Searching for Battles

  This week, my class took part in a activity that taught us about the battles that were fought during the Civil War. Each person in my class was given a battle that we were responsible for making a Google doc for. Everyone's Google doc had to consist of four items; the title of the battle, the victor, the theater, and two bullet points describing the battle. The "theater" simply means where the battle took place; either the eastern theater, western theater, or naval theater (involving any body of water). Once we had all our information gathered, we created QR codes using a qr generator so everyone could access the Google docs. The QR codes were printed out and placed in various spots around the school. Our task was to get the information from each Google doc and paste it on to our Evernote page. At the bottom of each Google doc was a clue as to where the next QR code would be. Once we had all the information from the 20 battles gathered, we came together as a class and created a Padlet on the patterns we found while taking notes of the battles. My classes Padlet can be seen below. 

Created with Padlet

    The essential question of the week was, "Who was the ultimate victor in each of the theaters of war; East, West, or Naval?", and "What are some commonalities you can identify in the reason for the result of battles?" As you can see on the class Padlet, the Union dominated most of the western theater and naval theater while the eastern theater was primarily dominated by the Confederacy.For example, the Confederates were able to dominate the eastern theater because they were well supplied and more composed than the Union. Many battles were won by the Confederates in the eastern theater such as the battles of Fredericksburg and Bull Run. Overall it is shown that the Confederates were well supplied in the east while the Union had ships handy and well composed plans for the west. The Union dominated the naval theater in battles such as the battle of Fort Henry and the battle of Fort Donelson. The Union had ships ready to fight so they were able to dominate the Naval theater. In the Western theater the Union were able to win many battles such as the battle of Shiloh and the battle of Chattanooga. The Union were able to surround and outnumber the Confederates in many battles, which caused them to dominate this theater. 

  The scavenger-hunt activity was probably my favorite activity that we've done all year. It gave my classmates and I the chance to get out of the class and walk around the school rather sitting at a desk. It was also interesting to learn how to create the QR codes because of how easy and fast it was. One downside to this activity was the problems with the WiFi. Some spots in the school didn't have great WiFi so it slowed down the process when we had limited time. The Padlet was also a new experience for many people in my class. Although it was a little disorganized, it was a new way to see my whole class collaborate on an idea. Overall, this weeks activity was surely one of the best ones so far. 

Getting Info with Infographics

  In class we looked at statistics, facts, and strategies of the North and the South during the time of the Civil War. The assignment was to create an infographic to show how the differences between the two effected each strategy and the outcome of the war. In my infographic that is shown below, I also add statistics that helped or harmed different sides of the war. 

The Election that Changed Everthing

   This week, my class learned about the election of 1860. Our essential question for the unit was how were the results of the Election of 1860 representative of the deep divisions over slavery? To answer this question, my class was assigned to make a video using the application Educreations. We first gathered information by watching a Crash Course video by John Green. Next we looked at a map from the class lesson notes on edline. This map showed that Lincoln, who was against slavery and felt as though it should be contained, completely won over the north of the country. The majority of the North, like Lincoln, was against slavery. States between the North and South voted differently. In some states Bell was the popular vote. He wanted to preserve the Union as it is while keeping slavery. Douglas believed that the way slavery should be spread is only if the people decided on it, and the only state he managed to convince was Missouri. Lastly, Breckenridge maintained that slavery should have no limits; he won over the majority of the South. With this information, we gathered pictures from The Civil War in Art page to create our videos. My groups video is below.



The Civil War in Art:
http://www.civilwarinart.org/exhibits/show/causes/introduction/the-election-of-1860-and-seces

Edline Information page:
http://www.edline.net/files/_CJKPB_/ee553a2c7835765f3745a49013852ec4/Election_of_1860_Lesson_Notes.pdf

Other sources found at end of video.Ele

The Elephant in the Room

  Recently, we have been learning about a topic that that goes with the famous phrase, "the elephant in the room". This phrase is a metaphor referring to an obvious truth that is being either unaddressed or ignored. The "elephant in the room" that we are referring to in this unit and in 19th century American politics was slavery. In class we learned about important events and people during this time such as The Compromise of 1850, Bleeding Kansas and the Lincoln-Douglas Debate. My class broke up into groups and gathered some information about these events. From the information we gathered we were able to create the timeline shown below.







We created these timelines using the application RTW Timeline. The first event that we documented was the Compromise of 1850. This compromise was only a temporary solution, to a problem that had no end in sight. The Gadsden Purchase that followed in 1853 worried Northern antislavery advocates because they couldn't get to this new territory as fast as the southerners could to settle it and vote it as either a free or slave state. As a result, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed which allowed Northerners to get to these new territories and settle them by railroad easier than the South could. They wanted to settle and get enough people there to vote them as salve states. The result, "Bleeding Kansas" The Missouri Compromise no longer is relevant considering it isn't being put into affect. The solutions still didn't do the trick.  To follow, Dred Scott thinks he should be free because he and his wife live in a free state, but court rules he is a slave and slaves aren't free or citizens. There was still so much controversy and no solution. This is shown when Charles Sumner makes a fiery anti slavery speech and is later attacked with a cane by Preston Brooks. This proves that slavery is still an ongoing unsolved issue that cause civilized men to resort to violence to show what they believe.