Curriculum
Unit: The Civil War
Copyright © Adam Waxler
www.teaching-teacher.com
The two most
important questions a teacher must ask when designing a
curriculum unit are what should be taught and how
should it be taught. Educators need to sift through an
abundance of information and material to determine the important
elements that need to be addressed in a particular unit. In an
effort to go into more depth and to foster a deeper
understanding of material, teachers will need to restrain from
spreading a unit out too thin. In other words, less is more.
For example, a curriculum unit on the American Civil War can not
possibly address every battle, person, or event of the war;
therefore teachers must select the significant aspects of the
war and go into those aspects in depth. It is more meaningful
for students to thoroughly learn only some segments of the Civil
War and to be able to take something away from the unit, than
for them to be forced to memorize every specific date and battle
only to forget them after the test.
Once teachers have
carefully thought about the information and determined what will be
taught, they can then decide how to go about teaching the
unit. However, teachers must first understand how learning occurs
in their students. Children learn through experiences and by making
connections with the real world and their interests (Stevens &
Richards, 1992). Educators can facilitate this learning process by
making school practices more closely resemble life outside of
school, by using a high degree of student collaboration, by
addressing the various learning styles of the students, and by using
compassionate and flexible assessment techniques. The role of the
teacher in this process should be to create a student-centered
curriculum, working more as a facilitator or guide than a know-all
instructor.
In developing any
unit plan it is important to understand both what should be taught
and how learning occurs. In an effort to address this I have
developed a curriculum unit for the American Civil War that involves
a high level of student collaboration that allows the students to
gain a deep understanding of the more important elements of the
Civil War. The unit revolves around four different groups designing
and presenting four distinct newspapers from the Civil War era in
which each individual student plays a critical role in the
development of their newspaper. Through the designing of newspapers
the teacher is able to address, not only specific battles, events,
and people during the war, but also target the social and emotional
aspects of the war. The Civil War is one of the most important
events in our nation's history and still has implications on our
society today and should not be taught by having students simply
memorize various dates for a test as it often is. It would be doing
the war an injustice to teach it by simply breaking it down into
specific dates and fragmented bits of information.
This Civil War unit
is designed for an 11th grade American History class that
should take roughly 12-15 days to complete, covering several
battles, two novels, important people, a timeline of events, and the
social and emotional aspects of the war. The class will be divided
into four groups of six, with each student having an individual
piece to write for their newspaper and with each group working as a
team in the designing of their newspaper. While some educators
believe students should choose their own groups during cooperative
learning, I feel this is unnecessary and may lead to chaos,
therefore the teacher will place the students in each group. Since
the Civil War unit is not the first unit of the school year, the
teacher has the advantage of already knowing his or her students and
can therefore place the students in the groups the he or she feels
will work best. This eliminates groups being based on friendship,
student’s feelings being hurt, and also allows the teacher to create
groups that are of mixed ability. Of course, this is not to suggest
that these groups are written in stone. The intention is for
students to learn through collaboration, but if there is a problem
that is hindering learning for a particular group then adjustments
can and should be made.
There are six
different roles in each newspaper, one for each student in each
group. They are: 1) Write an article on a specific battle or event
during the Civil War. The teacher will give the students a list of
important battles and events that they can chose from. Each group
however, will have a different list so no two newspapers have the
same story. 2) Write a book review on one of the two Civil War
novels that the class is reading. 3) Write a letter to the editor
assuming the role of a slave, a free man or women, a Union soldier,
a Confederate soldier, or an immigrant, and describe how they feel
about the war. 4) Write a “Dear Abbey” letter in response to the
actual Civil War letters that will be read in class focusing on the
various emotional aspects of the war. 5) Write a biographical piece
on an important person during the war. The teacher will give the
students a list a various important people, both male and female,
that they can select from. Once again though, each group’s list
will be different so no two biographical pieces will be about the
same person. 6) Students can choose between designing a Civil War
timeline or drawing two political cartoons. The timeline will
address the important dates of the war in chronological order and
must incorporate art and/or pictures into the timeline. This may be
a possible assignment for lower ability students, but will also
address some needed information for the Regents examination. The
political cartoons will obviously not be graded on artwork, but must
include some type of political satire regarding the Civil War.
