Post 2: Implementation

IMPLEMENTATION

Procedure:

1. Begin by activating their prior knowledge on the Civil War 
• KWL chart
• Talk upon the major subjects of the Civil War (North and South, Slavery, Underground Railroad, Dates, Presidents-Jefferson Davis=South, Abraham Lincoln=North
2. Begin a timeline on the board writing important dates of when events took place during the Civil War
• Jan 1861-South seceded from the Union
• Feb 1861-South seizes federal forts
• Mar 1862-Lincolns Inauguration 
• Apr 1861-Attack on Fort Sumter, 4 states join the confederacy because of this attack
• June 1861- 4 slave states stay in the Union(Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware, Maryland)
• July 1861-First battle of Bull Run, South was attacked and ended up winning this battle
• Jan 1862-Lincoln declares war
• Jan 1863-Emancipation Proclamation
• July 1863- Gettysburg Campaign 
• Nov 1864- Lincoln Reelected
• Jan 1865-The fall of the Confederacy
• Apr 1865- Surrender of the Confederacy, Lincoln's Assassination 
3. Point out what you will be talking about for the day, the first point on the timeline, why the south seceded from the Union
• Ask students why they think they did?
• Have students come up to the board to write their ideas
• Slavery
• Economics
• Government
• Pressure from surrounding states
4. Have students break into groups of 4 to discuss the North and South and why people in the South wanted slaves whereas the people in the North did not.
• Farming
• Economics
• Moral Standards
5. Bring students back together and talk about what they will be doing next. 
• You will break up into groups of 3 or 4 and I will hand out either a piece of paper or a link to an internet site. 
• You will research the topic you got and continue to write a letter to a family member, or friend that relates to your person or story. 
• You only have 15 minutes to read the story/letter and write a returning piece or followup letter. 
• After, you will give an overview of your story and how you chose to write back or write on about.
6. Students will share the letters they read about and then discuss an overview of what they wrote about. 

http://www.gacivilwar.org/story/nancy-hart-rifles

-women defending the homestead in GA for the Confederate

http://www.civilwararchive.com/LETTERS/oliver.htm

-Letter from a soldier back home

http://spec.lib.vt.edu/cwlove/seeper.html

love letter from PA to Union soldier

http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/papers/F0681

-letter from a soldier to a lieutenant  

http://www.vmi.edu/uploadedFiles/Archives/Manuscripts/00221Brooke/Brooke_fulltext.pdf

-letter from a sister to her brother/soldier in VA on the confederate side

• For students who need enrichment, I will provide them with a more intellectual letter for them to discuss and reflect upon. Their letter should reflect their complete understanding of the emotions that their person/story felt and expressed.
• For students who need remediation, I will guide them along with an example of what I would write about if I had their story. I will also have a guideline of the type of story/letter I expect to see and the components of their story/letter.
• For students who are ELL, I will provide them with a written and an online copy of their letter to where they could use earphones to help them listen to the letters while reading along. It will help that they are paired with other classmates that can help clarify and simplify the words being expressed in the letter/story. 
• I will be walking around, asking students what their plan is for their letter/story and guiding them through this activity, if they need the help.

Reflect on:

• Why are you using the instructional methods you have described?
  I am using the instructional methods to allow the students to explore the lives of the people involved in the Civil War. I want my students to be able to socialize and have in depth discussions of who these people were and the different sides of the all the people involved in the Civil War.
• How do the instructional methods align with what you know about best practices (think about your methods classes)?
  I believe that my methods are being used for higher order thinking because it challenges the students to think on a deeper level of the people in the Civil War and the decisions that were made. Learning is a social experience, and being able to break up my students into smaller sized groups will allow for more in depth discussion of the Civil War. They will then move on to a specific region of the Civil War and have to think about who that person was and their life back then, and what that person or persons was going through. 
• How are you engaging students in creative and higher order thinking?
  I am engaging my students in creative and higher order thinking by asking them to write their own letter/story of what might have happened or been told next. I am asking my students to live in that time period and think about the people, not just the events of the Civil War. 
• How does your integration of technology support what you know about best practices for technology integration in the classroom? (Use the research that you and your classmates did as a resource)
  I used the internet and Word to integrate technology into my lesson. With the internet, the students are able to research and view the story/letter in a different way than just on paper. I will have examples or outlines on a projector for the students to refer back to when writing their piece.