Salem Witch Trials Webquest October 26th and 27th

Specific objectives: 

• to learn about this shameful event in our nation’s early history
• to understand the role that a theocracy can play
• To understand the role of hysteria, rumor, lies and gossip in ruining people’s lives then and now!

Instructions.  Use the websites here to answer the questions and reflect on the incidents that led to the hysteria surrounding the trials of those accused by the girls who started the mess in 1691.  Please put all answers on a piece of paper - be sure to put your name on it.

Turn to the site called

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SALEM.HTM

Read “An Account of Events in Salem” (begins under picture of “Examination of a Witch”) and answer the following questions

1. How many people were hanged as a result of the trials?  How else did they kill people accused of crimes in Salem?

2. What forces were in conflict the time of the start of the trials?  How did all the trouble begin?

3. What are some ideas about the reasons given for the girls’ afflictions (sicknesses)?

4. How did Cotton Mather’s book and Dr. Grigg’s opinion help to create the problem – and then make it worse?

5. Why do you think that people were willing to believe the girls who accused so many people of being involved in witchcraft?

Read the biography of Parris and answer the following questions.

1. What problems was Parris having with the people he was serving in his job as minister?

2. How did Parris react to his daughter and his niece’s signs of “illness”?

3. According to the article about him, how did he get his slave Tituba to confess to witchcraft?

4. What was his eventual attitude toward the trial?  Do you think he was sorry enough?  Why or why not?

Now, read the biography of John Proctor and answer the questions that follow.

1. How did John Proctor bring down some of his own trouble on himself?

2. What was his attitude toward all the craziness of the girls?

3. What did Proctor do when he was in jail to help end the hysteria?

4. Did his letter writing help HIM?  Why or why not?

Lastly, go to the left side of the homepage labeled “You’re Accused” – this is just for fun.  Follow the choices it gives you.   Then, after you have explored every option, write down which course of action you would have taken  -- and explain why!