Reconstruction+Project

The major goal of this era was to reunify the nation (or, according to some historians, unify the nation for the first time). In this project, you will be developing your own plan as to how to rectify the problems caused by the Civil War. You will work in groups of 3-4 people (depending on your class) and you will need to include the following things:

1. A description of the problems. 2. A list of the problems you are going to address in your solution. 3. Your plan for solving those problems. 4. Your plan for how to get others to "buy" into your solution.

You will present this information in a 5-10 minute presentation on...

To help you out, please look at the following document which lists several statistics at the end of the war:



You will have time in class during Classes #1-3 to work on this project. Remember to "sell" me on the merits of your plan! Be creative and learn from the successes and failures of those who have gone before you!


 * Additional Notes Added on 11/30/10**

When you present your projects, I expect you to cover all four of the aforementioned items above. This information should all be in your Keynote presentation (or Prezi or whatever format you are choosing to use). Furthermore, you need to be able to explain why you made all of the decisions that you did. Saying "I don't know" or "Because we felt like it" are not valid reasons. I am equally interested in the content (your plan) as I am in the rationale or logical reasoning for your plan.

In addition to this, you need to be able to explain why you chose to address the problems that you chose (and subsequently, why you chose to ignore other problems). While this does not need to be a formal slide in your Keynote, you do need to be able to address this. (If others in the class do not ask this question, I will!)

Finally, I expect you to be "active participants" during other groups' presentations. By that, I mean that you are asking questions of the other groups as to why they did things the way that they did, asking them about problems they may not have foreseen or addressed, etc. You are not supposed to "trash" other groups as a means for making your group look better. Rather, I want you to engage in a critical analysis of the performance of other groups. I reserve the right to adjust your individual grade by up to 10% (in either direction) based on your participation during other presentations.

This is a 50 point project grade. As long as you meet the criteria above and do so in a thorough manner, there is no reason why everyone in this room cannot receive full credit on this project. Good luck!