While the teacher has
placed the students in each group, the students will choose their
individual assignments themselves. This is an effort to give the
students some ownership of their work. Once again though, if
problems arise, the teacher will assign the students to a role and
the teacher’s word is final.
However, before the
groups begin working on their newspapers, the first week of the unit
will be devoted to five different lesson plans that address all the
various roles of the newspapers. On the first day of the unit a
syllabus will be handed out and used to explain the newspaper
assignment, the four different groups, the roles involved with each
newspaper, how the students will be assessed, and the two novels
that they can choose from. For this particular unit the novels the
students can choose from are Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain
and Allan Gurganus’ Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All.
Cold Mountain
is a story about a wounded soldier’s journey back to his prewar love
at the end of the Civil War and how the two characters confront the
changed world they know live in. The book is an observation of
society undergoing change. The Oldest Living Confederate Widow
Tells All is a story of the south from the voice of a
ninety-nine year old woman regarding two wars, the Civil War and the
gender war. She presents Sherman's fires, the slaves’ local pain,
the mixed joys of motherhood, tales of sharecroppers, and General
Lee and President Lincoln. It is important that students have the
opportunity to read these trade books to complement their textbook
reading. Trade books can personalize the war in ways that textbooks
can not. The horrors of war should not just be more information to
be memorized. Trade books make the experiences of war more sincere
by giving specific, colorful examples as seen through the eyes of a
character that students can relate to. Trade books have the ability
to hold students’ interest and teach them at the same time. After
giving a quick summary of each of the trade books students can then
make their choice.
During the first day,
the homework for the week will also be explained. Each night the
students will have two reading/writing assignments. The first will
be to read their trade book for at least thirty minutes and then
write in their response journals that will be used later in the week
in small group discussions. Response journals allow the students to
thoroughly express and expand on their ideas about the novel, as
well as consider any questions they might have. The journals can
then be used to make the small group discussions that meet at the
end of the week more productive by giving students something to
refer to (Feathers, 1993; Vacca & Vacca, 1999).
The second homework
assignment is to read a small section in the textbook that covers
one or two specific battles or events. The purpose of this is to
give students a factual account of some of the more substantial
events of the war. Along with the textbook assignment, students
will be handed a different reading strategy to use each night, such
as K-W-L, Metacognitive Reading Awareness Inventory, Direct
Reading-Thinking Activity (DR-TA), and concept guides (Vacca &
Vacca, 1999). With each textbook reading assignment, the class will
review the particular reading strategy that is to be used. The
purpose of this is threefold. First of all, strategies such as
K-W-L and DR-TA help students make connections with prior
knowledge. K-W-L asks students to think about what they know
and what they want to learn before reading a text and DR-TA’s
ask students to make predictions and then respond to those
predictions. Both strategies, therefore, encourage students to
think deeply about the reading. Second, the Metacognitive Reading
Awareness Inventory strategy lists different ways for students to
cope when they run into trouble reading the textbook. This
cultivates the students’ ability to apply various learning
strategies when reading. Third, concept guides let students
understand that certain concepts are more important than others are
(Vacca &Vacca, 1999). For example, a concept guide may ask students
to answer 5-10 questions before reading the assignment, thereby
helping students know what to look for when reading. The point of
having the student read the textbook is for them to gain a factual
account of important battles and events, not a factual account of
superfluous information. All of the above strategies can and should
be used to assist low ability students with textbook reading,
however, they are also beneficial to the average and above average
reader.
The textbook reading
will be discussed at the beginning of each class by having the
students write outcome sentences on the reading that will then be
used as a springboard for a quick class discussion. Outcome
sentences are one or two sentences about what the student has
learned, is surprised about, has rediscovered, or has questions
about (Harmin, 1994). They are for the student to reflect on their
own thoughts and questions, and are to be handed in at the end of
the week, not to be graded, but rather for the teacher to know where
the students stand and what material needs to be gone over again.
It is the textbook reading, the trade book reading, the outcome
sentences, and the response journals that one student from each
group will use to write an article in their newspaper about a
specific Civil War battle or event.
