Work in a group to create a five-minute oral presentation supported by a PowerPoint slide show. The overall presentation should be a synopsis of what the group has deduced from the analysis of documents received.

The PowerPoint presentation should be five-to-six slides based upon the group analysis, research, and previous knowledge. The presentation should also include a bibliography. Your group will present its PowerPoint to the class.

You will be given a chance to look at several document sets that reflect various perspectives of women during the Civil War. Select the document set that piques your interest and join a group of your classmates to work with these documents.

Your group will be given handouts about primary source analysis, Questions for Analyzing Text and Ephemera and Questions for Analyzing Photographs (Require: Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0). Using these handouts, you will begin to do an in-depth analysis of the document set your group has chosen. You will be guided through the analysis and the answering of the handout questions. When the analysis is complete, your teacher will sign off on the handout.

After completing the analysis, your group should begin to plan its presentation - doing research that is needed and gathering pertinent information to support your observations. When your group has planned the oral presentation and blocked out the PowerPoint slides, you may go to the computer lab. In the lab you will locate the documents you are using in your presentation in the American Memory collections and begin putting together the PowerPoint presentation.

Questions/comments to consider when creating your PowerPoint presentation:

1. Summarize the content of each of the documents of photographs.
2. Comment on women's place, role or voice in the document.
3. Describe how the women were involved in the Civil War. What was the nature of their involvement?
4. How is a woman's role different or similar to the role of a soldier in the Civil War?
5. What opportunities for political or personal action exist for the women you studied?

Your group will be assigned a day for making your presentation to the class.

Assignment 2

Textbooks present only a small fraction of the knowledge available on a given subject. This knowledge is also presented from the individual point of view of the textbook author. It is not always easy to for writers to synthesize information from several different perspectives and condense it into a readable entry. It is time for you to try your hand at this endeavor.

You are individually responsible for writing a 500 word textbook entry on women in the Civil War.

Following the PowerPoint presentations, the class will discuss the findings and form some generalizations about women's experiences in the Civil War. There will be a brainstorming session about what a textbook author of an entry on women in the Civil War would include.

Questions/comments to consider when writing your textbook entry:

1. Go to your own textbook and read the section on women in the Civil War. If the textbook does not include a section on women, consider why this is so.
2. Note how the entries are written and how much space is given to a specific issue.
3. Does the text integrate information about women or does it stand alone in a side bar or separate column?
4. Write your own entry as an attempt to broaden the reader's understanding of the Civil War.

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