Skip to main content

A Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation Fellowship · Stony Brook University

Town of IslipHistory ProjectTown of Islip History Project
Search

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

Who Belonged in Early Islip?

Lesson aim

The Revolution promised liberty in 1776. Who in early Islip shared in that promise, and who was left out?

Grade:
Grade 7
Time:
One 42-minute period (about 37 minutes of instruction)

These lesson plans use a format adapted from the Stony Brook University Social Studies Lesson Plan Template.

NYSED Framework standard

7.2 · Colonial Developments

The American colonies were established for a variety of reasons and developed differently based on economic, social, and geographic factors. Colonial America had a variety of social structures under which not all people were treated equally. Over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, slavery grew in the colonies (7.2e).

Common Core literacy standards

  • R1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis and conclusions.
  • R2: Determine central ideas or information of a source; provide an accurate summary.
  • R9: Integrate and compare information from several sources; note discrepancies.
  • W1: Write arguments to support claims with valid reasoning and relevant, sufficient evidence.

New York Social Studies Practices

  • A. Gathering, Interpreting, and Using Evidence
  • C. Comparison and Contextualization
  • F. Civic Participation

Main ideas and student learning goals

  1. Explain that the Revolution spoke the language of liberty, but that liberty was not yet shared by everyone who lived in Islip.
  2. Identify Native, mixed-ancestry, free Black, and enslaved people as part of Islip's real early population, not as a background to it.
  3. Read a short primary source closely and describe what it does and does not tell us about the people it names.
  4. Weigh what it means that many of these residents appear in the records only briefly, often without full names, and explain why historians must handle those records with care.

Social studies skills

  • Reading a primary source closely and separating what it states from what it does not state
  • Using a period term, such as 'Mustee,' accurately and only as a historical word, never as a modern label
  • Comparing more than one kind of record about the same community
  • Turning a count of houses into a fraction and explaining what that fraction shows
  • Recognizing silences and gaps in a record as evidence to be interpreted with care
  • Writing a short evidence-based claim that names at least one real person or group

Rationale

Comes after

  • Lesson 2, in which students learned that signing the 1775 Articles of Association was an act of treason and studied who chose to sign.
  • Lesson 3, in which students practiced deciding what a record does and does not prove during the occupation.

This lesson focuses on

This lesson turns from who took political risks to who was never given the chance to take them. Students use three short Islip records to test the word 'all' in the promise of liberty against the town's real population: Conklin's 1798 count of households, the 1783 marriage record of York and Elizabeth, and a teacher summary of enslaved and indentured labor at Sagtikos Manor.

Prepares students for

  • Lesson 5, which traces how belonging in Islip kept widening in the generations after independence.
  • Later study of slavery, emancipation, and citizenship in New York State and the early republic.

Prior knowledge needed

Students should already know

  • The Declaration of Independence used the words 'all men are created equal' and spoke of liberty.
  • Slavery existed in the American colonies and in New York, including on Long Island, and was never confined to the South.
  • From earlier lessons, that signing the Articles of Association in 1775 was risky and open only to certain residents.

Likely misconceptions

  • That the promise of liberty in 1776 reached everyone who lived in a town.
  • That slavery was a Southern institution and did not exist in a small Long Island town like Islip.
  • That early Islip was a town of only white settler families.
  • That a person is unimportant to history if the records say little about them.

Prerequisite skills

  • Reading a short quoted primary source and putting it in their own words.
  • Turning a simple count, such as 25 out of about 120, into a rough fraction.
  • Telling apart what a source states from what a reader adds or guesses.

How these prerequisites are checked

  • The Do-Now asks students to test the word 'all,' which surfaces the misconception that liberty reached everyone.
  • A quick cold-call after the first record checks that students can restate Conklin's count as roughly one household in five.
  • Circulating during the two-column note sheet confirms students can keep 'what the record tells us' separate from 'what it does not tell us.'

Modifications for a student with an IEP

Hypothetical student: A 12-year-old student with a specific learning disability in reading who decodes about two grade levels below peers and tires quickly with dense text. This student understands ideas well when they are read aloud or shortened, and participates readily in paired talk but hesitates to write full paragraphs without a frame.

