Final Project: Facebook History of the Civil War

Final Project Description

Tell the story of the American Civil War in a facebook format. On the day of your history final, you will have an opportunity to share your project with classmates and compete for awards (most historically accurate, funniest, best pop culture references, etc.). Your project must be professional in appearance (produced electronically).

Content

Your project should demonstrate a deep familiarity with and understanding of the events, ideas, and people involved in the American Civil War.  This includes events leading up to the Civil War, the war itself, and the aftermath of the war.

Your project must include the following:

1. Slavery’s roots (i.e., Jamestown, Constitutional Convention, Whitney’s cotton gin)
2. Roots of state vs. national sovereignty (i.e., Great Compromise in the Constitutional Convention, Kentucky Resolutions, McCulloch v. Maryland, Andrew Jackson’s Nullification Crisis)
3. Character(s) from Huckleberry Finn or Mark Twain
4. Missouri Compromise
5. Compromise of 1850
6. Personal liberty laws
7. Kansas-Nebraska Act
8. Brooks canes Sumner
9. New Political Parties emerge
10. Dred Scott
11. John Brown
12. Election of 1860
13. Secession and the creation of the Confederacy
14. Fort Sumter
15. Anaconda plan
16. Bull Run
17. McClellan
18. Shiloh
19. Farragut
20. Ironclads
21. New weapons (i.e., Minié ball, rifles, long-range artillery, rear-loading firearms)
22. Antietam
23. The Trent Affair
24. Emancipation Proclamation
25. Copperheads
26. 54^th Massachusetts
27. Clara Barton
28. Wartime governmental actions (i.e., suspension of habeas corpus, conscription, income tax)
29. Gettysburg (Killer Angels)
30. Vicksburg
31. Sherman’s March
32. Appomattox
33. Economic and human costs of the Civil War
34. Thirteenth Amendment
35. John Wilkes Booth

In addition to these events, you may include other events/people you think are significant.

Grading Criteria

Sequential:         Posts relating to the events should be in correct sequence and dates should reflect the chronology.

Accurate:             Information presented should be historically accurate and reflect an understanding of the significance of events and the people involved.

Complete:           All 35 events should be addressed.

Connected:        Posts should have comments showing how various individuals respond to each other and to historical developments.

Clever:                  Comments and posts should be fun. Historical figures and even people from pop culture should respond to each other in witty ways.

Appropriate:      Humor should be appropriate.

Professional:      The final product should be produced electronically.  Print a copy to bring to class the day of the final exam.  The following web application will allow you to recreate the facebook format: http://thewallmachine.com/.

Huck Finn Essay Ideas

• ·         Interpret Twain’s warning at the beginning of the novel.
• ·         How does Huck overcome Southern bad faith?
• ·         Are Huck and Jim friends? Explore their relationship. Are Tom and Huck friends?
• ·         What is the novel saying about slavery? In what ways is Huck a slave? Why is that significant?
• ·         Explore leadership and power and bad faith.
• ·         Autobiographical reading of the novel
• ·         Honor—How is the book a satire on Southern culture?
• ·         Death—why is the book seemingly obsessed with it?
• ·         Tom Sawyer vs. Huck Finn: romantic vs. realist; Huck and Jim; King & Duke; Pap?; Sherburn; Emmeline Grangerford; Don Quixote
• ·         Is the book a story of innocence lost? (Garden of Eden?) Innocence never had?
• ·         Explore family in the novel. Jim’s family, Pap, families along the river, Widow?, etc.
• ·         How does the reader engage in bad faith with Twain? (Jim and Huck friends?)
• ·         Is the book meant to be funny? Is it funny? If so, why is it funny? Is the book a comedy or a tragedy? Does it fit Twain’s idea of a comic or humorous story? (From his essay “How to Tell a Story”
• ·         Do a psychoanalytic reading of Twain through the novel.
• ·         Or psychoanalyze a character.
• ·         Explore the role of bad faith in the novel.
• ·         Explore the idea of escaping civilization in the novel.
• ·         What the reader infers from the novel, and what that says about the book’s popularity.
• ·         Explore Huck and Jim’s relationship.
• ·         Compare and contrast the various pranks/scams/deceptions in the novel.
• ·         Explore the role of superstition and religion (Christianity in the antebellum South) in the novel.
• ·         Why the reference to Shakespeare?
• ·         Explore race relations in the novel.
• ·         King and the Duke—Why does Huck become a slave to them? Is Huck a slave in other ways?
• ·         Is Huck a hero? Who is heroic? Jim? Does this novel fit the heroic cycle?
• ·         How does Huck change through the novel?
• ·         The white suit and hypocrisy in the novel? Whited sepulchers—how is this novel itself a whited sepulcher?
• ·         Analyze the Sherburn incident.  What is Twain saying about “average-ness”? What is Twain saying about majorities? Cowardice?

