Witch Triall Analysis

Witch Trials,
Statistical Analysis

Grade Levels: 9-12

Subject(s): Mathematics, Statistics, United States History, English

Learner Outcomes: The students will apply statistical approaches to the trial data of the Salem Witch trials. The students will then write an analysis of their results including charts, explaining such things as:

When were the most witches accused (mode)?
What was the relationship between male and female gender in the accusations?
Which statistical averages (mean, median, or mode) would be most applicable to the witch trial analysis? Why?
What might have been some contributing factors to the frequency distribution of the accusations?
Other ideas that may be appropriate.

Time Frame: 3 to 5, 50-minute class periods.

Materials: See technology tools
,
Technology tools:

Access to the internet
Microsoft Excel or some other spreadsheet software (An alternative would be for the students to generate the graphs by hand.)
Microsoft Word or some other word processor for writing the analysis. The processor must permit graphs and charts to be included.
Microsoft PowerPoint (Could be used as an alternative for the report component of the lesson.)

Teacher notes:

This lesson assumes that the students already have some background knowledge with:

the histogram, frequency distributions, mean, median, and mode.

experience using Microsoft Excel or some other spreadsheet software.

experience with Microsoft Word and importing charts and tables from Excel.

The Witch Virus lesson is designed to give the students an understanding of how a Witch Trial passes through a population. You may wish to complete the Witch Virus lesson prior to this lesson. The students can then discuss the similarities between the simulation and the actual trials. Although statistics of this lesson can be completed without previously having studied The Crucible or having knowledge of witch trials, since the objective is to make statistical analysis meaningful, some historical and social background should have already been completed prior to this lesson so the students can make meaningful conclusions in the written report.

Procedures:

The students should use an Internet search engine to find detailed information about the accusation of witches during the Salem Witch trials. The information must include some type of time line along with data involving number accused, age, gender, etc. (See references below for a site containing the information.)
Discuss with the students how this information might be organized into a frequency distribution.

What would be a meaningful time frame for the distribution?
What types of distributions might be created?

Use Excel to organize the data into frequency distributions as a function of the time line.
Use the chart options in Excel to create histograms of the frequency distributions.

Simple bar graphs
Stacked bar graphs
Bar graphs comparing two or more distributions

The students will create a written report discussing the results of the analysis in conjunction with the historical and social significance of the information. (Depending on the students abilities some of the following should be included in the discussion.)

The charts as support for the discussion.
Comparisons of the distributions used. (Gender, executions, age, etc.)
A discussion of the implications, historical and social, of the results. Opinions should be backed up by sound reasoning based on historical information. If the play The Crucible has been previously discussed, things they have learned from this discussion may be used.

Enrichment activities (alternate approach):

The class may be divided into groups and work on the analysis as a group. The report would then be presented to the class in the form of a multimedia presentation using PowerPoint or some other presentations tool. The same items should be used in the discussion as in number 4 above.

One of the references below contains information for historical witch trials, the same approach could be used with this information.

Evaluation: Evaluation Rubric

Modifications: