In class we have been studying revolutions. This past week we learned about the American Revolution. The stamp act in particular interested me. I wanted to dive deeper and find out a little bit more on how those taxes worked and why some things were taxed. So I asked a question, why was tea the only thing that was still taxed after they took all the other taxes off?

Previously in class we had been learning about William Shakespeare. As I was thinking of how to put all of my research together in a entertaining way, I thought back to this. I have always loved everything to do with Shakespeare, plays, sonnets, and poetry. So I decided to record my information in a poem format.

I chose to write my poem in a Shakespearean format. A Shakespearean poem is a 14-line sonnet consisting of three quatrains of abab cdcd efef followed by a couplet, gg. Example: Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 2”.

A Revolution started like this
All because the Brits needed money
They saw it coming and did not dismiss
This was not to be taken as funny

Everything was was taxed out there
All so the Brits could get their money back
The Americans did no think this was fair
So they came up with a plan to attack

The taxes were then taken away
All of them except for the tea
So the Americans dumped the tea in the bay
To show that they would no longer pay the fee

Tea was expensive and everyone bought
This is why the Americans fought

I went into writing this poem thinking that it would be fairly easy. That coming up with rhyming words would be no problem. I was wrong about that. While I was writing this I had to change the lines several times because I was unable to think of a rhyming word that fit with the lines above. I learned that writing poems can be quite challenging, but they are always so fun to write.

Finding the information to answer my question was the easy part, although it was still challenging. I learned why the tea was the only thing still taxed. Tea was a luxury that almost everyone had back then. It was popular and a good trade. Here is where I found some of my information.