History 118 - United States History, 1865 - Present - Stonis

Digital History Project – Confederate Monuments Project

Instructions

Civic engagement is a dialogue between community members and their government. This engagement is often in response to community members wanting to participate in the civic process to bring about change. This semester you are learning that history is about change over time or lack thereof. I have encouraged you to see history as more than only places, dates, and names, but rather as an interconnected web of stories that still have something important to impart to us today. 

YOU are living in a historical moment. All moments are, but often we don’t realize them as such until after the fact. With your team, you’ll choose a public monument (or, by popular demand, a public mural). Your task is to educate the public (our classroom) to bring about change to this piece of public art and historical memory. Your project should be educational, persuasive, and balance the present realities with their historical precedents (historical context). 

While the United States is not a direct democracy, we do have power to bring about change. We can speak to our elected officials, contact our representatives, participate in public marches, use the power of the pen, donate to causes, and much more. Now is your time, both in history and in our class, to demonstrate what you are learning in this history course while using your historical thinking skills. History has its eyes on you. 
 

Your DHP PowerPoint or Google Slides Presentation for the Confederate Monuments Project
Each Bolded Section is the Title of the Slide & You Can Have 2 Slides Max for Each Section: 

• • Home
    A creative cover slide that sets the visual tone and introduces the project’s theme – show what you know
  • Historical Background
    A comprehensive historical overview of your theme during 2 (TWO) time periods: the time period memorialized by the confederate monument AND the time period that it was created for public viewing  
    500-600 word length
    Provide the specific historical background, meaning the historical context, of the Confederate monument and the time period it was erected in public. Write in essay format on the slide. What time period is reflected in the monument, and what was happening at the time? Then situate this piece of public art within space and time, meaning when was it built and where? Who designed it? Who paid for it? Does this information tell us anything about why it was created?
  • Monument
    A comprehensive analysis of your chosen monument and how it would be recreated to be more historically accurate. Also, show us a BEFORE image of the Confederate Monument and AFTER image of your newly reimagined monument.
    See the detailed list below of all required components. Organize these 2 slides to clearly address each of the requirements by using headers. 
  • Archive 
    A gallery of a minimum of 2 new primary sources not seen anywhere else on website
    Each primary source would have a visual image thumbnail and a citation in Chicago Manual of Style as the image caption.
  • Further Learning 
    A gallery of a minimum of 2 secondary sources not seen anywhere else on website
    Each primary source would have a visual image thumbnail and a citation in Chicago Manual of Style as the image caption.
  • About Us
    Explain who you are and how your team divided every aspect of the DHP workload
    Who wrote the background section? Did you edit your teammate’s work? First names and last initials only. There is to be no identifying information of mine or yours on the entire website.

Requirements for the Monument Section (see paragraph on Monument above)

This section of PowerPoint MUST address all four of these requirement components in detail plus show us before and after visuals of the public art:

1. In its original form, what does the monument show and communicate?

2. What is the controversy? What is historically inaccurate or historically incomplete about it?

3. What change(s) do you propose? Create a visual of the reimagined piece. How will these changes fix the issue(s)? What does the revision do to improve the historical accuracy of the monument?

4. What is the historical significance of the monument? Why is it important to make the changes you propose?

 

Required on the Due Date: Project will be uploaded to Canvas dropbox. Discussion questions will be used along the way to scaffold the project and encourage students to work on it throughout the course. Be on time. Let’s build something historical, yet new.