century, including plans for school buildings, textbooks, records of courses taught, school trustee reports, photographs of schools and classes.

Based on these sources, students could reconstruct a typical school day in the late nineteenth century.