Boston Assignment

Now it's time to get down to business and finish my assignments as part of the MNHS trip to Boston. I submitted my daily journal quite awhile ago. Since then I've been procrastinating working on the actual paper (and you thought it was just a free trip to Boston, right?). The first part of the assignment involves choosing a historical figure (or event) from the Revolutionary Period and doing an internet search on it. Once we have located five articles, we are to examine some questions our instructor gave us and write an 8-10 page paper on our figure or event.

The second part of our assignment is to devise a lesson plan which allows students to do what we have done, examine internet sources and compare them. (I like this idea because, like it or not, the internet is where students go first for information. And, honestly, it has the best potential to yield results for students too).

When we were in Boston, we took a quick tour through this little garden area in front of the Massachusettes State House. There I came across a state of a woman seated on a bench. For some reason, I found it eerie. So I immediately took a picture of her. Then I examined the inscription below her. "Mary Dyer - Quaker . . . Witness for Religious Freedm - Hanged on Boston Common 1660." Boston Common was just across the street from where I was standing.
Mary Dyer



Her plaque



The entire monument




Ever since then, I've kept that name and those pictures in the back of my mind for this assignment.

Today I started rummaging around the internet. The articles were quite interesting (not that I'm done with them), but on a cursory glance, I think I have a very interesting figure that I will be able to really work into my Am Lit curriculum next year, probably as a precursor to Miller's The Crucible.

What I am really enjoying about this assignment, though, is that it is really taking advantage of all that the internet has to offer. Our instructor made it clear that our articles were to come from the internet (he encouraged us to find one hard source from a library, though) and examine them for biases and inconsistencies.

I have not gotten around to that yet. I am just soaking up the wealth of information on Mary Dyer. In 10 minutes I found more information that I would have been able to in a full week of researching in a library back when I was in high school. Our world has changed that much!

And what a variety of information.

Of course, I hit up wikipedia right away. I know, I know. Not the most reliable place for info. But what info it has! After the brief article I found notes, publications, and external links. The latter sent me off on a chase for even more information.

Besides finding a 15 page article from "Notable Women Ancestors," a very professional people from "Women in Nonviolence" called "The Quaker Martyr Mary Dyer and the Principles of Nonviolence at Work," a brief summary of her life from "The Colonial Gazette" at maflowerfamilies.com, and a lengthy piece of writing called "Maryr Dyer of Rhode Island: The Quaker Martyr That Was Hanged On Boston Common, June 1, 1660" by Horatio Rogers from 1896. My work isn't done for I still have to locate one more article. But just in the 15 minutes of research, look at all that I was able to turn up. Even an article from over a hundred years ago.

In addition to those, I found numerous scripts, depositions, and other accounts of her trial and execution.

One of my favorites turned out to be called "The Silencing of Mary Dyer" and some students filmed a version of it and plastered it on youtube. Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOsAYdUqb2I

The little kid as Governor John Winthrop cracks me up.