Civil War Multi-Media Group Project
Kristina DuRocher Wilson
(durocher@uiuc.edu)
(ready to use)
Coauthors
ASK
Partner Projects
| GK-12 Teaching Fellowships |
Subject Areas
Grade Levels
Unit Keywords
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Civil War, Primary source investigation, American history, multi-media project, primary source database, student research and presentations |
Rationale of the Unit
| For this project we wanted to continue working on how to approach and analyze primary sources, as well as to allow students to follow their interests in the Civil War while working together collaboratively |
Background and Resources
For this project we wanted to continue working on how to approach and analyze primary sources, as well as to allow students to follow their interests in the Civil War while working together collaboratively
The goal of this project is to allow you access to Civil War primary documents from multiple sources. You will be expected to examine multiple sources and to consider them through the primary source triangle Context, Audience, and Agenda.
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What I am discovering
Handouts, sourced below
Project handout overview and instructions
Database handouts An Explanationof the online database websites
In the first week it seemed that the students were unsure of where to start. They were given a handout for each group with some website suggestions, which helped them focus.
Group Website Handouts
Presentations were graded based on the Multimedia Project Rubric
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Dialogues, Discussions, and Presentations
The students employed numerous ways to make their projects interesting. Most did PowerPoint but also made posters, charts, showed movie clips, played songs, put on a play, had handouts, or in the case of the group who did food made hardtack. An unforeseen result of this is that the students, in teaching their peers, seem to enjoy being the "expert" on their topic, many ad-libbed or added in stories and information they knew.
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Assessment, Related Questions, and Story of the Unit
In the first week it seemed that the students were unsure of where to start. They were given a handout for each group with some website suggestions, which helped them focus. By the third day on the project many students began working in earnest as they became interested in and delved deeper into their topics.
One of the goals of this project was to allow students to create and follow their interests and get excited about this project. In the beginning many of them saw this as more work, but then they really started to see beyond the work and start looking at this as interesting. Either way the level of intensity, the amount of work students did, and the general excitement and productivity increased throughout the second week.
The students took the presentations very seriously, and we filmed the presentations to show how important they were to us. The students employed numerous ways to make their projects interesting. Most did Power Point but also made posters, charts, showed movie clips, played songs, put on a play, had handouts, or in the case of the group who did food made hardtack. This reflected the time and effort students placed in this project. In the beginning, the students were very uncertain about being able to do a 7-10 minute presentation, but most went over. An unforeseen result of this is that the students, in teaching their peers, seem to enjoy being the expert on their topic, many ad-libbed or added in stories and information they knew.
Our goal was to give the students idea about how to approach and make sense of primary sources but that this has them thinking about history in new ways. Overall, it was amazing to see students, especially those who have struggled, put on a great presentation for the class.
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Credits & Acknowledgements
Uploaded Files:
CivilWarhandout.doc
onlinecivilwarhandout.doc
CIVILWARWEB.doc
MultimediaProjectRubric.doc
EvaluationQuestionsforCivilWarMulti.doc
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