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Civil War Voice Wall Project

The following project was created by Julie Bray, Darlene Russell, and Mark Hofer and was implemented in a sixth grade U.S. History class during a unit on the Civil War in Spring 2006. The purpose of the project was to engage students more deeply in their study of the Civil War to enable them not only to learn the key content (i.e. Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, etc.), but also to understand the multiple perspectives of different people who lived through the war. We agreed that having the students develop a story about their chosen person from a narrative perspective (as opposed to a report format) might be more engaging for the students and also encourage them to go beyond an "electronic encyclopedia entry." To this end, throughout the research and writing phases, Mrs. Bray and Mrs. Russell continually emphasized finding the "defining moment" for their character and challenging them to work from that focal point. Below is a short summary of the process we employed.

Phase One: Research (approximately one week in the social studies class)

After being assigned a partner (and in some cases, two partners), students selected a character from the project introduction handout. They then used a set of printed encyclopedias, Civil War books, novels, and primary source documents to begin to paint a picture of their character. Bi-weekly research card checks helped to ensure that the students kept on top of the research. Once the groups had developed a general understanding of their character, we took them to the computer lab to extend their research and also collect images to incorporate into their stories (it later occurred to us that the image collection phase should be postponed until after the writing phase to provide students with more direction on what types of images to collect). We provided a short list of useful sites from which they could begin. We required students to keep a careful list of where they found their information and images so that they could properly site them in their project.

Phase Two: Writing (approximately one week in the language arts class)

Once they were nearly finished with the research phase, students began the writing phase using a storyboard organizer. Two of the classes were challenged to write from a first person perspective. The other two were to write from third person perspective. Before beginning any writing, the groups had to identify the defining moment for the character. This would serve as the central theme of the story. This organizer structured the writing into the following five sections:

The writing was done entirely in hard copy so that students would be able to take their work home with them, exchange copies with peer editors, and work with parents in the evening on revising their work. Multiple checks of students drafts and revisions were recorded by Mrs. Russell to keep students focused and on-task. After each student wrote a script for the movie individually, the group members came together to decide which pieces they might use to develop their final script. During this process, they also selected images that would be displayed in the movie during the narration of specific parts and any music or sound effects they wanted to include.

Phase Three: Production (approximately one week in the social studies class)

Once the groups had completed their scripts, we brought in a classroom set of Windows laptops so that students could begin actually creating their films. The students worked with Windows MovieMaker software to create the movies. The began by arranging the images they had selected on the MovieMaker timeline and adding necessary titles and credits. They then began recording the narration they had written. Due to space constraints, some students recorded the narration directly into the computers using inexpensive microphones. Other students were given a small digital audio recorder and recorded their narration outside. They then synchronized the timing of the pictures with the narration (the most tedious part). They finished by adding sound effects, music, and effects and transitions. The students then exported their movies as video files.

Celebration

All the students, their parents, other teachers and administrators were invited to an evening red carpet premiere of the student films. We created a DVD for each student with all the movies from their class and distributed them that night. Mrs. Bray and Mrs. Russell selected three movies from each class to show during premiere night. We also put together a brief movie showing still pictures of the students at work paired with music to make sure everyone received some "screen time." Please click here to see some sample movies.

For more information or comments, please contact Mark Hofer (mark.hofer@wm.edu) at the College of William & Mary.