Historic Cherry Hill
Different Voices, Different Truths
The 1827 Murder at Cherry Hill
A teaching unit for seventh and eighth grade teachers
Field tested by seventh and eighth grade teachers and found to be a great way to excite students about history, this unit is an innovative model for the interdisciplinary teaching of social history at the junior high school level. The Cherry Hill murder is especially fascinating to students because it involves elements of romance, mystery, and the drama of public punishment.
Different Voices contains facsimiles of 40 documents associated with the 1827 murder at the Cherry Hill farm in Albany, New York. These include the murderer's confession, newspaper accounts, letters, broadsides, and legal and trial records. An accompanying guide for teachers features student activities, answer key, overviews of major themes and characters, an explanation of documents, a glossary and other helpful materials.
Students act as detectives, examining documents, analyzing evidence and drawing conclusions. In the process they are introduced to historiography - how the past is interpreted - and learn about women's roles and legal rights, slavery in New York, capital punishment, the law, and lifestyles in the early nineteenth century.
Through their study of the murder at Cherry Hill, students will understand why historians and people who participated in events might have different interpretations of the same facts. This teaching unit encourages students to "hear" these different voices and then draw their own conclusions.
Regular Rate---$25.00
School and Library Rate--$20
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