Goals:

To help students gain an understanding of pirates and their codes.

Content Areas:

History - studying the laws pirates abided by in past times.

Language Arts - journal writing.

Materials:

The Nine Articles of Piracy
a good source of information on this subject is The Pyrates Life Homepage:

Basic Classroom Materials

Procedure: (1 hour)

1) Give the students a background lecture on the "Articles of Piracy." (The information can be found on web page listed in materials.)

2) Put the nine "Articles of Piracy" into a hat and have each group of students pick one out. Depending on class size you can adjust the size of the groups.

3) Have each group come up with a 2-3 minute skit on how to illustrate these values on a pirate ship.

4) Have the students present them to each other.

5) Ask the students to write a response in their journals about whether or not the articles of piracy were moral and democratic enough. Would they like to be pirates and live by these rules?

Assessment:

The students will be assessed through their completion of the skits. The skits will only be judged on their relevance to the article and whether or not the other students were able to understand the specific article that the group was trying to represent. Peer Evaluations of Group Work Rubrics will also be used.

Extensions:

Ask the students to put on an entire play illustrating all of these articles as a class.

Making Waves - written by Jennifer Cannistra, Jamie Hanna, Michael LeRoy, & Kim Mongoven

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