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The Literacy of Liberty

Using Historical Thinking Skills to Weave the Theme of Liberty

Taylor Smith

The Age of Jefferson

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With the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, the pedagogy of history at

primary and secondary levels of education are shifting towards making students think like

historians. Previously, the history standards for the State of Kansas required the rote

memorization of facts, dates, and figures; however, with a push for the explicit implementation

of discipline-specific literacy, teachers are guiding students toward proficiently performing skills

that include the examination of cause and effect, sourcing and contextualizing, and evaluating

historical claims (KSDE, 2013). What teachers of history must focus on is how to manipulate the

curriculum for the purpose weaving abstract concepts throughout a course, in a way that

establishes relevancy with students, while explicitly teaching discipline-specific literacy

practices that scaffold student thinking about primary and secondary sources. The idea of an

expanding empire of liberty allows students to trace the roots of revolution to contemporary

visions of the American republic, but Jeffersons words provide students with ample opportunity

for developing historical thinking skills.

In Jeffersons Empire, Peter S. Onuf places Thomas Jefferson as the quintessential center

of the American identity of liberty. He claims that in order to understand the ideological

framework of America we must grasp the larger contours of Jeffersons political philosophy,

his vision of the future, and his understanding of the American Revolution (2000, xix).

Beginning with revolutionary thought, students must understand that the great experiment began

with the desire to expand the empire of liberty through a nation, a juxtaposition that was

seemingly impossible for the time. Therefore, the arguments made by Onuf, whether explicitly

taught students in the 5th grade, or read by seniors in American government, are essential for

understanding the viewpoints held by Jefferson and how they were shaped by the experiences of

the British periphery in 1774.

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With this, Onufs argument creates a mold for contextualizing Thomas Jeffersons A

Summary View of the Rights of British America. This particular writing, on behalf of Jefferson,

provides students with a lens for examining viewpoints of liberty in the founding era. For

example, Jefferson contends that the British King was exercising unwarrantable encroachments

and usurpations, attempted to be made by the legislature of one part of the empire, upon those

rights which God and the laws have given equally and independently to all. Jefferson continues

his judgments of the British crown by explaining how emigrants to America were proud Britons,

yet free inhabitants of the British Dominions in Europe, and possessed a right which nature has

given to all men, of departing from the country in which chance, not choice, has placed them, of

going in quest of new habitations, and of there establishing new societies, under such laws and

regulations as to them shall seem most likely to promote public happiness (1774). As Jefferson

continues his outline of the rights British America, he discusses the protections that the British

crown provided as being valuable, but a consequential route for the encroachments of local

colonial rule in the years that followed. Thus, Jefferson proclaims that had the American

coloniststhose who were putting in the work in the British peripherylike any other British

commercial ally, would have found the means to moderate their own enemies to avoid the

exertion of power from the British (1774).

To further understand the context of Thomas Jefferson, as well as Revolutionary America,

this particular source explicitly discusses the abuses of the British crown, and the reasoning for

their consideration as usurpations. Understanding that American colonists were willing to trade

with Britain and to make sacrifices for the success of the empire, but that a series of seemingly

punitive measures and a lack of representation in Parliament, is essential for understanding the

development of the Revolutionary cries for liberty. For example, Thomas Jefferson explains that
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British emigrants thought proper to adopt that system of laws under which hitherto lived in the

mother country, and to continue their union with her by submitting themselves to the same

common sovereign, who was thereby made the central link connecting the several parts of the

empire thus newly multiplied (1774). However, when trade was heavily restricted, as Jefferson

discusses with the continuously imposed limitations, colonists found they were unable to sell

surplus items or generate wealth from trading with other nations outside of Great Britain, this

included periphery empires to the north and south of the American colonies (1774).

That being said, Jeffersons works coupled with Peter S. Onufs analysis of Jefferson,

provides students with an understanding that, although they saw themselves as actors in

expanding the British Empire, colonists viewed their relationship as a contractual agreement.

Therefore, when restrictions on trade and the expansion of land were imposed, colonists, who

developed their own sovereignties, used this self-creation to [idealize] and radically [limit]

conception of monarchical authority, thus providing Jefferson and others with a compelling

standard against which the kings abuses could be measured (2000, 6). The overall goal was to

use liberty as a catalyst for expanding the sphere of their republican empire, as a way to avoid

reverting back to a state of barbarism. These understandings of liberty in the Revolutionary

mindset, as well as the desire to continue the goal of expanding the empire are essential for

students understanding of the American experiment (Onuf, 2000, 8). However, as Onuf

explains, the experiment concluded with the Civil War, but the language of liberty persists today

(2000, xx).

The abstract meaning of American liberty has continuously molded with the times;

Lincoln has his new birth, Roosevelt had his Four Freedoms, and Obama promised to spring

America forward (Foner, 1998). The continuous understanding of American liberty, regardless
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of the context of time, is an abstract notion that students can connect to in every generation; so

long it does not cease as an ideal. Linking back to the revolutionary mindset, as painted by

Jefferson and explained by Peter Onuf, teachers can begin using these ideals as an advance

organizer for guiding student thinking throughout an American history course. As students move

through each generation, and examine their own, teachers may develop a series of questions to

guide student thinking.1 Beginning with Jefferson and the revolutionary mindset, while

connecting to contemporary understandings not only leads to a continuous connection of an idea

throughout time, it further establishes relevancy to students, as they continue the spark of liberty

in future generations.

With the shift in how teachers implement instructional practice for history, the use of excerpts

from Peter Onufs, Jeffersons Empire, as well as Thomas Jeffersons, A Summary View of the

Rights of British America, assist in developing students historical thinking skills. As discussed,

these particular readings provide a means for contextualizing Revolutionary America, while

presenting an opportunity for weaving the theme of liberty throughout American history. This

curricular theme allows for a scope and sequence of content and practices that provides

relevancy for students through the use of contemporary connections. Therefore, with the proper

scaffolds and discipline-specific literacy practices, the abstract and malleable concept of liberty

becomes the familiar and constant.

1 Sample Questions: What is the definition of liberty in the context that you are examining? Who

is defining it?
2. What events are occurring that are shaping the definition of liberty?
3. In what ways do various groups in this context view liberty?
4. In what ways is the understanding of liberty in the context that you are viewing like that of

previous generations and todays

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Works Cited

Jefferson, T (1774). Summary View of the Rights of British America. Retrieved from:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffsumm.asp
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KSDE (2013). Kansas Standards for History, Government, and Social Studies. Retrieved from:
http://www.ksde.org/Portals/0/CSAS/Content%20Area%20(F-L)/History,%20Governme
nt,%20and%20Social%20Studies/Eighth%20Grade%20United%20States%20History.pdf

Foner, E. (1998). The story of American freedom. New York: W.W. Norton.

Onuf, P. (2000). Jefferson's empire the language of American nationhood. Charlottesville:

University Press of Virginia.