Hannah, Kimberly, and Damian VS 5c. The students will identify the importance of the Battle of Great Bridge. Objective: The student will compare the Great Bridge Battle historical road side marker and the Captain Parker monument from Lexington.

Sourcing Questions Who decided that this historical marker and monument be put there? When were these markers put up? Is the account that Capt. Parker said that believable? Is it believable that the Battle of Great Bridge the first “pitched battle” of the Revolutionary War?

Close Reading Questions What symbols do you notice on the monument and marker? What do the texts on the monument and marker tell us? What is a “pitched battle”? What is “K 275”?

Contextualizing Questions Which monument do you think is older? What makes you think that? What significant events came before or after? Why were these monuments erected? Who is the audience for these markers?

Corroborating Questions Do the texts on the two monuments agree? Where do they disagree? What are the differences between the word choices used on each? Which source seems more reliable or trustworthy? Why?

In Lieu of Asking “specific” historical thinking questions: We could use the example questions from the “historical reading skills” page and make posters around the room and templates in the students’ notebooks to guide them in asking their own questions. Teachers in the beginning of the year would model how to ask these questions. Throughout the year, students would be directed to choose 2 or 3 from each group when evaluating a source. By the end of the year, students would generate their own specific questions in reference to the source being analyzed.

Activity: Computer Scavenger Hunt and Partner Discussion The students will go to the Computer Lab and go on a “scavenger hunt” to 2 websites: one on the Battle of Lexington and Concord and one on the Battle of Great Bridge. The students will answer the questions: who, what, where, when, and why for each of the 2 websites to gain background knowledge. The students will pair with a partner and observe photographs of both historical markers and answer historical thinking questions together with a discussion guide.

Assessment: After discussing the guided worksheet questions as a whole group and examining the letter from Captain Woodford, the patriot leader at the Battle of Great Bridge, the students will write a summary sentence in their own words (less than 10 words) on a brown historical “exit sign” about why the Battle of Great Bridge was important to the American Revolution.

Primary Source Citations great-bridge-marker-k-275/ great-bridge-marker-k-275/ structures/battleboundary904.pdf

Committee of Safety Letter A letter from the Committee of Safety in Virginia, mailed from Williamsburg on December 16th and addressed to one or more of the Virginia delegates to Congress stated, “The action at Great Bridge proves more important than we expected. The victory was complete. The enemy abandoned their post hastily, and retreated to Norfolk, their loss near an hundred……Captain (Samuel) Leslie, we are told, declared no more of his troops should be sacrificed to whims, and put them on board the ships, in consequence of which Norfolk is abandoned, and we now expect is occupied by our troops…”

Painting of Lord Dunmore