At this time last fall I received a great poster from TeachingHistory.org that featured a roadmap for conducting historical research. This year they’re back with another quality free poster for history teachers. This year’s poster is about the US Civil War. The poster is titled How Do You Piece Together the History of the Civil War? This 24″x36″ poster demonstrates some uses of primary documents and artifacts for reconstructing the history of the Civil War.

How Do You Piece Together the History of the Civil War? has an interactive companion site. The interactive version of the poster allows students to zoom-in on different parts of the poster and click through to find more information about those artifacts and their roles in the Civil War.

Applications for Education
I learned about How Do You Piece Together the History of the Civil War? from Glenn Wiebe who suggested getting the poster for your classroom and using the interactive site at the same time. Through both the poster and the site you can introduce students to the idea that a historical artifact is more than just an object, it can be the start of a great story.

After students explore the poster and interactive site, you could have them create their own interactive Civil War posters by using Glogster EDU.