Modifications

  • Provide each of the three records on its own half-page card in a large, clean font, with the key sentence highlighted.
  • Read the Conklin sentence, the York and Elizabeth record, and the Sagtikos summary aloud before students work with them.
  • Preteach the terms 'Mustee,' 'servant,' 'enslaved,' and 'free' with a short visual word bank the student keeps at hand.
  • Shrink the two-column note sheet to two rows per record and let the student use short phrases or bullet points instead of sentences.
  • Pair the student with a supportive partner for reading and note-taking, keeping written output shared.
  • Offer a sentence starter for the exit prompt, such as 'One person the records prove lived in Islip is ___, and one thing we still do not know is ___.'
  • Allow the writing prompt to be completed in two to three sentences, or dictated, rather than a full paragraph.
  • Check in privately once during independent work to confirm the student is separating what the record says from what it does not say.

Key terms, concepts, and individuals

  • Articles of Association
  • Mustee (a period term for people of mixed ancestry, commonly Native American and African, explained every time and never used as a modern label)
  • servant
  • free
  • enslaved
  • indentured servant
  • dwelling houses
  • the historical record

Lesson flow

6 minMotivation

Do-Now + Hook

What the teacher will do

  • Write on the board: 'All men are created equal.' Ask students, as a Do-Now, to answer in writing: What does the word 'all' seem to promise?
  • After two minutes, add a second question and give one more minute: In 1776, did that promise actually reach everyone who lived in a town like Islip?
  • Take three or four answers out loud without judging them, then tell students that today they will hold the word 'all' up against real Islip records and count who was inside the promise and who was left out.

What the students will do

  • Write a quick response to the Do-Now about what 'all' promises.
  • Predict, in a sentence, whether the promise reached everyone in a town like Islip.
  • Share a prediction aloud when called on.

How this addresses the aim: Surfaces the misconception that liberty in 1776 reached everyone and sets up the aim, giving students a claim they will test against evidence.

Scaffolding questions

  • What people do you picture when you read the word 'all' in that sentence?
  • Who lives in a town besides the men who owned land and could vote?

Higher-order questions

  • Can a promise be real and still be unfinished at the same time?

Common Core literacy standards: R1

Assessment: Quick read of Do-Now responses and predictions to gauge starting assumptions.

12 minLearning Activity 1

Direct Instruction + Guided Reading of Conklin's 1798 Count

To test the word 'all,' we start with a number: how many Islip households in 1798 were home to Native, mixed-ancestry, and free Black families.

What the teacher will do

  • Project Supervisor Nathaniel Conklin's 1798 sentence: 'There are in this Town about one hundred and twenty dweling houses twenty-five of which Indians, Mustees and free Negros live in.'
  • Explain that 'Mustee' is a term from the seventeen and eighteen hundreds for people of mixed ancestry, commonly Native American and African, and that the class uses it only because it is the word the record uses, never as a label for people today.
  • Model turning the count into a fraction on the board: 25 of about 120 houses is roughly one household in five.
  • Introduce the two-column note sheet, 'What the record tells us' and 'What the record does not tell us,' and fill in the first row together for the Conklin sentence.

What the students will do

  • Read the Conklin sentence and restate it in their own words.
  • Work out with the teacher that about one in five Islip households was Native, mixed-ancestry, or free Black.
  • Complete the first row of the two-column sheet, noting that the record proves these households existed but does not give the people's names or life stories.

How this addresses the aim: Gives students the first piece of evidence that early Islip was never a town of only white settler families, directly addressing the aim and the NYSED standard on unequal social structures.

Scaffolding questions

  • About how many houses did Conklin count in the whole town?
  • What is 25 out of 120, roughly, as a fraction?
  • Does the sentence give us any names?

Higher-order questions

  • Conklin groups three different communities into one sentence. What does that grouping tell us, and what does it hide about these neighbors as distinct people?
  • Conklin wrote this to win a boundary argument with Huntington, not to record the town's people. How might that purpose have shaped what he counted?

Common Core literacy standards: R1, R2

Assessment: Cold-call to confirm students can state the count as roughly one household in five, and a check of the first note-sheet row.

12 minLearning Activity 2

Cooperative Source Analysis: York, Elizabeth, and Sagtikos

The Conklin sentence counts households but names almost no one. Two more records let us come closer to real people.

