A View from Me—Civil War Stories

Subject Area: Language Arts

Grade Level(s): 8

Duration of Activity: Five, 50-minute class periods

Description of Activity:

Students will view and research historical sources for information about people who lived during the Civil War. They will glean as many details as possible about life during this time and construct a historically accurate story.

Objectives: The students will

• find and navigate Web sites.
• use the World Wide Web as a reference tool by gleaning specific details from assigned sites.
• practice the note-taking process by locating and selecting specific historical details from written documents and photographs to record.
• use selected details to create a plot, setting, and characters for a historically-based story to be learned for oral telling.
• compose a first draft using the writing process: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing.
• use a word-processing program to compose a written manuscript of the story to be learned for oral telling.
• practice oral presentation skills by telling their student-created stories.

Materials/Equipment:

• Computer with Internet access (one per student if possible)
• Microsoft Word or other word-processing software
• Handout 1: Taking Notes from Written Documents
• Handout 2: Taking Notes from Photographs
• Handout 3: Creating a Character
• Handout 4: Developing a Story Plan
• Handout 5: Writer’s Checklist
• Handout 6: Learn Your Story for Telling
• Handout 7: Grading Rubric for Oral Stories

Prerequisites (skills or background needed):

• Students need a basic knowledge of locating sites on the World Wide Web and gleaning information from them.
• Students need to be familiar with the process of creating a written product from idea to finished product.

Procedure

Teacher Component: The teacher will

1. explain the difference between a primary and secondary source for historical research.
   1. Primary sources—These are records created by people who actually saw or participated in an event and immediately recorded that event and their reaction to it. A primary source provides an eyewitness account of an event. Examples included diaries, letters, interviews, newspaper articles from the time, photographs, and documents such as marriage certificates.
   2. Secondary sources—These are created by someone either not present when the event took place or someone living at another time. These are based on primary sources and include textbooks, biographies, and historical articles.
2. guide students through the process of finding and taking notes from online historical sources. Use Web sites located in the URL section of this lesson plan with Handout 1: Taking Notes from Written Documents and Handout 2: Taking Notes from Photographs.
3. guide students through the process of selecting and creating a main character for their stories. Use Handout 3: Creating a Character.
4. guide students through the process of creating a story plan for their stories. Use Handout 4: Developing a Story Plan.
5. guide students through the process of writing, revising, editing, and preparing a written manuscript of their stories. Use Handout 5: Writer’s Checklist.
6. guide students through the process of preparing their stories for telling. Use Handout 6: Learn Your Story for Telling.
7. choose an avenue for students to tell their stories. Possible audiences include fellow classmates, children in lower grades, or a group of parents.

Student Activities: Students will

1. become familiar with the difference between primary and secondary sources for historical research.
2. find and take notes from online historical sources. Use Web sites located in the URL section below with Handout 1: Taking Notes from Written Documents and Handout 2: Taking Notes from Photographs.
3. select and create main characters for their stories. Use Handout 3: Creating a Character.
4. create story plans for their stories. Use Handout 4: Developing a Story Plan.
5. write, revise, edit, and prepare written manuscripts of their stories. Use Handout 5: Writer’s Checklist.
6. prepare their stories for oral telling and present them before an audience of the teacher’s choice. Use Handout 6: Learn Your Story for Telling.

Accommodations:

• Reserve computers in Media Center or wireless laptop cart to insure adequate time for World Wide Web research.
• To save time and insure availability of information, preview Web sources and bookmark especially helpful sites. [See Using Favorites/Bookmarks in the K-12 Classroom.]

Extension Activities:

• Students could host a "Civil War History Day" for elementary students. Coordinate with elementary teachers in your district to arrange a time for them to visit or for students to visit their classrooms to "tell" their stories.
• Students could produce a bound copy of "Civil War Tales" to share with peers or older members of the community such as nursing home patients.
• Students could use Microsoft PowerPoint presentation software and a digital projector to create a backdrop for the story telling. Students could choose photographs or other images that would make appropriate scenery for each segment of the story. The scenery can be projected onto the wall or projection screen behind the student during the oral presentation of the stories. Students may use photographs collected from the World Wide Web, or they may make digital photographs of appropriate scenery to be inserted into the PowerPoint slides.

Integration:

• Language Arts
• Social Studies
• Technology

Assessments:

1. Teacher should observe students at work to insure that each student is grasping the various skills and information effectively.
2. Use a rubric to grade the students’ oral presentations of their stories. Use Handout 7: Grading Rubric for Oral Stories as a suggested assessment tool.

URLs:

• Slave Voices from the Duke University Special Collections Library
  http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/slavery/
• Introduction to the Christie Papers
  http://www.mnhs.org/library/Christie/intropage.html
• American Slave Narratives
  http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/wpa/wpahome.html
• African-American Women - On-line Archival Exhibits at Duke University
  http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/collections/african-american-women.html
• Civil War Letters of John Alexander Ritter
  http://gwillritter.tripod.com/
• Letters Home from an Iowa Soldier in the American Civil War
  http://www.civilwarletters.com/home.html
• The Juckett Family Civil War Letters
  http://www.thejucketts.com/
• Selected Civil War Photographs Home Page
  http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/cwphome.html
• Civil War Family Photographs
  http://members.tripod.com/~cwphotos/

Curriculum Frameworks

Mississippi:

Eighth Grade

1. Communicate for a variety of purposes through different forms of writing using processes of reading, writing, listening, and viewing for an expanding audience. (R,W, L, V)
   1. Accomplish a writing process through planning, drafting, revising, editing, publishing, and self-reflecting on written communications such as various short papers (narrative, descriptive, expository, persuasive).
   2. Write with increasing complexity in various forms such as poetry, anecdotes, fables, tall tales, myths, skits, plays, stories, etc.
3. Complete projects and tasks in an organized and coherent manner. (R,W,S,L,V)
   2. Use reading as a source of ideas and information for a project or task.
   3. Follow logical sequence/multi-step directions to complete a project.
   4. Demonstrate increased proficiency, complexity, and independence in completing a product.
4. Read, listen to, and view multimedia sources to select and use information.
   2. Compose a variety of oral, visual, and written presentations from information gathered through multimedia sources.

National Educational Technology Standards (NETS):

8. Select and use appropriate tools and technology resources to accomplish a variety of tasks and solve problems.

TerraNova:

08 Writing Strategies (Level 11-21/22)
Demonstrate knowledge of information sources, outlines, and other pre-writing techniques.

Demonstrate an understanding of the use of topic sentences, concluding sentences, connective and transitional words and phrases, supporting statements, sequencing ideas, and relevant information in writing expository prose.

Link and Feedback to Author(s):

Steven Hodgin, Booneville Middle School, Booneville, MS
steven_hodgin@hotmail.com or kudzu39@hotmail.com