Reviews - President Who? Forgotten Founders and their Capitals
Curriki Rating
This resource was reviewed using the Curriki Review rubric and received an overall Curriki Review System rating of 3.00, as of 2009-08-07.
Component Ratings:
Technical Completeness: 3
Content Accuracy: 3
Appropriate Pedagogy: 2
Reviewer Comments:
This asset (videos and power point slides) about America’s true first leaders provides an incredible wealth of primary documents and guiding questions. While not part of the core curriculum, this information could easily be used to help students studying American History in middle to upper grades better understand government in the period between 1774 and 1789. This asset could supplement traditional textbook information on the Continental Congress and Articles of Confederation. Students will learn about these early leaders, key legislation they enacted, and the eight capitols that existed prior to the formation of the District of Columbia. Lessons will need to be created around this material. Consider including vocabulary, geography, graphic organizers to capture notes, and summarizing activities. One of the Power Point attachments is a campaign to mint a coin to commemorate these leaders. This could be an interesting jumping off point for a formal letter writing campaign and correspondence with the office of the current President of the United States.
Information - President Who? Forgotten Founders and their Capitals
E-book, Manual
This is a curriculum supplement to 5-6th , 11-12th Grade, and College American History. Presented in Power Point and Video formats these lessons unravel the complex birth of the U.S. Presidency, the transformation of a unicameral system of federal government to the current tripartite structure and a brief history of the eight different U.S. capitols that were utilized by the founders before the establishment of Washington D.C.
The Lessons are filled with actual images of U.S. founding letters, resolutions, treaties, proclamations, ordinances and laws enacted by the Confederation Congress. Most are signed by the founders of the Confederation as either President of Continental Congress or the United States in Congress Assembled.
From the United Colonies birth in 1774 to the emergence of the current U.S. constitution from the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, these lessons clearly and concisely map out the office and duties of the Presidents who led the fledging nation through the Revolutionary War and the invention of the United States of America under the Articles of Association, Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of 1787.
Lesson highlights include the birth of the nation occurring in a Philadelphia’s City Tavern, the U.S. Capitol "road show" as it relocated 11 times often fleeing the British Military Forces, Declaration of Independence’s dissemination, the Articles of Confederation’s formation of the Perpetual Union, the hyper-inflation of the dollar, a Congressional hostage crisis in Independence Hall by the Continental Army, the threat of Shay’s Rebellion, the rebirth of the United States the Constitution of 1787, and the 1788 fading away of the confederation in New York City’s Fraunces Tavern.
The story, facts and events presented in these lessons are sure to capture your student’s interest and challenge their minds.
Social Studies > General
Peyton Randolph Richard Henry Lee John Hancock Thomas Mifflin John Hanson Henry Laurens John Jay Arthur St. Clair Thomas McKean Arthur St. Clair Henry Middleton Robert Morris Robert Livingston George Washington Thomas Jefferson James Madison Cyrus Griffin Elias Boudinot Declaration of Independence Articles of Association Constitutional Convention Treaty of Paris 1783 United States Constitution Northwest Territory Northwest Ordinance Charles Thomson Continental Congress United States in Congress
These lessons are designed to provide students with understanding that, First, the United Colonies were formed in 1774 under the Articles of Association. Second, under the same Association the United States through the Continental Congress declared its Independence on July 2, 1776 from Great Britain, issued a Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, enacted the Articles of Confederation on November 15, 1777. Third, all 13 States unanimously ratified this federal constitution, the Articles of Confederation, on March 1, 1781, and on this date the Continental Congress dissolved being replaced with a new governing body known as the United States in Congress, Assembled. Fourth, Although the Unicameral Federal System failed, the Confederation government had many successes including the Treaty of Paris, the Northwest Ordinance and the Constitution of 1787.
*The government also had a Head of State, elected by delegates from all the states, officially titled as the President of the United States in Congress Assembled. Other titles given to the President of the United States in Congress Assembled were: 1. President of Congress; 2. His Excellency; 3. President of the United States of America in Congress Assembled; and 4. President of the United States.
Group Size: Any
Learning Objectives:
An understanding who the six Continental Congress Presidents were and what legislation was enacted under the Articles of Association.
An understanding who the ten Presidents of the United States in Congress Assembled were and what legislation was enacted under the Articles of Confederation.
An understanding that the Articles of Confederation was a 13 State ratified Federal Constitution whose Presidents acted in legislative, judicial and executive capacities.
An understanding of the Revolutionary War challenges that were placed on the federal government of the United States of America.
An understanding that the federal government convened in eight different capitol cities and towns before the formation of Washington D.C.
*
U.S. Founding Questions students be able to Answer after the lesson.
Which Continental Congress President did Virginians refer to _"Father of our Country"_?
Which U.S. President wrote and introduced the resolution that declared U.S. Independence on July 2, 1776?
Which Continental Congress President signed George Washington's Commander-in-Chief's Commission?
Which U.S. President conspired in the Conway Cabal to replace George Washington as Commander-in-Chief with General Horatio Gates?
Which U.S. president persuaded holdout Maryland to ratify the Article of Confederation in 1781, thereby creating the "Perpetual Union" known as the United States of America?
Which Continental Congress President was imprisoned in the Tower of London during the Revolutionary War and later exchanged for General Cornwallis?
Which Continental Congress President persuaded John Adams and Benjamin Franklin to ignore the direct order of the United States in Congress Assembled demanding that France be included in the negotiations of the Treaty of Paris?
Which U.S. president negotiated the peaceful release of President Elias Boudinot and the entire Continental Congress from Independence Hall in the summer of 1783?
Which U.S. .President’s signature ratified the Treaty that ended the war with England?
Which U.S. President sponsored the legislation to hold the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia after the Annapolis Convention failed to reach a quorum in 1786?
Which U.S. President married royalty that set many of the hospitality traditions adopted by future First Lady’s of the United States?
Who was the First President of the United States?
Which State was the first to ratify the Articles of Confederation?
Guiding Question:
Who was the First President of the United States of America?
Materials:
YouTube Videos:
*Rise of The U.S. Presidency Power Point Presentation *
*President Who? Forgotten Founders and their Capitols Power Point Presentation *
Poster Capitols of the United Colonies and States of America
Book: President Who? Forgotten Founders and Their Capitols
Procedures:
_An Adobe PDF Slide Presentation "The Rise of The U.S. Presidency and Their Capitols" is a one Class Lesson that covers 13 Founding Presidential Points that: _
Provides the name, office and time each of the14 Presidents of the Continental Congress and United States in Congress Assembled.
Maps out the four major "constitutional" divisions of the founding Period:
Articles of Association of the United Colonies of America
Articles of Association and un-ratified Articles of Confederation of the USA
Articles of Confederation of the United States of America
The United States Constitution of 1787
Provides an overview of the Duties the Presidents performed
_Adobe PDF Slide Presentation "President Who? Forgotten Founders and Their Capitols" is a two to four week Lesson that covers, in depth, the Founding Period, 1774-1789, from the perspective of the Presidents. There are copious notes on the power point slides._
_Adobe PDF Overview of U.S. Founding Half-Dollar Coin Act of 2009 _