Each day following
the outcome sentence/discussion, the teacher will begin the lesson
that will later be incorporated into the newspaper. On day 2, the
class will read actual Civil War letters from a local veteran. For
example, on the East End of Long Island students can read actual
letters from George C. Case who fought in the Civil War and lived on
Shelter Island until his death in 1878. While certainly anyone’s
letters can be read, it makes a greater impact when the person is
connected to the same community as the students. To further promote
student interest, before actually reading the letters, Civil War
memorabilia will be passed around such as an actual Civil War belt
or Union Army hat. These shows students that the past isn’t just
something that you read about, but is also something that you can
see, touch, and even smell.
From here the class
will form literature circles to discuss the letters (the same groups
will be used for the literature circles that will be used for the
newspapers, this allows students to get to know each other and
enables the teacher to foresee any possible problems with the
groups). Within the literature circles, students will take turns
reading the letters aloud to each other, then react to the reading
with written responses, and then use those responses to guide their
small group discussion about the letters. The students should read
aloud rather than silently so no student finishes before another
(Feathers, 1993). These written responses and discussions can then
be used as the foundation for the “Dear Abbey” letter in the
newspaper focusing on the emotional aspects of the war such as
missing loved ones, fear of dying, and wondering if the war is going
to end.
In another attempt to
address the social/emotional aspects of the war, the third lesson of
the curriculum unit will be spent on the differing views about
fighting the war. The purpose of this is to show the students that
choosing whether or not to fight in a war was as hard then as it is
now. There is a tendency for people to think that if you lived in
the south you automatically fought for the Confederate Army and if
you lived in the north you willingly fought for the Union Army, but
in reality it is not that simple. In an effort to address this
aspect of the war and in an attempt to appeal to the various
learning styles of the students, this lesson will present two
different views of fighting the Civil War by playing two songs from
the Civil War era. One song, “The Opinions of Paddy Magee”,
portrays the view of being honored to fight for Lincoln while the
other song, “Paddy’s Lamentation”, takes the stand that the Irish
did not come to America to fight someone else’s war. Playing music
from the Civil War era allows students hear for themselves the
emotions that were involved with fighting and students will
understand how real these people actually were.
However, before
playing the songs, the teacher first goes over the lyrics so the
students can better understand their meaning. By placing the lyrics
on an overhead projector, the teacher can use a DR-TA strategy by
blocking out most of the song and allowing the students to make
predictions. Then as each verse is uncovered the students respond
to their own predictions. This way the songs are not just played,
they are understood. After the songs are played a “discussion web”
is handed out (Vacca & Vacca, 1999). In the center of the web a
questions asks, “Should the Irish immigrants have been forced to
fight the war?” On either side of the question are two columns, one
for “yes” and one for “no”. On their own, students are to fill in
both columns. When the students have given at least two
reasons in each column they split into pairs to share their
reasons. After sharing, each student writes a final answer to the
question. The purpose of the discussion web is for the students to
examine both sides of an issue before drawing a conclusion.
Similar to day two’s lesson this lesson can be used for either the
“Dear Abbey” letter or the letter to the editor.
The biographical
piece of the newspaper will be the focus of the next lesson.
Students break into their groups with any adjustments that have been
made by the teacher and each group receives a different person from
the Civil War. Within each group, students receive a variety of
information concerning their person that they use for in-group
discussion. Afterwards, each group must make the rest of the class
guess who their person is. The catch is that there is a list of
five words that each group cannot say when describing their person.
This is combination of Robert Slavin’s (1995) jigsaw approach to
cooperative learning and the Milton Bradley game Taboo. The
idea is for this to be fun and loud. A timer will be used and the
teacher acts as the judge disqualifying anyone in the group that
uses one of the “taboo” words. A gag price is to be given to the
team that gets their classmates to guess the right person in the
least amount of time. Obviously, from this lesson students will
have a basis to write a biographical piece for their newspaper.
The next lesson is
the last lesson before students begin to put their newspapers
together. Each night for homework the students have been writing in
their response journals about the novel that they selected. During
this lesson students will put those response journals to use as
springboards for discussions in literature circles. However, this
time the groups will be split up according to the novel each student
chose. Having students discuss different novels within the same
group, in this case, is counterproductive and may be confusing. It
is more worthwhile to have each group discuss the same novel. Also,
it may be a nice break for the students who have been meeting in the
same groups for over a week now. These literature circles allow
students to extend their interaction with the book and encourage
them to expand on their ideas. The purpose is for the reader to
construct his or her own meaning, not only from what the reader
brings to the text, but also from discussing the reading with others
(Spiegel, 1998). By hearing other students’ views during their
group discussion, students’ gain an appreciation of different
interpretations and increase the number of strategies they will use
when reading (Spiegel, 1998). Students can then apply this lesson
to the book review section of their newspaper.
