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Lowell Activity Home

    This sequence of lessons, on Lowell, Massachusetts and the Industrial Revolution, lesson is designed for a 7th grade Humanities Class in Brookine, Massachusetts.  The class is a combined Language Arts/Social Studies class.  During the 7th grade, the Social Studies Curriculum covers United States history through 1865.  The lesson aligns with Massachusetts Standards for U.S. History I, for Language Arts, and for Instructional Technology.  This material can be adapted for use in your classroom.

For your planning, please visit any and all of the following:

Teacher Concept Map

Sequence of Lessons -Includes Accommodations, Extension Activities, and Technology Integration

Assessment Rubric

    The lesson evolved from a three tiered approach to this period in history:

    1.  Students read the young adult novel Lyddie, by Katherine Paterson. 

    2.  Students read from the 7th grade Social Studies text A More Perfect Union (Houghton Mifflin) and assorted handouts about the Industrial Revolution.

    3.  The class visits the Boott Cotton Mills in Lowell, a visit which is highlighted by each student having the opportunity to weave at a loom.

    We have expanded this lesson significantly to include these additional elements, many of which allow the students to use a wide variety of technologies:

Essential Questions

Primary Sources WebQuest

Class Literature Blog

Class Wiki (if you're here, you're on the Wiki now!)

Inspiration 8.0 Concept Map

Other Student Activities include:

 written journals

multiple intelligences role play

The sequence of lessons has at its center these ideas:

The power of primary sources to add depth to a study of history

The comparison of historic treatments of an era with fictional treatments

The texture of life in the mills in the 19th century

The choices people make and how choice requires weighing various pluses and minuses