Chapters 7 & 8 Study Guide

Chapters 7 & 8 Study Guide

How did the Industrial Revolution contribute to the growing sectionalism in the United States?

What were the consequences of the invention of the cotton gin?

Describe Henry Clay’s American System.  What was it? How was it supposed to  help the nation overcome sectionalism?

John Quincy Adams

Nationalism

Adams-Onís Treaty

What was the Monroe Doctrine? What motivated it? What role did the British play in its creation?

What motivated the Missouri Compromise?  Who promoted it?

Andrew Jackson

                Election of 1828

                Democratic Party

                Spoils system

                Indian policy:

                                Removal

                                Assimilation

                                “Treaties”

                                Washington’s intended policy of treaties

                                Jackson’s policy of removal (Indian Removal Act of 1830)

                Trail of Tears

                Nullification

                The Bank War

                Jacksonian Democracy

                Autocratic-democrat

What were the trends in the slave population of the South?

Who were the key leaders of the abolition movement? How did they disseminate their ideas?

In what ways did slaves resist slavery?

What was the Second Great Awakening? Describe the unique religious practices and beliefs of the following:

• ·         Seventh-Day Adventists
• ·         Christian Scientists
• ·         Methodists
• ·         Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• ·         Shakers

How did immigration reshape America’s workforce during the first half of the 19^th century?

How did employers and the law respond to workers’ strikes?

Describe working and living conditions for girls at the Lowell Mills.

Who were the key leaders of the feminist movement and what role did they play?  What was the relationship between the feminist movement and other reforms (abolition and temperance)?

What was the Seneca Falls Convention? What was the Declaration of Sentiments?

What was McCulloch v. Maryland about? In Part I of the decision, the Supreme Court explains why the people are sovereign and not the states.  What is the reasoning for this? In Part II, the Supreme Court interprets the meaning of the “necessary and proper” clause because it is trying to determine whether the Bank of the United States is constitutional.  Explain the Court’s argument about the meaning of the “necessary and proper” clause.

Explain the mudsill theory. Why does Hammond argue the North is in a more precarious situation than the South?

What specific evidence does Frederick Douglass give to overturn misconceptions about slavery? Give several examples.

Understand the arguments in favor of slavery put forward by Thomas Dew.

Be able to interpret passages from Walden.

What is the proper role of books, according to Emerson? What is the relationship between thought and action, according to Emerson? What is nature?

Explain the concept of the Oversoul.

Identify the following:

Martin Van Buren

Whig Party

William Henry Harrison

John Tyler

Henry Clay

John C. Calhoun

Sojourner Truth

Lucretia Mott

Sarah and Angelina Grimké

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Nat Turner

Gag rule

William Lloyd Garrison

Frederick Douglass

Henry David Thoreau

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Transcendentalism

Charles Grandison Finney

Brook Farm

Perfectionism

Communalism

Political Parties Paper (Explanatory Writing)

The first American political parties emerged during Washington’s first term as president.  Since then, the United States has seen political parties come and go, but always with two dominant political parties.  The current two party system has dominated American government since the 1850s.  Your job is to write a clear and accurate explanation of the key differences between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.

Audience

Maeser Seniors will be graduating at the end of the semester.  Many will be registering to vote for the first time and deciding whether to join a political party.  Many of the Seniors either do not know much about the political parties or have been misinformed by biased sources.  Your paper will help provide an unbiased explanation of the key differences between the parties.  The Seniors may not understand much yet about the U.S. party system, but they want to be educated and conversant in the topic.

Use examples, analogies, similes, and/or metaphors that will help make the differences between the two political parties clear to Seniors.

Appropriate Voice

• Formal and objective
• Use political jargon appropriately.  You will need to define and use terms such as the following:
•  Political spectrum, center-left, center-right, liberalism, conservativism, libertarian, progressive, social liberalism/conservativism, etc.

Other Specifications

• MLA formatting required
• Length: 500-600 words (include word count in MLA heading after the date)
• Include a graphic (table or figure) to help Seniors understand the political parties.  Cite the table using appropriate MLA conventions.
• Use headings to help your reader follow the organization of your paper.

Due Date: Wednesday, February 1