Teaching the Civil War with Technology

Here is something cool you can do with your students. Have them take modern photos and make them look old. For example, here is a photo that I took of some friends of mine from Sykes Regulars.

You can then take the photograph and put it into your favorite photo editor such as Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or GiMP.

Once you have it in your editor, start playing with the tone to make it look black & white using a sepia tone filter and then next you will want to blur the edges to give it that slightly unfocused look. Play with different filters to see the different effects they have on the image.

Now for some more advanced edits. If you know how to create layers in your editor, you could take the background from an old photograph and place the modern photo (that you have just revised) on top to give you the rough edges of the photo. This would require you to select a portion of the modern photo and then paste it on top of the new layer.

Here is what the revised image might look like:

Let me know what you come up with.

Posted under Lesson Ideas

An interesting way for students to experience the Civil War is to personalize it for them. One way to personalize the Civil War is to allow students to experience the war through the eyes (or in this case letters and documents) of a solider. The Library of Congress has created A Solider from the Wildcat Regiment that details the life of a Union solider in the 105th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. This digital resource center contains documents, photographs and letters related to Capt. Tilton Reynolds combined with ideas and suggestions on how you can incorporate the information into your classroom.

The following is from the Library of Congress Website:

A Civil War Soldier in the Wild Cat Regiment … a Collection Connection from the Learning Page

Help your students make personal connections with history by considering the lives of a young Union soldier and his family during the Civil War. Through letters and other documents, the collection describes the drudgery of life in military camps, details of troop movements, experiences of a prisoner of war, a soldier’s view of politics, and feelings of homesickness and familial love.

Once your students read and research these primary sources, have them reflect on how they would have felt being in the same situation or perhaps receiving one of the letters from an older brother.

Just a few more simple ways to engage students in history.

Until next time…

Posted under Lesson Ideas, Primary Sources

According to John Busey’s “These Honored Dead: The Union Casualties at Gettysburg”, the following is a list of the number of soldiers killed during the Battle of Gettysburg.

Army Of the Potomac :

Army of Northern Virginia:

Total number killed: 7,821

Based on these figures, you can easily have your students working on some math concepts. Have your students answer questions such as:

• What is the average number of soldiers killed for both the North and the South?
• What percentage of the total number of soldiers killed were from Ohio?
• What percentage of those killed were from the South?
• How many more soldiers were killed from North Carolina versus Pennsylvania?

Or, how about some critical thinking skills…

• Why do you think New York and North Carolina had the highest number of soldiers killed?
• During what day of the battle do you think Minnesota lost the greatest number of soldiers and why?

Until next time. From just north of Gettysburg…

Posted under Lesson Ideas, Primary Sources

In this season of elections, I thought it would be interesting to share a website on Civil War era elections.

Harper’s Weekly has created a website for researching historical elections from 1860 to 1912. According to the website, the Presidential Elections page features political cartoons from several different digital resource centers such as Harper’s Weekly, the Library of Congress and Vanity Fair. The website also “provides explanations of the historical context and images of each cartoon, campaign overviews, biographical sketches, a review of the era’s major issues, and other valuable information.”

Let’s take a moment to explore the 1860 election between Lincoln, Douglas, Breckinridge and Bell. First, each election contains four sections: Overview, Cartoons, Biographies and Events. From here you can learn about the events leading up to to the 1860 election, how the Democratic party split, the Union Constitution Convention, the Republican Convention and the Campaign.

One of the greatest part of this site for teachers are the political cartoons. Let’s look at one and see how you can use it in your classroom.

The above image shows Abe Lincoln as a rail-splitter and is intended to appeal to the average voter. Before giving your students the full description of the cartoon, ask them to tell you what they see, what do they think is going on in the cartoon, what does the little child represent and why are the words “Democratic Party” listed on the rail?

You can then follow up by reading them the complete description: “In order to appeal to average voters, Republicans emphasized the poor, hardworking origin of their candidate through the myth of Abraham Lincoln as a rail-splitter. This cartoon in the Wide-Awake Pictorial plays on that image by joking that the last rail he split is th Democratic Party in 1860, which divided into the Northern and Southern Factions.”

Then, have your students think about presidential campaign ads or commercials they have seen recently. Do any of those ads try to appeal to the average voter by making the candidate look like every hardworking American? I think so and can name a few but let me know what your students come up with as you review these cartoons.

Until next time….

Posted under Lesson Ideas, Primary Sources, Websites

Thanks to the Ten Roads Blog (actually done by a high school student) for sharing a link to a very cool website (more of a mashup really) that uses Google Maps and photos.

The Encounter at Gettysburg page is being developed by Chuck Kann and incorporates Google Maps to allow visitors to locate monuments, farm houses and other significant portions of the Gettysburg battlefield. To navigate the site, you click on the your search criteria on the left side of the page. You can select monuments and landmarks by type, by state or by location on the battlefield. Once you have selected your desired monument or location, you simply click Get Map and then depending on your selection, you could then choose from additional monuments or locations.

For example, I clicked on PA in the Monuments associated with State box then clicked Get Map. From the new list, I selected the 11th PA monument. The Google Map image tells me where the monument is located (I can even view it as a satellite image), I have a photo of the monument and then information that is written on the monument.

In addition to this, the website has a great collection of both modern and period photographs for you to explore and use in your classroom.

Until next time….

Posted under Lesson Ideas