 |
 |
CAROLYN
BEITZEL
Diary #22
My
Civil War Unit – Part Two
Our classroom
has been using a cooperative learning strategy called Group
Investigative Model to complete a research project using the Civil War
as the learning concept.
Last
week we developed six short-term goals that would aid us in our research:
active questioning, multiple resources, becoming aware of text organization,
applying steps of research, dialogue participation and presentation of findings.
Part Two
To create an
atmosphere of question-raising, we held brainstorming sessions to review
information we had previously studied on the Civil War. We also viewed a
brief, 9-minute CD-ROM presentation of the time period 18501861 and all
the historical events that took place then. Based upon that review, students
were ready to form groups on subtopics of interest, including "Causes of
the Civil War," "Civil War Battles," "Civil War Leaders," "The Wounded,"
and "Women in the War."
The first collaborative
effort in implementing this strategy was the question-raising session. Small
groups with similar interests met to generate research questions on their
chosen topic. Groups listed possible questions for investigation and began
eliminating questions beyond the scope of the resources provided.
Here is a compilation
of questions each group selected throughout the four classes I teach:
Causes of
the Civil War
Was John Brown's
raid a cause of the Civil War?
How did John Brown hold off an army at Harper's Ferry?
How did slavery contribute to the Civil War?
What were the economic causes of the Civil War?
Civil War
Battles
Where did the
major battles take place?
Were most battles fought on horseback or on foot?
In which battles were most soldiers killed?
What specific battle strategies were used?
Civil War
Leaders
Which generals
won the major Civil War battles?
How did Lincoln and Davis differ in what they wanted for their countries?
How was General Grant selected to lead the Union army?
Who showed great bravery and how was it displayed?
Why did Sherman want to destroy the South?
The Wounded
Did the majority
of the soldiers die from their battle wounds?
Where were the wounded taken?
How did the doctors treat the wounded?
In what battles did the largest number of casualties occur?
Women in
the War
What or how
did women contribute to the war effort?
Did any women actually fight in a battle?
Were women put in prison if they were spies?
Were there more women from the North or South who participated in war
efforts?
Part Three
After the question-developing
session the students were given a shared packet of multiple resources, which
was prepared earlier. This packet contained primary documents and photographs
and supplemental information from other sources besides the textbook.
In the past
most students used encyclopedias or a website as their chief source of information
for report writing. Most had little experience sifting through information
from multiple sources. Using the Group Investigation Model provides students
with a more thorough research experience.
This part seemed
the hardest so far for the students. They had to rely on others to not only
do the work, but to produce an end product that would be acceptable to everyone
in the group.
While sifting
information, groups found little difficulty searching for facts. However,
ideas that were implied but not directed stated posed a particular problem.
Students began expressing their frustrations with inferencing. "This is
too hard," "I can't find what I need," "It's not in here," and "What does
this mean?" were all questions I was starting to hear. The students felt
insecure having to interpret whether information was indeed related to the
answers they were seeking.
For example,
one student was trying to find information that would help her answer the
question "Why did it take three days for Robert E. Lee's army to capture
John Brown and his men at Harper's Ferry?" She was adept at recording dates
and events that occurred at Harper's Ferry, a traditional learning skill,
which she applied proficiently. She could not, however, link the fact that
John Brown's taking over an ammunition depot placed him in a more powerful
position, initially, than Lee's army with its limited resources.
Off On an
Important Tangent
I found it necessary
to stop the investigative process and use this "teachable moment" to present
to the class an exercise in drawing inferences from information in their
resources. I said, "Often, answers to questions will not be directly stated
in your resources. So it is important to search for clues that can lead
you to find and develop your own answer."
I then wrote
on a transparency the following three scenarios. We read each passage and
the students were asked to identify the number that best indicated one of
the causes of the Civil War.
1. John
Brown's raid through Kansas struck the first blow in dividing North
and South on the issue of slavery. What John Brown wanted was to make
slavery so unsafe that it would not be profitable. John Brown won
his point. In Kansas and Missouri, the value of slave property had
dropped by thousands of dollars.
2. Leaders
of the South fought for secession from the Union, because they did
not want to be controlled by the North. For example, their taxation
on exports, like cotton, was considerably more than on goods purchased
from the North. The people of the South thought this practice was
not fair.
3. When
Confederates fired the first shot of the Civil War on Fort Sumter
in April 1861, the North and South divided into two nations at war
with each other.
Students examined
each of the three choices. Many selected number 1 as a cause, stating "If
slavery was no longer making money for the plantation owners that was going
to hurt the South." Another student said "Yeah, and if that hurts the South,
they are going to be angry about it and want to get it back, so they might
go to war."
Some students
chose passage 3 as a cause, but one girl said, "The first shot can't be
a cause for war. It was the effect of other things happening to the South."
Students also agreed that number 2 could also be a cause of war. All the
students concluded that the causes for the Civil War were much more complex
than those presented in the three passages.
I assured them
that having a clear understanding of their research question and continually
reviewing it or revising it would help them predict where they might go
for researching the answer. The students worked with their groups to reflect
on their notes, deleting information that was not relevant and linking related
ideas.
They were figuring
out for themselves that finding answers to questions was not as easy a job
as they thought. It would take more work to produce a quality report. Some
students were up to the task and some would clearly need constant re-direction.
Comment
on this diary entry
Read
next week's diary
Read
last week's diary
|
|
|
