Start with a Question

Although I am also a participant, I had to opportunity and honor of presenting a breakout workshop at this year's History Connected summer institute .  Since the focus of the institute this year is on the impact that American wars have had on American society, I reached back into my files from a few years ago when I taught U.S. history in 8th grade to find a webquest I created on the War of 1812 .  Teachers got to "play student" and take part in a shortened version of the 4 day lesson.  Click the screen shot below to see the webquest website. Here is a brief day by day guide of the primary sources and analysis skills that students use as they complete the 4 day webquest. Day 1: Introduction to the Webquest and Madison's Declaration of War Students choose to be either Eliza or Joshua.  Both are 14-year-olds living in the United States before and during the war.   Then the students move on to reading Madison's war message explaining his reasons for asking Cong