Colonial Stock Prospectus
PURPOSE: Students will work in groups to create a “stock prospectus” that presents information about the founding, development, and growth of the three colonial regions of 17th and 18th century America.
GROUPS: New England, Middle, and Southern Colonies.
Each group must choose a “head broker” who is in charge of organizing the group, assigning parts, taking phone numbers, and making sure that all is done and all members will be in class on the day of the presentation.
DIRECTIONS: Each group is responsible for selling a “colonial stock portfolio” in which each of the colonies is a “stock.” Your goal is to convince investors to support further colonization and investment in your region of the colonies. Your presentation should include some of the “downside” of your region, but should emphasize what is strong about your region. All members of your group must participate in the presentation and are expected to have expertise on the region assigned.
When presenting your information, your group should organize your presentation as if it were a research paper or essay. Each group should have a thesis statement for their presentation. To support your thesis, your group should formulate three “body paragraphs” or major arguments that would encourage investors to send money to your region. Topics for body paragraphs should come from the following list:
1. Founding, founders, and purposes for settlement
2. Geography and town development
3. Types of government with specific examples
4. Primary economic endeavors
5. Ethnic, religious, education issues
6. Social indicators (family, leisure, food)
7. Significant events, people
8. Cultural arts
Though the body paragraphs that you choose for your presentation will emphasize the strengths of your region, groups are REQUIRED to produce a pamphlet that will cover significant information about all of the topics on the list above. The pamphlet is designed to educate prospective buyers about the region you are trying to sell (and help study for the test!). Groups must have enough copies of the pamphlet for the whole class.
Each group will also be required to turn in a bibliography that includes at least three sources. Your textbook does not count as a source!
After all of the presentations are finished, the class will rate the three regions as to which is the most solid investment and which region has the best future (taking into account only what we know from the presentations –not what we know in hindsight). This will be the basis of our discussion during the latter half of the second day’s presentations.
Creative presentations that include overheads, posters, drawings, songs, or other creative ideas used to “sell” your region are encouraged. The more lively, organized, creative, and prepared the presentation is, the better it will do (remember: we sit through multiple hours of these). However, be careful that you don’t put style over substance (your goal is to educate and convince buyers). Groups that make an entertaining presentation that does not fully address the issue will be penalized.
You are also encouraged to do research about other regions and ask questions to other presenters. This will be a good time to have other groups address weaknesses that work in your favor.
REMINDERS: This presentation deals with the region as a whole. Do not limit yourself to going through the area colony by colony. You are asked here to do some analysis and draw some conclusions about each region, using each colony as support for your conclusions. Your presentations should be linked to your thesis and to the information presented on the study guide. No late presentations will be allowed. Absenteeism will take away from the whole group’s grade. This will be a major test grade.
COLONIAL PRSPECTUS RUBRIC
9-8
· Each member makes a considerable contribution to the presentation; it is obvious that the groups have gotten together before class and planned meticulously for the presentation.
· Team does a thorough job of explaining how the regions were different from each other. Clear analysis is given to the question of why these differences made their region a good investment.
· Team does extensive work to tie in people, places, and events and explicitly displays how they were responsible for the evolution of the region involved-all of these ideas are linked to the thesis.
· Visual aides and pamphlet are well-done and add to the class understanding of the ideas presented- students could use it to study for the essay.
· Thesis is well-written and clearly presented in presentation.
· Team draws conclusions that provide meaningful generalizations and aide student learning without much prompting from the teacher.
· Team includes a bibliography that reflects extensive research beyond encyclopedias, textbook, or simple web resources.
· Team members are able to intelligently answer questions from the class without hesitation.
· Groups are aware of their time use, and the presentation makes good use of time without going over.
7-5
· Workload not as evenly distributed among group members, but each member makes a contribution to the team effort; presentation is not as polished (group may have a little hesitation making transitions etc.), but it is not a complete train wreck.
· Team devotes time to all facets of the presentation, but emphasizes one over the others; team may focus more on how they are different, but does address why their region is the best investment as directly.
· Team ties in a lot of outside information about people, places and events; but it may be more descriptive in nature and not as analytical. Though the information is relevant, it is not as explicitly linked to the task at hand.
· Visual aides and pamphlet are neat, but may not be as thorough or relevant to the presentation.
· Thesis may have mechanical errors, or not be sufficient to address the breadth of the questions at hand.
· Conclusions may be broad generalities that do not show historical complexity; may not be as relevant to student understanding; may not be as well supported.
· Team includes bibliography that reflects some research, but is not as sophisticated.
· Team can field questions from the class, but may have to reach for good answers.
· Team uses time unwisely, going either a little over time limit, or a little under.
4-2
· Workload not as evenly distributed-it is apparent that one person did most of the coordinating and/or work; team may stumble at times in the presentation; presentation is not polished or lacks a sense of planning or urgency.
· Team focuses on only one part of the presentation, giving only rudimentary treatment to the others; most focus isput on how the colonies are different, with little to no analysis of to what extent their region is a good investment-presentation is mostly “here’s what happened in our colonies”.
· Team does not provide as much outside information; information they do provide is treated in a descriptive, rather than analytical manner; information is either irrelevant or not linked to thesis.
· Visual aide and/or pamphlet is poorly done, irrelevant, or missing.
· Thesis is poorly written or missing; not addressed or linked to the rest of the presentation.
· Conclusions are not sophisticated and do not aid in student understanding.
· Bibliography reflects rudimentary research-team knows how to do a Google search.
· Team struggles to answer questions from the class.
· Team is either significantly over time, or does not have enough material to reach the specified time frame.
0-1
· Presentation is a disaster; team gets voted off the island.