History is like any other area of study: our understanding of it grows and shifts over time. Through their work, historians can help shape our cultural understandings of history. Indeed, the study of how the work of historians itself changes over time is called historiography. But historians do not do their work in a vacuum. Cultural movements can shape a popular understanding of events in a way that even affects how historians view things.
The Civil War in America is a perfect example of this phenomena. Viewed by most people initially as a triumph, a restoration of the Union and a new birth of freedom for all Americans, it was not long before differing views, like the Lost Cause Myth, took hold of popular and historical views of the war. But the Lost Cause did not hold sway forever, because America is always changing. This workshop will focus on showing young learners who are interested in college-level history how this process, and historiography, work.
Using the acclaimed The Civil War documentary by Ken Burns as a starting point, learners will journey with Headmaster Galahad back in time to see how history and culture intertwine to shape our memories of the most important event in post-Revolutionary America. While doing so, learners will also engage with the historiography of American historians.
In this 6-week workshop, students will learn:
- How to read and process history books like a college student
- How to evaluate scholarly work (secondary sources)
- The history of American history
- How and why views of the Civil War have changed over time
- How to analyze the events and people of the Civil War
- The causes and events of the Civil War
This is 6-session teen focus workshop. Bi-weekly webinars are 50 minutes long. Recordings are available for students who must miss a session.
Streamed episodes of the Ken Burns’ documentary The Civil War are accessible to students in this workshop for free. If you would like to have access to the documentary after the class is over, purchase links to the DVD format or Amazon Prime streaming can be found below.
Ken Burns’ The Civil War
