ABSTRACT
Don Kite, a European American man in his mid thirties, teaches fifth grade in an urban magnet school with an explicitly traditional schooling mission. His twenty-four students are predominantly African American and poor. The big idea for his unit on colonial America is “America: Colonial Times and Today.” His students will compare similarities and differences between the two eras along six dimensions: housing, schools, occu - pations, entertainment, family, and travel.
