Puritan New England Life
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- Quiz + answer key
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What students do
- Compare Puritans and Pilgrims and locate where each group actually settled
- Trace a New England town from its signed covenant to its meetinghouse and its selectmen
- Read John Winthrop's 1630 "city upon a hill" passage and judge what the covenant actually promised
- Sort a Puritan week's work, worship, and rest against the Sabbath rules a tithingman enforced
What it covers
- What Puritans wanted to build in New England, and why they never meant to leave the Church of England
- How a signed covenant and a plain meetinghouse held a town together
- What the "city upon a hill" sermon can and cannot prove about how people actually lived
- Who the covenant left out, dissenters and Native nations included
Learning targets
- Explain what Puritans wanted to build in New England, and why.
- Describe how work, worship, and family shaped a Puritan week.
- Explain how a town covenant and a meetinghouse held a town together.
- Judge what Winthrop's 1630 covenant promised, and who it left out.
- Tell Puritans and Pilgrims apart, and say where each one lived.
From one teacher to another
Every class mixes up Puritans and Pilgrims, and since the difference is the whole point here, this lesson spends real time sorting it out properly. One full week of Puritan life comes first, six days of labor and a Sabbath the town enforced by law, and Winthrop's sermon doesn't show up until students already know what daily life under a covenant actually looked like. Then comes the harder ask: read a covenant meant to bind a community together and name exactly who it left standing outside it.
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