The pervious five
lessons will take roughly five to seven days to complete. Each one
should take about a day, but some may run over to the next day.
Once these five lessons are complete the students will spend the
next four days writing their articles and designing the layout for
their newspaper. To start, each group will choose a name for their
newspaper and each student will pick one role. During each of the
previous lessons the teacher will refer to upcoming newspaper roles
that the students should be thinking about, so hopefully the
students have an idea about which article they would like to write
and hopefully they have already worked out who will write each
piece. Unfortunately, this will not always be the case. Therefore,
no role should be set in stone. A teacher needs to be flexible, a
may have to let two students within the same group assume the same
role. However, if two students want to do the biography piece, they
will have to do it on different people, if two students want to
write about a specific battle, they will have to write about two
different battles, and so on. Still, this may not prove successful
and if a particular group cannot resolve the problem themselves, the
teacher may be forced to assign the roles.
Once the roles have
been determined, the teacher will give a brief demonstration on how
to use the computer to design the newspapers. A computer projection
monitor can enhance this demonstration if one is available. The
teacher will display Microsoft Word on the screen and click the
template called “newsletter wizard”. The teacher will then show the
students the three different styles of newsletters offered by the
“newsletter wizard”, how to change the writing style and font size,
and how to add pictures, illustrations, and colors. This should be
a quick, but fun demonstration that sparks the students’ interest,
brings together what they have been doing in the unit, and gives
them a goal and direction for their work over the next few days.
Following the
demonstration the students begin working on their individual
pieces. For the next three days students will be writing and
editing their work using the lessons from the past week along with
library and classroom resources. The teacher’s role as the guide in
this learning process will be more evident then ever. The teacher
assists students by reading their articles and giving feedback and
suggestions when needed. Depending on computer availability,
students will take turns using the classroom computers and the
library computers. What doesn’t get finished in class must be done
for homework. Each group’s newspaper should be finished within four
days.
Once each group’s
newspaper is finished, the students will receive one copy of each of
the four newspapers. Then the next two days will be spent on
presentations. Each group will use the computer projection monitor
(if available) to present their paper to the class. This does not
mean that each student reads their individual article, but rather
gives a brief summary of their article and what they got out of the
process.
Following the group
presentations a test will be given. Everything that will be on the
test will be in the four newspapers. The test will be broken down
into five different sections each worth 20%. One section will be on
the two novels, another will be on the four different battles, a
third will cover the important people, the fourth will be on the
political cartoons, and the final section will on the emotional
aspects of the war. None of the questions will be multiple choice,
but rather short answer and essay. The idea is not find out if the
students know who wrote the book
Cold Mountain,
but rather if they can describe how society had changed during the
1860’s. Likewise, the question on the political cartoons will be to
explain the satire of three out of five cartoons presented in the
test (obviously a student cannot choose their own cartoon). Since
the questions are not of the multiple choice type and are not asking
for specific facts as much as generalizations, the students will be
allowed to use the four newspapers during the test. A sort of open
“newspaper” test. The rationale behind this is that never in life
outside of school are we not allowed to look up the answers or have
something to refer to when writing essays. How can a whole unit
that is revolved around fostering a deeper understanding of material
end with a test that promotes rote memorization? It can’t.
Allowing students to use their newspapers during the test eliminates
the students’ need to memorize and replaces it with learning how to
synthesize information and use deductive and inductive reasoning
skills (Woolfolk, 1998).
