Independent Dames: What you never knew about the women and girls of the American Revolution

Independent Dames: What You Never Knew About the Women and Girls of the American Revolution was written by Laurie Halse Anderson and illustrated by Matt Faulkner.  We have all heard about the amazing men who made a difference in our country during the American Revolution, but, what about the women?  What role did the women play during that time?  Who were these remarkable women?  This book tells about women who played an integral part of the lives of the men during the Revolutionary War.

Independent Dames: What You Never Knew About the Women and Girls of the American Revolution tells the story of real women who were an integral part of the Revolutionary War.  The book begins with a who’s who which gives definitions for words such as parliament, patriots, loyalists, etc.  From that point forward, there is a timeline that runs along the bottom of the pages that begins in 1763 and runs through 1920.  The timeline chronicles the details of our American history and also includes the lives of the women within the pages of this book.  As you can tell from the pictures above, the book is written like a cartoon.  Each page includes a text box with information on the women being discussed then there is a cartoon drawing with word bubbles that put that text box information into simpler terms.  This is a great example of a non-fiction biography and includes a large number of text features that make the book fun to read and engaging.   According to the textbook, Literature and the Child, on page 18, it explains that nonfiction books are informational sources that explain a subject.  It also further explains that biography tells about a real person’s life.  The book concludes with a few additional pages of information on more important women who were part of the war.  It just gives facts about them in regular text writing.

This book is recommended for ages 6 and up.  I think this is a good age to introduce this book to students.  I think it would be an important book to include in a unit study on the Revolutionary War or a unit study on Women Who Made a Difference in our United States.  There are so many things you could do with this book within the classroom.  There are so many different unit ideas that this book would be perfect for.

Some activity ideas I would include when using this book within the classroom would be:

1.  Have students create riddles of the women within the pages of this book.  Have them write their riddles on index cards.  Students will then have the opportunity to share their riddle and see if other students can guess who they wrote their riddle about.

2.  Create a brief introduction about themselves as one of the women discussed. They will give information about a their lives with a focus on their actions during the Revolutionary War. They will also be asked to comment on the feelings they had during this difficult time.

READER RESPONSE QUESTIONS:
1.  How did the contributions of women during the revolution differ from the men?

2.  What kinds of daily jobs or chores did women have then?

3.  How do women support wars today?

4.  How did women affect the economy during the war?

5.  How did women protest and oppose British taxes and actions?

REFERENCES:
Anderson, L. H. (2008). Independent dames: What you never knew about the women and girls of the american revolution.
     New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Books.

Galda, L., Cullinan, B. E., & Sipe, L. R. (2011). Literature and the child. (7th ed. ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth Pub Co.

Teaching American History lesson plan.  Retrieved from http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CEcQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mrpk.k12.ca.us%2FLinkClick.aspx%3Ffileticket%3DxohCLc_wxSs%253D%26tabid%3D1288%26mid%3D5583&ei=fm8hUYDwJZDa8wSNioCYBA&usg=AFQjCNEWbnIHBiVPjg0vaK3EsHJlJKaK5Q&bvm=bv.42553238,d.eWU&cad=rja