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Learning Experience/Unit

Ladies, Contraband, and Spies: Women in the Civil War


Subject

English Language Arts (2005), Social Studies

Grade Levels

Commencement, 10th Grade, 11th Grade


Assessment

  1. Approve the Text and Ephemera Analysis and Photo Analysis forms.
  2. Critique oral presentation based on Assessment Rubric.
  3. Evaluate the ability to synthesize information from oral presentations into a written essay. See Assessment Rubric for essay.

Learning Context/ Introduction

This lesson uses primary sources - diaries, letters, and photographs - to explore the experiences of women in the Civil War. By looking at a series of document galleries, the perspectives of slave women, plantation mistresses, female spies, and Union women emerge. Ultimately, students will understand the human consequences of this war for women.

Objectives

Students will:

  • develop skills in seeing and understanding visual and print sources;
  • learn to analyze and to draw inferences from sources;
  • develop understanding of how the Civil War affects the lives of women;
  • expand skills in online searching of the American Memory collections; and
  • expand skills in the use of PowerPoint.

    • Procedure

    The procedure for this learning experience is composed of the following parts:
    Part I: Activity One
    Part II: Activity Two
    Part III: Activity Three

    Preparation

    1. Familiarize students with searching the American Memory collections. Use the Learning Page lesson, The Historians Sources.
    2. Provide students with basic instruction in PowerPoint.
    3. Print out pre-selected document sets from the American Memory collections reflecting various perspectives of women.
  • Contraband Document Set
  • Northern Women Document Set
  • Spies and Soldiers Document Set
  • Southern Women Document Set

    • Activity One

    1. Spread out document sets in classroom. Instruct students to look at sets and form groups based on personal interest.
    2. Introduce lesson by distributing handouts about text and ephemera analysis and photo analysis.
    3. Give students copies of the Assessment Rubric illustrating assessment expectations and goals.
    4. Groups answer questions on handouts and fill out photo analysis forms about what they see and what they assume. Instructors coach groups as needed and sign off groups when analysis has sufficient depth.
    5. Students next go to the computer lab and locate their documents online in the American Memory collections. Alternatively, they may begin working on their presentation in the classroom.
    6. The student assignment page includes more detailed guidelines for the PowerPoint presentation.(For a printable version, click on "Student Assignment Handout" below.)
  • Student Assignment Handout

    • Activity Two

    1. Instruct students to prepare a five-to-six slide PowerPoint presentation on what they have deduced using the captured images. As an alternative, students may prepare a presentation using posterboard or video.
    2. Students present their completed project to classmates in a five-minute oral presentation with visual support.
    3. Following the presentations, lead a class discussion centered around the generalizations that one can make about women's experiences in the Civil War.

    Activity Three

    1. Brainstorm what a textbook entry on women in the Civil War would include and how primary sources differ from textbook entries.
    2. Point out to the students that textbooks present only a small fraction of the knowledge available on a given subject, from a textbook author's point of view.
    3. Instruct students to write a 500 word textbook entry on women in the Civil War. Direct them to the Assessment Rubric.
    4. The student assignment page includes more detailed guidelines for the textbook entry.
    5. Writing the textbook entry forces students to try to synthesize the information they have analyzed and heard from other students and to condense it into a cohesive entry. They may feel the frustration that editors feel as they try to fit their knowledge into short, readable paragraphs.

    Resources/Materials

  • Examples of Digital Primary Documents
  • Rationale - Why Use Primary Resources?
  • Other resources

    • Extension

    Choose a subject for further research based on documents presented.

    Duration

    Five 45-minute classes

    Author

    Susan Allen and Mary Rockwell

    Source

    Reproduced from the Library of Congress web site for teachers. Original lesson plan created as part of the Library of Congress American Memory Fellows Program.


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