The Library of Congress

The Mathew Brady Bunch

Student Project Outline

Task

You are a reporter during the Civil War. You will be viewing hundreds of photographs taken by Mathew Brady and other photographers who are out in the field. Your job is to sort through their photographs and find one that will bring the war alive to your readers. Once you find this "perfect" picture, you will write a corresponding newspaper article.

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Background

The Civil War was one of the first wars caught on film. The majority of the photographs taken during the war were by Mathew Brady and other photographers who worked for him. American Memory, which is part of the Library of Congress, includes a collection of over 1000 of these photographs which have been digitized and published on the World Wide Web. It is from this collection of Selected Civil War Photographs 1861-1865 that you will select your photograph.

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How To Be An Investigative Reporter

• Photographic analysis
  Before you can begin, practice learning how to analyze a photograph. What you see is not necessarily what you get! Look at a photograph from the Civil War given to you by your teacher. Looking at your photograph, complete the Photographic Analysis form, to learn strategies on photographic analysis. When you finish, compare your findings with your classmates who analyzed the same photograph.

• Civil War photograph selection
  On the first day in the library, browse the Selected Civil War Photographs 1861-1865 collection so you are familiar with it. Follow your teacher's directions on how to search by keyword, browse by subject, and browse by year. Visit Does the Camera Ever Lie and complete the two activities. See how the perspective of the photographer affects photojournalism.

  On the second day, search the collection and chose the photograph you wish to use. Click on the photo to enlarge it and print out a copy. Also save the image to your disk by clicking the mouse button on the picture (PC users, click the right button).

• Analysis of specific photograph
  Take a look at your photograph and analyze it using the skills you learned in the photographic analysis lesson. Make sure you have a copy of the Photographic Analysis form. This will help you formulate questions which you will answer through your research.

• Research
  Bring your photograph and completed Photographic Analysis Form to the library for two days of research. To help you with your research, use your Research Guide for note taking. Begin your search for information based on the questions you wrote on your photographic analysis form. You may use online sources as well as books, magazines, etc. Don't forget to record your citation information in the correct format. Some research tools that may help are:

  The American Civil War Homepage, University of Tennessee.

  The United States Civil War Center, Louisiana State University.

  Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System, National Park Service.

  The American Civil War, Dakota State University.

• Writing
  As you complete your research, go over How to Write a News Article in English class. Write your rough draft on your own and then bring it to class and complete the Peer Editing Guide. Revise your article.

• Creating a web page
  Now that you have finished your article, it is time to create a web page. Use the HTML Template to turn your article and photograph into your own web page. After you have finished, your work will be posted on the World Wide Web.

• Self Assessment & Peer Evaluation
  Your web page is complete and posted on the World Wide Web. Take a look at your page and your classmates' pages. Give some feedback using the Self Assessment & Peer Evaluation. This is your chance to be the evaluator.

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Evaluation

There are several grades in this project. Your teacher will complete a Final Evaluation to give you feedback on your final product. Additionally, the different activities have their own evaluation criteria and grades.

Photographic analysis
Analysis of your specific photograph
Research
Writing
Peer editing
Web page creation
Self and peer assessment