This House Divided is an interdisciplinary project that invites your students to "experience" history first-hand through accounts of people, events, and situations related to the United States Civil War and its aftermath. The project is designed to provide learners with opportunities to investigate, interpret, and analyze multiple historical viewpoints related to important events. Over the next few weeks, your students will work cooperatively to conduct general research of this time period, as well as take an in-depth look at one specific topic. Students will demonstrate their understanding of this content in diverse and creative ways.

This House Divided provides students with the opportunity to master historical content, to develop and strengthen research skills, and to build upon language and critical thinking skills. Students will work cooperatively to personalize history by conducting close investigations of historic events through the use of the Questia™ online library, Web-based primary resources, and other authentic artifacts.

This House Divided is designed for the middle- and high-school classroom and is driven by the national content and performance standards of several disciplines, including Social Studies, Geography, English Language Arts, and Mathematics. It strives to engage students’ natural creativity and curiosity while encouraging them to direct their learning at their own pace. It uses technology to address diverse learning styles and allows students to demonstrate their comprehension through multiple formats. The structure of the project includes a comprehensive introduction that assesses and augments their background knowledge, three distinct, but interrelated guided learning phases, and a culminating event in which students demonstrate their knowledge to an audience of their peers and other invited guests.

Phase One: This Troubled House: 1820-1860: Students will research the events leading up to the U.S. Civil War, such as the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, and the Fugitive Slave Act. Each cooperative group will "interview" a key historical figure, such as John C. Calhoun, Andrew Jackson, John Brown, or Dred Scott, as well as ordinary citizens from the time period. These "interviews" will demonstrate an understanding of important events as well as different points of view.

Phase Two: This House Divided: 1860-1865: Students will become experts on one or more aspect of the civil war and share their "expertise" with the rest of the class. The class will create an interactive, multimedia timeline of the Civil War period based on their collective research of important battles, critical primary source documents, and important political and military leaders.

Phase Three: This House Rebuilt: 1865-1877: Students will explore the era of Reconstruction as investigative reporters. They will explore critical events and their underlying impact on the rebuilding of America. They will publish their exposés in a series of sensationalist newspapers.

The culminating event will be an opportunity for students to exhibit their work. Students will organize a Civil War event to present what they have learned and display their related projects to invited guests.

This House Divided sets high academic goals and offers students the means to achieve them by employing activities that address multiple learning styles. The project emphasizes the use of technology, primary sources, authoritative secondary sources, and other media to guide students toward an understanding of the geography, people, and history of the US Civil War and its aftermath. A distinct component of the project is its adaptability. Teachers can adjust any or all of the following structures to meet their students’ needs more adequately:

• Group Size: The number of students in each group can be altered.

• Time On Task: The time students are given to complete a task can be varied.

• Level of Support: Student support can be accentuated when needed.

• Task Difficulty: The skill level of each activity can be modified to address student individual needs.

Current research in teaching and learning guides the This House Divided project. Students must invest time, thought, and effort into their work to produce meaningful products that exhibit creativity, comprehension, and higher order thinking. As they engage in this project, your students will have the opportunity to work in small, cooperative groups while engaging in active, interdisciplinary learning. As they work to meet or exceed local, state, and national content and performance standards, they will engage in social interactions related to learning objectives and will use technology to incorporate resources from the larger community into their work.

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To see the online lesson plan for This House Divided, click here.

Related Lessons

What Do You Know About The U. S. Civil War - Grade Level 7-12 - Many students believe that the Civil War was “simply” about the issue of slavery: that the North wanted to abolish slavery and the South wanted to continue to keep slaves. This activity is designed to expand students thinking on that topic. It will help assess your students’ prior knowledge while at the same time providing them with an overview and context of the civil war period, including events leading up to the war and the era of reconstruction.

Found Poetry: The Red Badge of Courage - Grade Level 9-10 - Of all the literature about the Civil War, Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage is probably the most famous. Each student will create a “found poem” based on Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage. Found poetry is the rearrangement of words or phrases taken from another source (in this case The Red Badge of Courage) in a manner that gives the rearranged words a new meaning and emphasis. Structurally, it is similar to the process of creating a visual collage; however, instead of using pictures, the poet creates a collage with words.

Channel 1: Civil War News - Grade Level 9-10 - This activity is designed to provide students with an in-depth look at some of the significant events that led to the Civil War. Students will develop research skills and assimilate information as they write and produce a short news segment on a specific topic. This activity will help students integrate individual stories about events to form a complete conception of this period in time.

The Debate Over Slavery - Grade Level 10-11 - Did all northerners want to abolish slavery? Did all southerners believe slavery was moral and just? In this activity, students will examine the complexity of the slavery issue prior to the U.S. Civil War. Students will research different viewpoints from the pre-Civil War era and use the information gathered to conduct mock-interviews with key historical figures from the time period.

Attending The South Carolina Secession Convention - Grade Level 10-11 - Soon after Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union. In this activity, your students will read about the South Carolina Secession Convention. As “appointed commissioners” of the convention, their job is to inform politicians and representatives of other slave states that South Carolina decided to secede and to invite them to meet for the framing of a Confederacy of States. They will communicate this information by writing and publishing a pamphlet, which was an appropriate format for the time period.

What's This Voting? - Grade Level 9-10 - In the foreword of Howard Fast’s post-Civil War novel, Freedom Road, W.E.B. Du Bois writes: “His story is fiction, but his basic historical accuracy is indisputable; its psychological insight is profound; and thousands of readers can testify to its literary charm.” (Freedom Road by Howard Fast, http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=26142168 (p. xviii)) This activity is designed to introduce students to the novel Freedom Road by Howard Fast. It explores some of the problems associated with Reconstruction as it helps prepare students for the use of dialect used throughout the novel.

The U. S. Civil War: Interactive and Online - Grade Level 9-10 - When the Civil War began, most people thought it would end quickly. The north had more men, more factories, and more weapons. President Lincoln asked for only three months’ service from each volunteer. However, the south had better military leaders and knew the territory better. Many southerners felt they were fighting a second war of independence. In this activity, your students will research key battles, important events, and significant individuals of the U.S. Civil War. They will use this information to create a comprehensive web site. Students will contribute questions about their specific topics for an online quiz about the U.S. Civil War.

Amending The Constitution - Grade Level 10-12 - The “Emancipation Proclamation” was an important first step to ending slavery in the United States. However, it took three constitutional amendments to ensure that black Americans were free citizens with the right to vote. In this activity, students will research the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. They will create brochures that explain and explore each of these significant amendments.

Reconstruction News - Grade Level 9-10 - In this activity your students will become “investigative reporters” during the reconstruction era. Students will work cooperatively to research critical events and the impact of those events. They will explore point-of-view and use the information to create a reconstruction era newspaper.

Let's Go To The Exhibit - Grade Level 7-12 - In this activity your students will make artifacts from the Civil War era. These artifacts will be collected and used to design an informational kiosk. “By creating their own collections, students validate and substantiate events of the past in their mind. When they select and assemble their own collections, historical concepts become less abstract. Pupils hold a piece of history in their hands.”