Civil War Investigation iMovie

Student Historians started their Civil War investigation this week. Teams were each given one year of the war from 1860-1865 (1860 was included because of the significant events that directly impacted the war) and will rank and justify 3 events they believe impacted the end of the war. 

Project-based learning never gets old for me as an instructor. I find such joy in seeing the students interact, think deeply, and work together. I move from group to group questioning and guiding while team members sort through primary sources, storyboards, and apps and discuss and debate with one another. The sense of purpose is palpable and our class minutes tick away productively. 

Today team members each chose one of five project roles: Producer, Director, Screenwriter, Special Effects Director, and, of course, Historian. Tomorrow each role will have specific tasks to complete, including deciding on the overall tone for the year being studied and developing justification for this tone, locating 3 primary source documents to reflect each of the 3 event choices, creating a Works Cited page, writing the storyboard, and finding Mathew Brady photographs taken during their team year and/or historic Civil War music (I am SO hoping some of my musically-inclined students will find sheet music and perform it as their movie soundtrack--fingers crossed, stay tuned)!

I'm looking forward to our work together tomorrow and we'll have completed projects to share next week. 


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