Third graders work with multiple sources — including iconic paintings, poems, and songs — that tell the story of Paul Revere. Through research, including fieldwork at the Paul Revere House and the Old North Church, students distinguish fact from fiction and discover that there is more to remember about this historic figure than his legendary ride. Students craft rhyming stanzas to compose a class “Ballad of Paul Revere,” set to the tune of the broadside ballad “Revolutionary Tea.” They illustrate their stanzas using a scratchboard engraving technique and publish their ballad as a chapbook, a small booklet sold by peddlers in 18th-century America. The class returns to the Paul Revere House and the Old North Church at the end of the expedition to donate their chapbook and to perform their ballad.
Grade Level: 3
Subjects: Social Studies, ELA, Music, Visual Art
Why do we remember Paul Revere?
How do art, music, and literature shape our pictures of the past?
Fieldwork at the Paul Revere House, where Paul Revere raised his family
Students sing colonial songs at the Old North Church
Historian Ben Edwards reveals pre-Revolutionary War history along Boston’s Freedom Trail