What the teacher will do

  • Give each pair the 1783 St. John's Episcopal Church record: 'York, a Black servant to William Nicoll, Esq.' married 'Elizabeth, a free Indian Woman,' and a short summary of labor at Sagtikos Manor.
  • Explain the Sagtikos summary: most of the farm and household work there was done by enslaved and indentured people, and New York State census records show that Isaac Thompson held on average about four enslaved people in the decades around 1790, 1800, and 1810, whose fuller stories are still being researched.
  • Ask each pair to complete the two remaining rows of the note sheet, one for York and Elizabeth and one for Sagtikos, keeping 'tells us' and 'does not tell us' separate.
  • Circulate to make sure pairs treat 'servant' with care, since in this period the word could describe an enslaved person.

What the students will do

  • Read the marriage record and the Sagtikos summary with a partner.
  • Fill in the two-column sheet for both, noting, for example, that the record proves York and Elizabeth married in 1783 and that York is called a servant while Elizabeth is called free, but does not tell us York's own status for certain, their ages, or how they came to Islip.
  • Mark on the sheet where the Sagtikos summary says the fuller story is still being researched.

How this addresses the aim: Moves from a group count to two named individuals and to enslaved laborers, building the comparison across sources that the aim requires and letting students weigh how little the record preserves.

Scaffolding questions

  • How is York described? How is Elizabeth described?
  • What does the word 'free' next to Elizabeth's name tell us that is not said about York?
  • Who did most of the work at Sagtikos Manor?

Higher-order questions

  • York and Elizabeth appear in a single marriage line. Why might a Black servant and a free Indian woman leave such a small trace when landowning families fill whole pages?
  • The Articles of Association pledged that the signers would 'never become slaves,' yet enslaved people were working at Sagtikos Manor. How do you hold both of those facts at the same time?

Common Core literacy standards: R1, R9

Assessment: Review of the completed two-column note sheet, checking that students separate stated fact from inference across all three records.

7 minClosing

Whole-Class Share + Exit Prompt

With all three records in front of us, we can answer the question we opened with.

What the teacher will do

  • Lead a brief share-out, building a class list on chart paper of the real people and groups the records prove lived in Islip: the households Conklin counted, York, Elizabeth, and the enslaved people at Sagtikos Manor.
  • Return to the Do-Now question and ask students, in the exit prompt, to answer on a half-sheet: name one person or group the records prove shared Islip but was left outside the promise of liberty, and one question they still have about someone the records did not fully name.
  • Collect the exit slips as a check for understanding.

What the students will do

  • Add to the class list of proven residents.
  • Write the exit prompt response naming a real person or group and one open question.
  • Turn in the exit slip.

How this addresses the aim: Requires each student to answer the aim in writing with named evidence and to leave a genuine research question open, modeling honest history.

Scaffolding questions

  • Which of today's three records named an actual person?
  • What is one thing the records could not tell you?

Higher-order questions

  • If these residents are missing from most of the record, what is the responsibility of people studying Islip's history now?

Common Core literacy standards: W1

Assessment: Exit slip graded for a named real person or group and a genuine open question.

Homework

In one paragraph, answer the aim using at least two of today's records: who shared in the promise of liberty in early Islip, and who did not? Then design a short memorial marker or museum label, three to four sentences, for York and Elizabeth or for the twenty-five households Conklin counted, writing honestly about what is known and what is not.

Requirements

  • Use at least two of the three records from class (Conklin's 1798 count, the York and Elizabeth marriage record, the Sagtikos summary).
  • Name at least one real person or group whose presence the records prove.
  • Include at least one sentence that states plainly something the records do not tell us.
  • Invent no details the records do not give.
  • Use the word 'Mustee' only as a period term, if at all, and explain it.

Answer key (for teachers)

  • A strong response explains that liberty in 1776 was promised in the language of the Revolution but was not shared by enslaved people, free Black people, or Native people, who could not sign the Articles of Association.
  • It names real presence from the records: about one in five Islip households in 1798 was Native, mixed-ancestry, or free Black; York, a Black servant to William Nicoll, and Elizabeth, a free Indian woman, married in 1783; and enslaved and indentured people did much of the labor at Sagtikos Manor, where Isaac Thompson held on average about four enslaved people in the decades around 1790, 1800, and 1810.
  • The marker or label states what is known while marking what is not, for example that the records prove these people lived and worked in Islip but rarely give full names or life stories, and that the fuller history is still being researched.
  • The response avoids inventing biography and uses 'Mustee' only as an explained period term.

Related pages on this site

  • race
  • status
  • belonging
  • exclusion
  • unfinished promise
Back to Lesson Plans