INTRODUCTION
The Library of Congress began a project in 2000 called the Veterans’ History Project. The purpose is to collect personal stories from veterans to share with future generations of Americans, so that we can understand the realities of war. Stories and photos have been collected from veterans of World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts.
Library of Congress: Veterans’ History Project
The Veterans’ History Project does not include interviews with any Civil War veterans as they lived too long ago. In an effort to keep their memories alive, we will create a Veterans’ History Project of our own for Civil War veterans. Obviously, you will not have the ability to interview them. Instead you will recreate history through a simulation and experience what it was like to be a soldier during the Civil War.
You will take on the role of a soldier from the Civil War and face the same decisions that those people faced. After the simulation is over, you will be interviewed for our Veterans’ History Project. Your journal entries, interview recording, and military photo will go on our project website.
Products:
Create a web page on our Veterans’ History Project website that contains the following:
Library of Congress: Veterans’ History Project
The Veterans’ History Project does not include interviews with any Civil War veterans as they lived too long ago. In an effort to keep their memories alive, we will create a Veterans’ History Project of our own for Civil War veterans. Obviously, you will not have the ability to interview them. Instead you will recreate history through a simulation and experience what it was like to be a soldier during the Civil War.
You will take on the role of a soldier from the Civil War and face the same decisions that those people faced. After the simulation is over, you will be interviewed for our Veterans’ History Project. Your journal entries, interview recording, and military photo will go on our project website.
Products:
Create a web page on our Veterans’ History Project website that contains the following:
- Digital documentaries
- Recorded interview
- Photograph of “soldier” in Civil War uniform
Audience:- Parents, teachers, 5th Grade students, and the Idaho Civil War Volunteers will be invited to visit the site.
Standards addressed
Social Studies:
5.RT1.PSb Identify and explain influential individual and political/cultural groups and their impact on American history.
5.RT1.PSh Explain the causes and outcomes of the Civil War.
Language Arts:
Describe how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described.
Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, using formal English when appropriate to task and situation.
Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, description, and pacing, to develop experiences and events or show the responses of characters to situations.
Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
Analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic, noting important similarities and differences in the point of view they represent.
Read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.
Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills.
References
Bailey, Tim (2008). Easy Simulations: Civil War. New York: Scholastic.
Library of Congress (2014). Veterans History Project [website]. Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/vets/about.html
University of California, Irvine (2015). The Six C's of Primary Source Analysis [PDF document] . Retrieved from www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/.../6cs_primary_source.pdf