Day 2 -- Reconstructing Allen Light's Life

1. Lesson Goal:

   Students will gain an understanding of the political relationships between Mexicans, Americans, Native-American peoples in Alta California in the early 19^th century.

2. Objectives:

   A. Given a copy of Alvarado's letter to Allen Light and a map of the Pilgrim's route, students will be able to piece together Light's movements between 1827- 1835.

   B. Given a date chart of events in California history and shuffled sets of Allen Light event cards, students will be able to match his movements to the appropriate dates with 85% accuracy by the end of the activity.

   Time of entire lesson: 50 minutes

3. Materials Needed:

   Copies of Alvarado's letter to Allen Light protection paper; Document Analysis Sheet, map of Pilgrim's route, date chart.

   Preparation Guidelines:

   • Download and print out Alvarado's letter and Document Analysis Sheet. Make enough copies for students in class.
   • Download the date chart of Allen light, keeping one master copy as an answer key. Cut out the middle column (Events in Allen Light's life) and either write them in random order on the board or Xerox onto a transparency sheet and project on wall.
   • Distribute copies of the incomplete date chart to prepare for the class to work individually or in groups (teacher's choice). Give students 20 minutes to read through and write in the boxes in the center column. The only dated events they can refer to are the sailor's protection paper and Alvarado's letter.

4. Lesson Presentation:
   1. Introduction: (5 minutes) Today you will track Allen Light's movements from year to year up until his disappearance in 1850. Each of these cards tells you what he did, but you have to figure out when he did it. Put yourself in his shoes and try to figure out what he would have done based on what was going on in the United States, California and in Mexican politics at the time. Your clues will be the second document, which is a date chart and a map of the ship he sailed on. Here are copies of Alvarado's letter.
   2. Reading Comprehension/ Document Analysis activity: (20 minutes) Distribute copies of Light's Sailor Protection Paper. Have students fill in the Document Analysis sheet. For ESL classes, consider giving them the original text in Spanish.
   3. Historical Interpretation: (10 minutes) Discuss answers to the document analysis worksheet.
   4. Chronological Sequencing: (15 minutes) Distribute the blanked out date charts and have the students chronologically organize Light's movements. They must pick an event from the date chart's middle column (which you have either projected on the wall or written in random order on the board) and copy it into the appropriate boxes. Instruct them to look for sequencing clues by reading each event carefully and comparing it to the other events (e.g. The event that reads 'Light and Nidever stop hunting otter…'cannot logically come before the one that reads "Allen Light begins hunting sea otters…with George Nidever). By referring to the 'Events in California History' column, the students can also deduce what Light might have done given the historical and political events going on in each year or period.
5. Evaluation

   A. Written Document Analysis sheet

   B. Verbal discussion of sheet answers

   C. Completed Date charts

6. ESL Guidelines

   For ESL classes, you may ask students to first read Alvarado's letter in the original Spanish. Alternatively, you may also consider using the 4^th grade paraphrased version of the text.