Furthermore, in an
effort to reduce student anxiety the test will only constitute 20%
of their grade for the unit. The other 80% will be divided into
four sections, again each worth an equal 20%. They are 1) the
individual piece, 2) the group newspaper, 3) the group presentation,
and 4) how an individual worked with the other students in the
group. Therefore working well with others counts as much towards
their grade as does the test. The reading worksheets, the journals,
and the outcome sentences are not graded; they are for the student
to use as reflections and guides for later assignments. With the
exception of the test, all the assessments will be graded on a
four-point rubric. The individual piece, the group newspaper, and
the group presentation, will be assessed on the quality of the
finished product, organization, and overall impression. Working
well with others will be assessed on cooperation and
thoughtfulness. The four-point rubric will translate as follows: a
4 means the assignment was thoroughly fulfilled and equals an A; a 3
means the assignment was adequately fulfilled and equals a B; a 2
translates to the assignment only being partially fulfilled and is a
C; and 1 means the assignment is incomplete. All students who show
up in class regularly and keep doing the best they can will receive
a passing grade of at least a C. This assessment process will be
made perfectly clear in the unit syllabus and will be gone over the
first day of the unit. There is no point in surprising students.
By reviewing the assessment process before the unit begins, the
students have a clear understanding of what they need to do to
receive the grade they want.
There are a number of
advantages to using what I call a “newspaper unit”. First of all, a
variety of aspects concerning a particular subject can be
addressed. For example, in this unit on the Civil War, specific
battles, events, important people, social issues, and emotional
issues were all considered. This was achieved by using a plethora
of reading material including textbooks, trade books, letters, music
lyrics, and art. This was further enhanced by using a variety of
teaching strategies including cooperative learning, writing to learn
strategies (response journals, outcome sentences, and the articles
themselves), talking to learn strategies (discussion groups and
pair/share), and reading to learn strategies (K-W-L, DR-TA, and
concept guides). By combining the reading and writing material with
various teaching strategies a conscious effort has been made to meet
the varying learning styles of all students.
Secondly, the
newspaper unit gives the teacher an opportunity to provide students
with both male and female perspectives of the war. The letter to
the editor, the “Dear Abbey” letter, the biographical piece, and the
novel The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, gives
students the chance to view the Civil War through the eyes of a
women.
Finally, designing a
curriculum unit around the production of a newspaper gives the
students an audience other than the teacher and therefore motivates
the students to proofread and edit on their own. The idea is that
students will become more conscious of their mistakes when they know
other people will read their work (Vacca & Vacca, 1999). This is a
great way for students to acquire the mechanics of writing skills
they need. Students learn about form and organization because they
truly want to produce quality work rather than through the fear of
receiving a poor grade.
This Civil War
newspaper unit makes learning fun. Students get to use technology,
and work together towards a common goal in cooperative groups that
resemble real-life learning situations. The emphasis of the unit is
on cooperation rather than competition, and when all is said and
done, the students have something they can actually walk away with,
their newspaper. Furthermore, the unit is fair. By using different
teaching and learning strategies with a variety of reading and
writing material, the unit addresses a number of different learning
styles over a wide range of abilities. To quote Dr. Barry Raebeck
(1998), high school English teacher and education professor, “If it
is not fun and fair part of the time, it probably is not good, and
definitely will not last” (p. xxv).
References
Feathers, K.M.
(1993). Focusing on meaning. In K.M. Feathers, Infotext, reading
and learning (pp. 66-83). The Pippin Publishing Corporation.
Harmin, M.
(1994). Inspiring active learning: A handbook for teachers.
Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development.
Raebeck, B.
(1998). Transforming middle schools: A guide to whole school
change (2nd ed.). Lancaster: Technomic Publishing
Company.
Slavin, R.E.
(1995). Cooperative learning (2nd ed.). Boston:
Allyn and Bacon.
Spiegel, D.L.
(1998). Reader response approaches and the growth of readers.
Language arts, 76, 41-48.
Stevens, P.W., &
Richards, A. (1992). Changing schools through experiential
education. Charleston, WV: Clearinghouse on Rural Education and
Small Schools. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 345929).
Vacca, J.L., &
Vacca, R.T. (1999). Content area reading: Literacy and learning
across the curriculum (6th ed.). New York: Longman.
Woolfolk, A.E.
(1998). Education psychology (7th ed.). Boston:
Allyn and Bacon.
Adam
Waxler is a middle school social studies teacher, teacher mentor,
and the author of eTeach: A Teacher Resource for Learning the
Strategies of Master Teachers. Adam is also the
editor and publisher of The Teaching Teacher’s Newsletter.
For more information about his ebook or to sign up for your free
monthly newsletter log onto:
http://www.teaching-teacher.com
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