General

Grade Level

Middle School

Author Info

Monticello

Type of Lesson

Challenge

Type of Project (Individual/Group/Both)

Individual

Duration

60-90 minutes

Challenge Question

The Declaration of Sentiments and the Declaration of Independence have a few things in common….what are they? Use the word cloud tool to compare the two documents and then create a digital poster with images that helps explain the differences between the two.

Rationale

This challenge asks students to draw comparisons between the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of Sentiments, so it would work well as an introductory activity for a unit on women’s suffrage. Using the word cloud tool should help focus students on the key ideas in both documents and then when they source the documents, they will see that the Declaration of Sentiments takes its form from the Declaration of Independence. As an extension activity, students could search for other documents that are inspired by the Declaration of Independence.

Steps

1. Go to Create. Use the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of Sentiments in My Collection to create two word clouds. What is similar between the two? What is different? Use the text tool to note what you find.
2. Now read the two documents. Use the document analysis questions to help you learn more about the Declaration of Independence, then do the same thing for the Declaration of Sentiments. What similarities do you see in the documents now? What differences? Use the text tool to note what you find.
3. Click on words in your two word clouds to find images that represent key ideas in the two documents. Save images you like in My Collection.
4. Combine your word clouds, images, and text together into a poster to explain the differences between the two documents.