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6th grade · Social Studies · Unit 4 of 14

Road to Revolution

Taxes, protests and Patriots

What your child practices

British taxes, colonial protests such as boycotts and the Boston Tea Party, the Continental Congresses, and why Loyalists and Patriots saw things differently.

Alabama Course of Study content standard: 6.7 · the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party and the Intolerable Acts

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Colonists had no elected members in Parliament: “No taxation without representation.”
  2. Committees of Correspondence shared news; the First Continental Congress (1774) decided how to respond.
  3. People chose sides for reasons, like debts to British merchants. Loyalist sources show another perspective.

Example: Why is a Loyalist's letter useful to a historian? Most stories come from the winning side. Loyalists saw the same events differently. Answer: It shows a different perspective on the same events.

Road to Revolution in Alabama

In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 4 of 14 in 6th grade Social Studies, after Colonial Trade & Work and before The American Revolution.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    How did Britain punish Boston after the Tea Party?

    • It gave Boston free tea
    • It left the colonies
    • It made Boston the capital
    • It closed the port with the Intolerable (Coercive) Acts

  2. Question 2

    After colonists protested, Britain repealed most Townshend taxes but kept the tax on…

    • Paint
    • Paper
    • Glass
    • Tea

  3. Question 3

    In 1774, Thomas Jefferson wrote that Parliament…

    • was always right
    • should rule the colonies forever
    • could tax the colonies freely
    • had no right to make laws for the colonies

  4. Question 4

    The Sons of Liberty were…

    • A group of French traders
    • A group of colonists who protested British laws
    • The king's sons
    • British soldiers

  5. Question 5

    What was a boycott in colonial times?

    • A British soldier
    • A tax on paper
    • Refusing to buy British goods as a protest
    • A kind of ship

  6. Question 6

    Patrick Henry is remembered for saying…

    • "Remember the ladies"
    • "We the People"
    • "Give me liberty, or give me death!"
    • "Four score and seven years ago"

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