The Civil War through a Child's Eye

1. Visual Literacy (option one)

• Discuss the role of photography in capturing reality.
• Talk about Nathaniel Epp from Bull Run who manipulated photographs.
• Complete the “Does the Camera Ever Lie?” activity from American Memory.

• Look at photographs and daguerreotypes as primary source materials.
• Introduce format for analyzing photographs.
• Conduct a whole class activity of analyzing photographs.
• Working in pairs, students analyze selected photographs using the Photo Analysis Guide
• Debrief results of analyses with entire class.
• Based on the results, student pairs write a caption for their selected photograph.
• Students share their selected photographs and captions in a gallery walk.

• Read historical fiction to explore causes and effects of the Civil War. See Resources for list of fiction.
• Use the KWL process to tap students’ prior knowledge (What I KNOW), identify research topics for student-selected investigations (What I WANT to know), and assess students’ learning (What I LEARNED).
• Compare photographic images and book illustrations of children from the Civil War Era.  Use selections from the Michael Lehman Williamson Collection of Civil War Books for Young People.
• Analyze primary text and compare the results with students’ interpretations of photographic images.  Use selections from American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project or other American Memory collections.

Lesson Overview | Teacher's Guide | Student Page | Images