January, 2015
Mr. Lewis
During the Civil War, most Americans (and people in other countries) learned about the war from their local newspaper. Newspaper correspondents traveled with the armies, and wrote reports from the front lines. Unlike today, the reporters were not censored, but like today they were able to allow the politics of their readers to influence their stories.
You and your partners are a newspaper staff working in September 1862. Your job is to report the Battle of Antietam as completely as possible. Field reports are available, as are photographs of the battle scene (consult the websites listed on the library pathfinder page). It’s your job to determine how to best cover the story, write it, and then to create stories for your “newspaper”, highlighting the following:
An account of the battle, along with battle statistics (number dead, areas captured by which side, and other information). Eyewitness statements (quotes) of those directly involved in the battle. Maps of the various phases of the battle, AND/OR photographs of the battle scene or of the aftermath of the battle. An editorial position regarding whether President Lincoln should (or should not) emancipate the slaves. (Recall that this obviously would not be popular in the South, but was also opposed in the North by many.) If you say that he should free the slaves, you should suggest how this should be done.As a group, you should go about this task in the following manner:
- Two people will do the appropriate “reporting”(research on the web), and write the stories. Each person will write a separate story.
- One person (or two, if your group has four people) will investigate and write an editorial (stating what you believe the opinion of your newspaper and area of the country would be) regarding the emancipation issue. Remember, you are trying to convince others that your view is right.
- All members of your group will work to find pictures that effectively highlight the story as well as maps that will let your readers know what happened in this battle.
- All members of your group will edit the stories your reporters contribute, write the headlines and put captions to the pictures. Remember, all work your group does should be readable, but it should also be in your own words. If you use a source, be sure to “quote” that source when you write the story. Finally, some simple journalism rules: Remember good newspaper stories contain a strong opening sentence which contains enough information and is interesting enough to “hook” the reader into reading the rest of the story.
You will submit the work to me as word processing documents. You SHOULD include images, but you SHOULD NOT try to make the documents "look like a newspaper." Each member of the group must submit an individual file.
Also, good newspaper stories answer the following questions (which should be familiar to you by now!):
- Who (the people or groups involved in the incident)
- What (what happened)
- When (at what time/date did the event occur?)
- Where (geographically, what is the location of this event?)
- Why (for what reasons did the event occur?)
- How (in this instance, how did this incident occur... how was the battle fought, what types of strategies were used, etc.)
Finally, an editorial is an opinion story, written in the first person plural. The writer is trying to persuade her audience. A news story is factual, and in your case you will need to cite the sources of all of your information.
Project Duration
This project will begin on Monday, January 12th and your papers are due on Friday, January 16th by 4:00 PM at the latest. The project will count for 30 points. You can earn up to 20 points for your individual contributions and up to 10 points for the collective group output.
NOTE: If you need to cite the packet I gave you, here is the info you will need:
Title: Antietam National Battlefield Teacher's Packet-High School
Author: National Park Service
Copyright Date: None
URL: http://www.nps.gov/anti/forteachers/upload/Revised-Teacher-Packet-HS.pdf
Date Accessed: Use January 16, 2015
Assignments
The following are the partners and assignments for the project:
Bell 4Banks, Zhang, Guan
Nashville, Tennessee
Bao, Barrett, Switzer
Annapolis, Maryland
Fletcher, Kuai, Snow
New York City--Democratic
Leahy, Yu, OuYang
Charleston, South Carolina
Mancini, Yang, Wright
Boston, Massachusetts
Sung, Rickrode, Nguyen
Atlanta, Georgia
Bell 7Austin, Bean, Vavlas
New York City--Republican
Buckingham, Chen, Chen
Richmond, Virginia
Conyngham, Fania, Hall
Lawrence, Kansas
Hanshaw, Lentine, Moss
Springfield, Illinois
Novinger, Park, Patel, Patil
London, England
Rogers, Seong, Sheth
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania