There is no calendar this week as we will be watching Glory. The Gettysburg HW will be due Thursday.
Dear Parents and Guardians,
I wanted to write and let you know that students have expressed a deep interest in learning more about the discrimination and hardships faced by African American troops during the Civil War. As a result I would like to show them most of the the film Glory. However, it is rated R so if you do NOT want your child to view this film please send in a note and I will provide an alternate assignment.
Thanks,
Faith Bisbee
INFO on Glory
Age: 14+; MPAA Rating -- R for violence; Drama; 1989; 122 minutes; Color.
Description: Glory tells the story of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Regiment, the first regular U.S. army unit composed of black soldiers during the Civil War. Colonel Shaw, a white abolitionist, and hundreds of black volunteers in his regiment, gave their lives to prove that black men could fight as well as whites in the armies of the mid-19th century.
Rationale for Using the Movie: After an extensive review of the Colonel Shaw's letters, TWM estimates that the movie is 90% historically accurate. The film addresses a significant episode in U.S. history, the effort by abolitionists to make the Civil War into a war to end slavery, rather than just a war to preserve the Union. The fact that black men would take up arms and fight and die on the Union side was a major step in changing Northern attitudes toward slavery and the purpose of the war. The assault on Fort Wagner in which the Massachusetts 54th lost hundreds of men was "a turning point in recognition of blacks' capacity to serve in the army". Foner pp. 251 - 253.
Objectives/Student Outcomes: Students will understand the struggle to make an end to slavery a goal of the Civil War. They will expand their knowledge of the participation of black soldiers in the Civil War as well as the commitment of white abolitionists to the cause of ending slavery. Research and writing assignments in pursuit of these topics can be of great benefit in the study of the conflict that cost more American lives than any other.
Possible Problems: Portions of the film graphically show the violence of the Civil War and the suffering of the soldiers. However, the violence is not gratuitous in its depiction of the horrors that the soldiers would experience in battle.
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