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Know ye that His
Royal Highness, the King of England,
has hereby offered his approval to a venture establishing a colony across the
seas on the shores of North America.
This privilege has been extended to thy group contingent upon thou providing
plans for such a colony. Such plans will, to the best available knowledge,
insure the success of the colony and the health and welfare of the King's
subjects.
The Task
You have been assigned the task of creating a proposal for a new colony.
This work is to be very comprehensive because an error on your part may cost
the lives of many colonists.
You need to provide the Royal Inspectors (your teacher) with a
detailed presentation of what you have found and what you recommend for your particular
part of the project. His majesty wants a visual of the proposed settlement,
and you need to participate in its construction. Since there is only one
visual of the colony, you will cooperate with your team in creating this. If
your ideas are different from your team members, you must work out any
differences. At the request of the Royal Inspectors you shall present your
proposal to the other members of the Royal Commission (your class).
The Products
Your proposal should consist of four products:
o written documentation
(the answers to the questions below)
o an oral presentation
o a visual of the settlement
o an edition from your
colony's newspaper
(each of the group members will have a section of the newspaper to write. A
peer review is located here.)
The Process
To more efficiently carry out these tasks, your teacher will organize
your class into smaller groups: Within your groups you will focus on
political, economical, technological and societal aspects for your colony.
After doing your research separately, work within your groups to design your
part of the presentation for the King. Your oral presentation should include
an explanation of your findings for your product (answers to the questions
below). Your visual could be
multimedia, play, puppet show, video, model, diagram, web page or any
combination of these, with the approval of the Royal Inspectors. Include a
layout of a settlement in the colony. Remember to include
your sources into your written documentation. Directions for a colonial
newspaper product will be distributed.
Political
This group is assigned the task of deciding how the colony shall be
governed. His Majesty is most anxious that the administration of the
settlement be fair and efficient. Although you may wish to have a single
individual who is ultimately responsible to the Crown for the overall running
of the colony, order and efficiency cannot depend upon one person. Assignment
of various important functions shall need to be made. Consider the following
needs of the colony:
- What will be the location of the colony? Be specific
about where it is on a map.
- How will you protect the inhabitants from
attack by hostile savages?
We want the
Indians to help us and not to be our enemies. What will you do to make that
happen?
- Who will rule the colony? What offices are needed? How will the laws be enforced? By whom?
- Will you have regular British soldiers or militia?
What are advantages to each? What are disadvantages?
- Who controls the soldiers? Who pays them? Who houses
them?
- Who can own land? (Be
specific about what qualifications they must have (age, gender, etc. for
example).
- Will anyone have a vote? If, so, how often and for
what offices?
- If people will vote, then who will be allowed to vote?
What criteria will be used?
- How will your colony make local laws?
- The King is very
anxious to keep track of the progress of the colony. Who will do this, how
often, and how do you intend to report this to His Majesty?
Economical
It is most important that the colonists survive and prosper. To that
end, each person must have something to employ their time to the best
advantage of himself and the colony. Not every person can or should be
engaged in growing food nor in any one thing. There must be a balance among
all the work so that every person is dependent on the others to live. You
must decide the following:
- What will be the main business purposes of the colony?
(Will it be
agriculture, hunting for pelts, mining for minerals, or something else?)
- Who will you trade with? For what will you trade? What
will you offer in trade?
- What
essential things do the colonists originally need to bring from
England
for building, surviving until the colony can support itself, protection, and
trade?
- What materials can the colonists find in the New World
to sustain them?
- What important occupations must your colonists have?
- How will people be trained for each of the
occupations?
- How many days per week and how many hours per day will people
work?
- How will things
be paid for (currency or barter)? If currency, then describe it.
- There
is a new idea of using slaves or indentured servants to do work. Should we
have slavery or indentured servants in this colony?
What would be reasons for each? If you don't have slavery or
indentured servants, from where and how where will you get workers?
Societal
People in the colony will be living from day to day. How well they live
will be determined by your group. Yours is possibly the hardest job since
your decisions will affect every colonist personally. If you are wrong, it
could cost some lives. Perhaps the best way to approach your job is to follow
a typical colonist through a day from the time they get up until they go to
sleep. Describe a day from an adult's and a child's point of view. For the
adult include items such as
work, tasks, chores, food, etc. For the child include items such as
school (if there is one), tasks, chores, food, games and the like. Other ways
to approach the job is to answer questions such as:
- Which religion(s) will your colony permit? What is the role of religion in your colony?
- What shall people be able to do for
recreation?
- What rules should be made concerning
schooling, including subjects taught, rules for attendance, discipline and
support for the teacher?
- What rules will you have concerning courtship?
- What rules will you have concerning marriage (role
of husband, wife, children & relatives)?
- Will you have different social classes of people? If so, what are
they? Can people climb into a higher social class? If so, then how can
they do so?
- What customs will you adhere to?
- What holidays will you celebrate? How will you do
that?
Technological
- What is the proximity of your colony to water for drinking,
irrigation, and navigation. (Include maps.)
- What transportation and communication systems will you use?
- What will their houses look like (inside and outside -
include sketches)? How will you
adapt your dwellings to the environment?
- What kind of furniture will you use? (Describe them)
- How will
you obtain food? What crops will you plant or animals will you raise? How
will your store things?
- What farm implements and other tools will you use?
- How will
you make clothes, blankets, etc.?
- What technological occupations are essential to any colony?
- What weapons and fortifications will you use to protect yourselves?
- What were health services like? Who did you go to if you were ill? How were
you treated when you were ill? What sanitary methods were practiced in
obtaining water, cooking and in medical practices.
These are some of the questions. You and your group need to ask the
rest of the questions, make them as detailed as possible, and then come up
with the answers. Bear in mind that if you forget something, it could take a
year or more before the things that you've forgotten can be supplied.
Additional Resources
Ye Olde Textbook
Chapters 3, 4 and the first half of Ch. 5 have a wealth of
information.
Ye Olde Library
His Majesty is most anxious
for this project to succeed and has therefore alerted the
Royal
School Librarian to
assist you in any way possible.
Ye Olde Encyclopedia
Remember to use the INDEX volume
first.
Ye Olde Internet
"Get thee into
cyberspace." The royal inspectors and other folk have been busy finding
places along the King's Information Highway
for you to stop and find out information that you need to help you to
complete your task. Take full advantage of these sites. Stay on the links
provided in this WebQuest. Do not use search engines unless the Royal
Inspectors (your teacher) approves before hand!! Since the King has
spent some big time bucks and time in arranging these sites for your
edification, His Royal Highness will be most upset if you do not use
them!
A TABLE
ALPHABETICAL (R. Cawdrey 1604) is a dictionary of some of
those strange "Olde English" words you might find while doing your
research.
Back to the first page
Last updated: 1/15/06
This work was adapted with permission from the
excellent WebQuest A Royal Charter
for the King by Stuart Kornbluth, Bonnie Oehl Elementary, San Bernardino
City USD
Teachers: Please go to Educational Units and Lesson Plans for
links to thousands of quality lesson plans and units.
Please send comments to Richard Levine, Cool
Lessons Educational Consulting comments@coollessons.org
or Christie Kukla, kukla_c/tms@dns.u46.k12.il.us
Tefft Middle
School, Streamwood
IL, School
District U-46.
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