Lesson Plan - Can You Prove It?
Teaching Goal - Students learn how primary source documents help authors and museum curators interpret historic events.

An Educational Lesson Plan for United States History
Civil War Book List contributed by Denise Hagood, NVCC Scholar Spring 2007

ON THIS PAGE
»	Overview
»	Materials
»	Activities
»	Standards of Learning

Overview:
Students explore the value of primary source materials as they identify connections between first-hand accounts of historical events and how authors and museum curators use that information to write historical literature and design battlefield exhibits. Participants are challenged in this lesson to locate primary documents through on-line or on-site research and then to prove or disprove significant events in a selected civil war story.  Students will also be asked to answer the question, “Are primary documents useful tools for a historian?”           

Lesson

Explain the value of using primary sources when writing historical fiction or developing exhibits that interpret historical events. 

Objective:
Students will

• Distinguish between primary and secondary sources
• Research primary source documents
• Analyze how primary sources relate to key events in historical literature
• Analyze how primary sources relate to battlefield exhibits
• Develop analytical writing skills as they design and present information using  Powerpoint software.
  
  

Materials:

1. Civil War Book List  [a PDF document]
2. Identify Significant Events Form [a PDF document]
3. PowerPoint Guide [a PDF document]
4. Journey Through Hallowed Ground Field Trip Guide that provides information for on-site visits 

Classroom Activities

1. Ask students to select one book from the JTHG Civil War Book List and begin reading independently.

2. While reading the book, ask students to take notes on eight significant events that occur in the story. They may use a class journal for this or the Identify Significant Events form included with this lesson.

3. Once students have completed their reading selection, begin the in-class instruction.

1. Introduce students to the definition of Primary Source Documents.
   

   
   What are Primary Sources?
   “Primary sources are original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs and oral histories. Primary sources may include letters, manuscripts, diaries, journals, newspapers, speeches, interviews, memoirs, documents produced by government agencies such as Congress or the Office of the President, photographs, audio recordings, moving pictures or video recordings, research data, and objects or artifacts such as works of art or ancient roads, buildings, tools, and weapons. These sources serve as the raw material to interpret the past, and when they are used along with previous interpretations by historians, they provide the resources necessary for historical research.”  Using Primary Sources on the Web

2. Ask students to complete the Primary Source Scavenger Hunt [a PDF document]. Their goal is to locate primary source documents that help prove or disprove key events in the selected civil war story. Primary source documents can be located
   1. On-line using a variety of web sites. Suggestions from the Scavenger Hunt Form include:
      1. Valley of the Shadow: UVA Research Project
      2. Library of Congress: American Memory
      3. Civil War Archive 
      4. Civil War Data
      5. The Avalon Project at Yale Law School
   2. On-site at Civil War Battlefields along the Journey Through Hallowed Ground (Students can visit sites independently, in small groups or as a class field trip.)

4. Once students have gathered their data through on-line or on-site visits, return to the computer lab to complete a PowerPoint presentation that features the information listed below. Students may use the PowerPoint Guide for this segment of the project.

• Title and brief summary of book selection read
• Eight significant events in the story
• Copies of at least four primary sources that prove or disprove events in the civil war story.
• Final analysis of the value of primary source documents.  Students are challenged to answer the question, “Are primary source documents useful?”

Virginia Standards of Learning Connections (SOL's)

USI.1
The student will develop skills for historical and geographical analysis, including the ability to

1. identify and interpret primary and secondary source documents to increase understanding of events and life in United States history to 1877

USI.9
The student will demonstrate knowledge of the causes, major events, and effects of the Civil War by

1. describing the effects of war from the perspectives of Union and Confederate soldiers (including black soldiers), women, and slaves.

educationpage