Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death!

As part of the 5th Utah Social Studies Curriculum I get to teach my students all about US History...I LOVE IT!!! Currently we are studying the American Revolution. Well last week in order to help my students understand how the colonists would have felt being taxed by Britain I became Queen Wells (fitting I know!) I broke my class into 3 sections the Southern, Middle, and New England Colonies. Then I created a governor for each colony and my own very loyal Parliament. I explained to my students that as Queen I only talk to my parliament, so if they have a question or concern they need to talk to their governors who will relay the message to the Parliament who will then tell me. I will then answer the Parliament who will answer the governor who will then answer you.

Then, you guessed it, I started taxing my students. First, it started out with a paper and pencil tax (you know since public schools are poor and the economy sucks). No worries they pay with fake money they earn for things like turning in their homework, getting 100% on something, or following directions and they can spend in our classroom store. Even though is basically Monopoly money they were still very upset when I took it. So my governors collect the taxes and then I pay Parliament from the tax money and they pass a little on down to the governors for doing all the hard work. After all I want my Parliament to be happy and continue serving me.


The next day I had Parliament create a tax and since they get a cut of the profit it took no time at all for them create a few. We added on the chair tax (you don't pay it you have to stand), the recess tax, and the bathroom tax. Well as you can imagine the rest of the class was not soo happy about this. In fact there were a few kids who refused to pay the taxes until I threaten to send them to in-school detention. At recess the governors came in complaining that they were being chased my girls who were complaining about taxes. I simply said talk to Parliament and sent them back outside. Haha their faces were priceless!


Tax Day #3 I walked into class about 5 minutes after the bell wearing a tiara and demanded that whenever a student address me they must first say "All Hail Queen Wells!" if they didn't then they would be fined. At first everyone just laughed but soon kids were being fined and it wasn't so funny. I even had one girl in my class tell me that I was getting greedy and that if I stayed that way soon I wouldn't have any friends. It was also on Day 3 that I found my first petition. Someone had left it out on their desk so when my students got back from lunch I read off the names of the people who had signed it and fined them $50 for treason!! That is when the uproar started! So to settle my class down I made them all copy the definition of treason out of the dictionary for every treasonous word they spoke. Let's put it this way there was no more complaining! :O) (I love being a mean teacher!) Well the rest of my class was doing then my Parliament was getting paid and dancing around the room singing "I'm rich!!! I'm rich!!! I have your money!!! And it is soo funny cause I'm rich!!!! I love taxes!!! We need more taxes!!!!" Needless to say my class was a little divided at recess that afternoon. Some colonists were even payed off by Parliament to spy and make sure no more petitions were sent out. Oh, and Parliament even made me a pillow of paper to store my tiara on and a paper bracelet. Its actually really pretty!


Tax Day #4 Some of my students snuck into the classroom before the first bell rang (I was making copies for the day) and covered my room in Protest Posters. When Parliament saw this they created a new tax. $1 for every treasonous word!! Some of my kids owed like $80! If you couldn't pay your taxes or you refused to pay your taxes you went to jail. Jail was standing at the back of the room copying out of the dictionary, losing recess, no talking, and not being able to participate in class at all (which meant some of them got zeros). Harsh I guess but hey they could have paid their taxes and everything would have been hunky dory. It was also on this day that my class learned about metaphors and wrote metaphor poems. They got to choose their topics. Here are some of the best ones. It was soooo hard to keep a straight stern looking face while they shared with the class!


TAXES (This girl is sooo quiet and never does anything wrong. She was sooo scared to read it in front of the class. She even came up and said sorry afterwards!)

Taxes are a venus fly trap snatching up money like flies.
Taxes are a lion eating up all our Auction Buck every day like meat.
Taxes are a trombone loud so people will know that its time to pay taxes.
Taxes are scissors cutting up any money we get.
Taxes are a governor, greedy for more.

TAXES

Taxes are a venus fly trap killing all my money.
Taxes are a venemous snake ready to strike with poison at any second.
Taxes are drums letting everyone know they are here.
Taxes are a hammer nailing themselves into my side.
Taxes are my big brother learning to play the trumpet, loud and annoying!

Here is my personal favorite!!

QUEEN WELLS

Queen Wells is rose, thorny and mean!
Queen Wells is lion devouring all my money.
Queen Wells is nails on a chalkboard.
Queen Wells is an out of tune guitar, saying more taxes more taxes!
Queen Wells is stinky person who takes money from people who need it!
I HATE QUEEN WELLS!


Yes, after the poems I knew I was getting my point across but I really wanted my students to rebel and stand up for themselves. It didn't take long. Parliament created more taxes and got more money from me. Yes, they were singing my praises. During recess that day the rest of my class signed a Declaration of Independence (pictured below). Declaring themselves free from me! I found it and then talked to my class. I told them if the didn't cross their name off the list I would take away the rest of their money. Their reply was "Go ahead you'd take it in taxes anyhow!" I threaten with sending them to the principal and lots of homework but still no one would fall so finally we talked about taxes and how they felt about them and they got all their Auction Bucks plus some back. Parliament was sad it ended but the rest of the class (once they had their money back) thought it was soo cool and that it was the best way to learn about the colonies. haha Anyway I thought you might enjoy our classroom rebellion!