Fifth grade students at Cooperstown Central School hosted visitors from the past on Tuesday.

A British Redcoat, a Continental Army Regular, Abigail Adams and a gunrunner's wife made appearances to teach the students about the American Revolution.

Both male characters were played by Jeffrey Tew, a teacher at the Grand Gorge campus of BOCES, and both female characters were played by Christina Westenberger, the director of school programs at NYSHA.

Complete with costumes, accents and all the trimmings, the pair held the students spellbound.

The program is part of an UCCCA Artist in Residency Grant aimed at supporting the New York State learning standards that provide for alternative perspectives in social studies.

"The changing standards are driving education in a positive way," said Tew. "The important thing is to build a rapport with the students. We're offering them a time travel experience, and in this way we're helping to create critical thinkers."

The focus in state education is shifting towards primary sources, and students are learning to distinguish between these and secondary sources like textbooks. Primary sources are documents like birth certificates and photographs.

Westenberger said that while widespread use of the internet allows students quick access to information, it is not necessarily helpful in distinguishing between primary and secondary sources.

"A lot of times students just know that the information came from the internet but they don't know where it came from specifically," she said.

Judy Bullis, fifth grade teacher at CCS, said that students have an action-packed week ahead. Bertha Rogers, poet, author and founding director of Word Thursdays, will help students create their own persona poems, essays and dramatic characters they choose from the Revolutionary War period.

On Wednesday, Phil Zenir and Mike Laurenz will help students pronounce German words they encounter in their reading of "The Fighting Ground," a book that chronicles a young American's involvement with Hessian soldiers.