Shays' Rebellion Activity

Standards/ Frameworks- This lesson plan corresponds to Massachusetts curriculum framework USI.6, explaining the events that led to the Constitutional Convention. It also supports the following standards from the Common Core:
College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading:
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse formats and media, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.
3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.
College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing:
3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details and well-structured event sequences.

Lesson Plan- This lesson involves an examination of Shays’ rebellion and its impact on Massachusetts and its more important impact on the United States as a whole. This lesson involves the use of the website http://shaysrebellion.stcc.edu/, as well as the video 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America: Shays’ Rebellion.

Using the website, students will be asked a series of questions about the important people, places and reasons for Shays’ Rebellion.

The questions I use are listed here:

Go to the following website: http://www.shaysrebellion.stcc.edu/
- Click on “Historic Scenes.”
- The answers will be in the text box on the right, or in a text box as you slide over the picture.

War’s End
1. What did Thomas Foster write about his country?
2. What is a sutler?
3. At the end of the war, soldiers were allowed to keep what? But, they were afraid they would not receive this that had been promised to them?
4. Soldiers received how much pay at the end of the war?
Boom and Bust
5. What were people eager to buy at the end of the war?
6. Why did American consumers begin to struggle?
7. What did the state of Massachusetts do to raise revenue?
8. What was an important part of the inventory in the William’ store?
9. Williams cannot sell his customers products from where?
Petition and Protest
10. Springfield was home to which two courts?
11. What name was given to the angry farmers in Massachusetts who had shut down courts?
12. The court was protected by government militia with weapons from where?
13. Who rode forward to arrange a truce with the government militia under Shepard?
14. What was agreed to by the two men?
15. What do many of the Regulators carry besides muskets?
Bloody Encounter
16. What was the date of Shays’ attempted capture of the Arsenal?
17. How old was the United States Arsenal at Springfield?
18. How many Regulators were there?
19. How many men have come to defend the arsenal?
20. What is shot into the crowd of Regulators?
21. What happens to John Chaloner?
22. What is grapeshot?
Taking the Oath
23. What were former Regulators forced to do by the government?
24. Who was Benjamin Lincoln? Where does he defeat the Regulators?
25. Where did Shays escape to?
26. What was the Disqualification Act?
27. What did John Hancock do when he became governor?
Making a Nation
28. How did Shays’ Rebellion help influence the desire for a Constitutional Convention?
29. Who are the Federalists in the photo?
30. Who are the Anti-Federalists in the photo?



Students will then watch the video 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America: Shays’ Rebellion to provide additional insight into the activities associated with the rebellion on both a local and national level. The website http://www.history.com/images/media/pdf/ShaysRebellion.pdf provides short answer questions that students will answer to go along with the film. It also offers extension activities that may be used to further research the topic.

When the first two activities are finished, students will complete two further assignments.
1) Students will write a 1-2 page essay on the following question:
How did the events of Shays’ Rebellion help lead to the creation of the Constitution? Be sure to include in your answer the reasons for the rebellion, the local response to the rebellion and the national response to the rebellion.
2) Students will be divided into groups of 3-5 to create a five minute video about Shays’ Rebellion. This video could involve some sort of re-enactment of the events of the rebellion. Some possible videos may contain: live-action, animated, story board with narration or action figures. Students may also choose one of the major participants of the rebellion from the website, dress as they would have in the 18th century and narrate their chosen figure’s role in the rebellion. A third option for the video might be a performance of some of the songs located on the website.

Assessment: Assessments for this assignment vary. I have used different rubrics to cover the assignments above in different years and for different ability levels.

Materials Needed: I would like a smart board or a short throw projector and screen to be better able to present material such as that in this lesson plan. It would also allow the students greater access to technology for their own presentations and provide them with the opportunity to master helpful presentation skills.