Thanksgiving: The first Thanksgiving

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (the Thanksgiving mini-series, which tells where the holiday comes from and what Americans do today) is a short documentary about the first Thanksgiving. A single narrator opens on a family Thanksgiving table today, then goes back to 1620, when the Mayflower sailed from England to America with the passengers we now call the Pilgrims. They arrived in winter, without houses or enough food, and about half of them died. The land was not empty: the Wampanoag people had lived there for thousands of years, and in spring their leader, Massasoit, and the English agreed to help each other. In autumn 1621, after a good harvest, Massasoit came to the English meal with about ninety men and five deer, and they ate together for three days. Pupils then look closer at the food: deer and wild birds, but no potatoes and no pumpkin pie. The Wampanoag side of the story is told plainly, without a verdict.

The narration uses the present simple and the past simple (with was not and did), the imperative look and wh- questions; no grammar point is taught. Learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 7 on facts and 3 on vocabulary (passenger, harvest, deer). The closing question (How many days did the first Thanksgiving last?) is answered from the video. The episode targets CEFR level A2-.

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script; there is no lesson plan. The pupil pack and the teacher pack (answers highlighted) are one A4 page each, with the text, two photos and a drawing, the key words and the 10 questions. The folder also holds a one-page pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key. Play the episode twice, hand out the pupil pack, then check the closing question together. Learners should know the words family, food, winter and spring, and be able to read years such as 1620 and 1621. The pack's key words explain the new words (holiday, meal, ship, leader, wild, pumpkin pie).