[ambernannenga]

I am a college student and I am needing to teach a lesson on the Boston Tea Party. It is really hard to keep this class engaged. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or a play or anything that I could do with the class. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks

[musicbug]

You did not say what grade you are teaching. Here are 2 different approaches and a closing idea that might help.
If this just a Social Studies class. Invite the kids to a Sons of Liberty meeting, where you go over the problems the colonists were having with England. Guide the children into the plan of dumping the tea complete with the vote. My first year teaching this lesson I was a student teacher, I even made invitations that I wrote out on brown paper and wax sealed the notes. I put all the notes in the desks before the kids came in and kept them in suspense all day. ( I don't have the time to do that anymore.)
If you are intergrating, this is a point of view lesson. Read What led to the Revolution? From If You Lived During the Time of The American Revolution. Then read from Can't You Make Then Behave,King George? just section on the Boston Tea party. Each is about 2 pages with illustrations.Then we discuss the two positions.
In either case a way to get them to remember the tea party is to play them No More Kings from The Schoolhouse rock sereies of dvds or cds. Give then a copy of the words to follow along. I've worn out my copy of the video.
Hope this helps.

[SC]

I'm not sure what grade you're working with, so this may be a little too difficult. I did it my junior year of high school. We had to choose a side (British or colonist) and draw a political cartoon to illustrate our point of view. We started by looking at examples of political cartoons and discussing them. Then we made our own.

[Brooke S.]

When I was in college my Social Studies for Elem. Teachers teacher did a lesson for us on the Bosten Tea Party. We pretended we were the students. It was the best lesson ever! I know the kids would be engaged.

We all picked a card and that was our title colonist, parliment, king, tax collector. That was then what we were. We were all given a different amount of M&M's because different people make different amounts of money. Then the king would decide to tax us on things. He would draw a card that had an item on it and if we had it we owed taxes (cell phone, pen, scissors, etc.) The parliment would decide how much to tax us and we all had to pay the same amount. Then the king got to keep some of the money. Basically this introduced us into what led to the Boston Tea Party. I bet any student would be more excited to read about it after living it and having something to related to. I hope this made sense.

[ambernannenga]

Thank you for all of your help. It is greatly appreciated. I will definitely use those idea. Thanks again!!