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A Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation Fellowship · Stony Brook University

Town of IslipHistory ProjectTown of Islip History Project
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Lesson Plans

Full lesson plans on the Stony Brook University Social Studies template, each pinned to one specific New York State Framework standard and grade, and timed for a 42-minute period. The Grade 7 unit carries Islip from before the Revolution through the occupation and the question of who belonged; the Grade 11 and Grade 12 lessons take the same local history into high-school document-based inquiry and civics.

These lesson plans use a format adapted from the Stony Brook University Social Studies Lesson Plan Template. Stony Brook lesson plan template (PDF)

Standards and alignment

Every lesson names one New York State Social Studies Framework Key Idea, the Social Studies Practices it builds, and the New York P-12 Common Core literacy standards it meets. The full state frameworks, public documents from the New York State Education Department, are linked here for reference.

Reading and writing standards are drawn from the New York State P-12 Common Core Learning Standards for Literacy in History and Social Studies.

Grade 7

United States History and New York State I (Grade 7)

NYSED 7.1 / 7.2 · Native Americans; Colonial Developments

What Was Islip Like Before the Revolution?

How did the place we call Islip come to be, and why does it have no single founding date?One 42-minute period (about 37 minutes of instruction)

NYSED 7.3 · American Independence

The Revolution Comes to Islip

What did it cost ordinary people in a small farming town to take sides in the American Revolution, and how do we know?One 42-minute period (about 37 minutes of instruction, with a short buffer)

NYSED 7.3 · American Independence

Living Under Occupation

How did ordinary families in Islip survive seven years of British occupation, and why can the words in an official record fail to tell us what people really believed?One 42-minute period (about 37 minutes of instruction)

NYSED 7.2 · Colonial Developments

Who Belonged in Early Islip?

The Revolution promised liberty in 1776. Who in early Islip shared in that promise, and who was left out?One 42-minute period (about 37 minutes of instruction)

Grade 11

United States History and Government (Grade 11)

NYSED 11.1 / 11.10 · Colonial Foundations; Social and Economic Change

The Promise of Independence: Then and Now

How did the Revolution's promise of liberty change from an ideal that reached only a few people in 1776 into a claim that later generations in Islip kept widening, and what does that arc ask of citizens today?One 42-minute period (about 37 minutes of instruction)

NYSED 11.2 · Constitutional Foundations (1763-1824)

A Question of Loyalty: Islip and the Decision for Independence

How did ordinary colonists in one small town move from being subjects of the King to citizens of a new state, and how much did that decision cost them?One 42-minute period (about 38 minutes of instruction, plus a take-home essay)

NYSED 11.1 · Colonial Foundations

Social and Racial Hierarchies in Colonial and Early Islip

How did colonial society rank people by status and race, and how do Islip's own records expose the contradiction between the Revolution's language of liberty and the reality of a slaveholding, hierarchical town?One 42-minute period (about 38 minutes of instruction)

Grade 12

Participation in Government and Civics (Grade 12)

NYSED 12.G1 / 12.G4 · Foundations of American Democracy; Political and Civic Participation

Self-Government in One Town: The Islip Annual Town Meeting

How did the people of one small town govern themselves through their annual town meeting, and what does that history ask of citizens today?One 42-minute period (about 37 minutes of instruction)

More lessons to follow

This first set centers Grade 7 and Grades 11-12. As more of Islip's record is digitized, future lessons will reach more of the framework:

  • Grade 4, New York State and Local History and Government (Key Idea 4.4): how Islip's town government works, then and now.
  • Grade 8, United States and New York State History II (Key Idea 8.2): immigration and the growth of Islip's communities.
  • Grade 11 in depth (Key Ideas 11.1 to 11.3): further document-based inquiries on the Revolution, the Constitution, and slavery.
  • Grade 12, Participation in Government (Key Ideas 12.G3 to 12.G4): rights, responsibilities, and civic participation today.
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