Lesson Plan

War Has Been Declared: Middle School Lesson Plan

Painting: Fire and thick black smoke billow over a rectangular building that sits over water.
Grade Level:
Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade
Subject:
Social Studies
Lesson Duration:
90 Minutes
Common Core Standards:
6-8.RH.1, 6-8.RH.2, 6-8.RH.4, 6-8.RH.6, 6-8.RH.7, 6-8.RH.9
State Standards:
Georgia SS8H5b
Additional Standards:
Georgia L6-8RHSS: 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, & 9.
Thinking Skills:
Remembering: Recalling or recognizing information ideas, and principles. Understanding: Understand the main idea of material heard, viewed, or read. Interpret or summarize the ideas in own words. Analyzing: Break down a concept or idea into parts and show the relationships among the parts. Evaluating: Make informed judgements about the value of ideas or materials. Use standards and criteria to support opinions and views.

Essential Question

What impact did the Emancipation Proclamation and the Atlanta Campaign have on the southern states?

Objective

a. Students will analyze the Emancipation Proclamation and determine its impact on the war and the southern states.
b. Students will explore key events within the Atlanta Campaign and share accurate, learned information with classmates.

Background

Tensions grew for many years before the first shots rang out at Fort Sumter, signaling the beginning of the Civil War. There was a clear division between the north and the south's perspectives of this young country. The Missouri Compromise, The Compromise of 1850, The Dred Scott Decision, and the 1860's election did not occur in a matter of days of each other. These events spanned forty years. To people in the south, those long years of dissatisfaction intensified when Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860. This was a final straw that led to several southern states seceding from the Union.

Fort Sumter was a United States fort inside what was now Confederate territory. South Carolina's governor, Francis Pickens, learned the United States intended to resupply the fort. This meant the U.S soldiers intended to stay; this was not the peaceful evacuation the southerners hoped for. Instead, it piled on to the tension and was a move against their declared independence from the United States. A series of letters were exchanged between Fort Sumter's commander, Major Robert Anderson, and Confederate General P.G.T Beauregard. In the end, six thousand Confederate troops bombarded the fort with artillery. Fire broke out in the fort on the second day. Major Anderson had to surrender. The Civil War had begun.

Preparation

Teachers can choose individual or all activities depending on their goals, available time, and their students. It is important to read through all the material and webpages before beginning the activities. 

Lesson Hook/Preview

Watch 3 short NPS videos about Abraham Lincoln. After each video, instruct students to write in their journals for one minute to reflect on what they heard. 

  1. Ranger Reflections (Ranger Williams talks about her changing views of Lincoln as a person who grew up in the South when it was still strongly impacted by the Civil War.)
  2. Shaping Lincoln: Abraham Lincoln Before the Presidency (Ranger Corman talks about Lincoln as a child to a young adult.)
  3. A New Birth of Freedom (NPS video talks about President Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation.)

Procedure

Activity 1: Emancipation Proclamation

  1. Project the Emancipation Proclamation on the board. You can also provide the link to students who may need the document closer to them. The document is two pages. Click on one a time and zoom in as needed.
  2. Cover up all but the first paragraph. Prompt students to identify and define any vocabulary we studied earlier.
  3. Encourage one volunteer to read the paragraph aloud. Then, instruct the class to read it aloud together.
  4. Prompt students to share any words or phrases that stand out to them in this paragraph. 
  5. Create a short paragraph of the summary together. Students will write this summary in their journals.
  6. Repeat #2-5 for each paragraph. 

Activity 2: The Atlanta Campaign

  1. Instruct students to read information about one of the final campaigns of the Civil War at Civil War Places: The Atlanta Campaign.
  2. Review the map of the campaign. What do the different colors represent? What are the names referencing? How long was the campaign?
  3. Think-Pair-Share Activity: Count off the students 1-4, then have them write down their number very large on a piece of paper. Instruct students to stand and hold up their number. Give students 30 seconds to find one partner with the same number. Announce one question and provide 3 minutes for partners to share their answers. Before announcing each question, instruct students to find a different partner (ie: evens together and odds together; or 1s and 4s and 2s and 3s together)
    1. Do you think you could walk the whole distance of the Atlanta Campaign? Why or why not?
    2. Have you visited any of these sites? What was it like?
    3. What are the pros and cons to fighting in the mountains or near rivers? 
  4. Instruct the students to get into larger groups based on their numbers (ie: all the 1s together). Provide each group with two NPS online videos about the Atlanta Campaign or the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. Students will take notes about their videos. (Atlanta Campaign is a series of 5 videos four to thirteen minutes in length. Battle Anniversary is a series of 20 videos five to fourteen minutes in length. Choose which videos to assign before class.)
  5. Groups take turns sharing information about their videos in a creative way. They could create a poem, song, poster, letter, or other creative way to explain the information in the video.

Activity 3: Reflections of War from an Author

  1. Ambrose Bierce was a Union soldier during most of the Civil War. He was discharged from service after receiving a significant injury at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in Georgia. Then, he became an author where his numerous short stories give us real life depictions of the horrors of war.
  2. Pass out blank paper. Instruct the students to fold it to make 8 even squares (4 x 2).
  3. Play an audio clip of Bierce's short story,"One of the Missing." (Caution: please review ahead of time to determine appropriateness for your class maturity level.) 
  4. Students can read along with the transcript attached to the audio clip if needed.
  5. Stop the story periodically to check for understanding. The story flips back and forth between present time and flashbacks. Bierce also uses a lot of figurative language to describe ordinary objects or activities. Ensure students are following the plot line.
  6. While the audio clip is paused and after you check for understanding, instruct the students to creatively write about the emotions of the soldier from the preceding clip in one box. Some options include: a short poem or rap; a word collage; or an acrostic poem.

Vocabulary

The following words are found in the Emancipation Proclamation which can be a difficult document to comprehend. Depending on your class, it may be important to make a separate activity pre-teaching this vocabulary. 

Consider assigning groups of students with one or two words they will need to research then role play in front of the class. [alternative: groups could draw a poster of their word instead of role play] Display the words and definition on a board in the classroom for easy reference when discussion the primary document.

  1. Proclamation - an important public or official announcement
  2. Rebellion - an act of violent or open resistance to an established government or ruler
  3. Thenceforward - from that time, place, or point forward
  4. Aforesaid - referring to a thing, or person previously mentioned
  5. Virtue - a good or useful quality 
  6. Suppressing - prevent the development, action, or expression of
  7. Designate - appoint someone to a specified position
  8. Invoke - cite or appeal to someone as an authority for an action or in support of an argument
  9. Warranted - justify or necessitate a certain course of action
  10. Independence - not connected with another or each other; separate

Enrichment Activities

  1. Develop a creative Propaganda Poster on the Emancipation Proclamation.
  2. Write a “Modern Day" Emancipation Proclamation. Each student chooses a current event or topic they want to get rid of or change. They should use the original document as a model for their modern proclamation.

Additional Resources

More information about the Civil War in Georgia from the NPS:

Related Lessons or Education Materials

Other lesson in this series from Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park:

Other lessons about the Civil War from Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park:

Contact Information

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Tags: social studies civil war kennesaw mountain national battlefield park national park service union army confederate army abraham lincoln emancipation proclamation military art and education lesson plan

Last updated: November 30, 2023