Ask me if my students are diligent workers and my typical answer will be, "sometimes." =) Today, however, I was blown away while watching my 11th grade American History students in the computer lab. They were clicking and clacking away on the keyboards and oohing and ahhing at the information they were finding. This was a happy day in my book!
I have always heard of teachers doing a "Civil War Newspaper Project." Since I have always heard about others doing this, I have shunned it. I don't want to be the teacher that does the same projects everyone else does! But I take it back. With plenty of personalizing and modernizing, I have found this Newspaper Project to be incredibly beneficial for students learning about history AND learning essential writing elements. Today I had students calling me to their computers to show me the photos of Black Union soldier regiments, wowing when they learned that Northern textbooks omitted the fact that there used to be slavery in the North, and melting happily when they found REAL love letters written between soldiers and their beloved's. You would have thought they were watching Dear John by the sounds of it.
Can you decipher what it says?
To teach journalistic writing, I provided some useful articles, particularly on writing editorials.
One thing I love about this project is that they are all assigned a “perspective” (North v. South) and are required to show a subtle bias towards their home side. We will then be discussing how critical we must always be of the news media today.
Take a look at the project here:
Northern Caption: “16th President Abe Lincoln, always fashionable in his trademark hat, coat, and bowtie, spends his free time with the Union soldiers. The ultimate question still lingers in the air: Will his beloved United States ever be united again?”
Southern Caption: “Slave-loving Lincoln shows up after the battle is over. Too bad he didn’t come out and fight so we could show him what we are made of!”
Photo Source: glastonburyus.org
This project was an awesome idea! Its was a easy way to learn many unknown things about the American Civil War, battles, slavery and about the soldiers from that time :)
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