A boy and his family endure a difficult nine-week journey across the ocean and survive the first winter at Plymouth. Based on true events, "Across the Wide Dark Sea" poetically narrates a young boy's account of risking the ocean to find religious freedom in a new land.

This module on Colonial Literature explore the essential questions: 1) How does the literature in early Colonial America reflect the customs and beliefs of the Native Americans and Puritans? 2)What kind of literary styles did the earliest writers contribute to American Literature? and 3) How did history have an effect on the types of literature being written? There are audio and visual activities as well as readings.

The Printed Ephemera Collection at the Library of Congress is a rich repository of Americana. In total, the Collection comprises 28,000 primary source items dating from the seventeenth century to the present and encompassing key events and eras in American history. Among them are a variety of posters, notices, invitations, proclamations, leaflets, propaganda, manifestos, menus and business cards. They capture the experience of the Revolutionary War, slavery, the western land rush, the Civil War, Women's Suffrage, and the Industrial Revolution from the viewpoint of those who lived through them.

Students are introduced to archaeology vocab through the case of "Barwick's Ordinary," a historic tavern, gathering place, home, and center of business in 1700s Maryland. Students are briefly introduced to the story of the ordinary then explore a 3D "art gallery" with scans of artifacts from the site as well as maps, surveys, and drone photographs. Internet access is currently required. Paintings by John Lewis Krimmel help illustrate how things may have looked. An extension is to conduct some more detailed reading into the role of ordinaries, a ubiquituous feature of the European colonies in America. There are 3 activities to "meet" Barwick's, followed by 2 summative activities.

The University of North Georgia Press and Affordable Learning Georgia bring you Becoming America: An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution. Featuring sixty-nine authors and full texts of their works, the selections in this open anthology represent the diverse voices in early American literature. This completely-open anthology will connect students to the conversation of literature that is embedded in American history and has helped shaped its culture.

The English colonists in North America in the seventeenth century were part of an early modern global communication network, and yet at the same time, they were painfully isolated. They had been encouraged to risk the three-thousand-mile ocean voyage across the North Atlantic by a steady flow of hopeful reports from the New World that had been circulating in Europe for over a hundred years in the form of explorers’ letters, maps, and travel accounts. But once they were there in the early English settlements at Jamestown, Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay, they were frequently cut off from the news networks they had previously known: books, pamphlets, newspapers, letters, and face-to-face communication with family and friends. They longed for news from home, especially during the news-drenched decades of civil strife in England beginning in the 1640s. They labored to sustain and improve the transatlantic flow of information and news from England and Europe to America.

This essay and collection of primary sources explores the topic of Colonial Print Culture.

How British were the British colonies in North America in 1754? In this video, Kim discusses how the British colonies participated in political, social, cultural, and economic exchanges with Great Britain that encouraged both stronger bonds with Britain and resistance to Britain’s control.

Kim discusses how after many years of unsuccessful settlements, the English founded the colony of Jamestown in Virginia.

England didn't start its first successful colony in North America until 1607, more than 100 years after Columbus arrived in the New World. In this video, Kim discusses the problems that prevented England from following in Spain's footsteps, including struggles for the throne, war in Ireland, and economic depression.

"I never knew a whole family to live together, till all were grown up, in my life," recalls Lewis Clarke of his twenty-five years enslaved in Kentucky.1 Families were separated due to sale, escape, early death from poor health, suicide, and murder by a slaveholder, overseer, slave patroller, or other dominant person. Separation also occurred within the plantation itself, e.g., by segregating "field slaves" from "house servants," removing children from parents to live together with a slave caretaker, or bringing children fathered by the slaveholder to live in the "Big House." How, then, did the slave family provide solace and identity? "What the family does, and what the family did for African Americans," writes historian Deborah White Gray, "was create a world outside of the world of work. It allowed for significant others. It allowed a male slave to be more than just a brute beast. It allowed him to be a father, to be a son. It allowed women to be mothers and to take on roles that were outside of that of a slave, of a servant."2 When did the enslaved child realize how his or her family life differed from the slave-holder's? How did enslaved adults cope with the forced disintegration of their families? Here we read a collection of texts—two letters, a memoir, and interview excerpts—to consider these questions. (See also Theme II: ENSLAVEMENT, #2, Sale.)

Imagine trying to cut your hair without metal tools. How would you do it? Join JPPM's Educator Nate Salzman as he uses experimental archaeology to answer the question "How did Native Americans cut their hair before metal tools?" Use to support the Maryland Social Studies Framework for grades 3, 4, and High School. To support the grade 3 content topic "Cultural Change Over Time," have students compare the advantages/disadvantages of the results of this experiment and how they receive a hair cut; for grade 4 topic "Native Cultures," have students either hypothesize and research how Native American tribes who did not have access to shells may have cut their hair or respond to the prompt "why did European colonists use metal tools for cutting their hair while the Native Americans used shells? Would some hair styles be easier to cut with one type of tool than the other?"; finally for HS topic "Exploration, Colonization, and Global Interaction, have students respond to the prompt "with the introduction of metal tools, how might the role of 'barber' have changed within a Native American tribe? If you evaluate or use this resource, consider responding to this short (4 question) survey at bit.ly/3G6RxUa

In the 1600s, French and Dutch settlers in North America took a very different approach to colonization than their English or Spanish counterparts. In this video, Kim examines the trading relationships that French and Dutch settlers established with Native Americans in North America and how colonial goals affected patterns of settlement.

What did people do to occupy themselves before there were computers, phones, or even electricity? Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum's Director of Education Deb Rantanen teaches how to play one of the most popular board games from ancient times up to the United States' Colonial Era: Nine Men's Morris. Along the way she'll also share some of the history of where the gameboard has been found. Search OER Commons for "9 Men's Morris Resources" for some additional materials like a link to an online game and list of locations where the game has been found. Use to support Maryland Social Studies Frameworks for grades 2 or 7. For Grade 2, Content Topic "Geography," have students note, with a map, where they live then the continents where the game has been found. Finally have them write the total of times the game has been found on each continent and express where they believe the game was invented. See the "9 Men's Morris Resources" resource on OER Commons for more find locations. For Grade 7, Content Topic "Geography," have students do the same but at the country level before hypothesizing how the game spread such as through generic answers like migration or more specific answers like the Silk Road. If you evaluate or use this resource, please respond to this short (4 question) survey here bit.ly/3ppwaXt

Ben, an enslaved miller at Mount Vernon, discusses freedom. In a reenactment of him thinking aloud, he considers what his life might be like if he runs away from Mount Vernon and gains his freedom as compared to his current life as George Washington's miller.

Kim discusses how the system of indentured servitude in colonial Virginia transformed into a system of African slavery after Nathaniel Bacon's rebellion against the House of Burgesses.

Kim discusses the early difficulties of the English colonists at Jamestown, and clears up some common misconceptions about John Smith and Pocahontas.

Kim discusses how the tobacco plantation system led to indentured servitude and eventually slavery in the area surrounding Jamestown and the Chesapeake Bay.

Kim discusses how John Rolfe's discovery that Virginia was the perfect environment to cultivate tobacco led to Jamestown's success -- and to a great deal of conflict between the English and the Powhatans, resulting in the first and second Anglo-Powhatan Wars.

Kim and David discuss the mystery of the "Lost Colony" on Roanoke Island, the English settlement in North America that vanished in the late 1500s. In this video, they set the stage for the colonial venture and discuss the first two missions to Roanoke Island.

Kim and David continue discussing the Lost Colony of Roanoke. What happened when the English colonists finally settled on the coast of North Carolina? What are the prevailing theories about what happened to the colonists?