Grade 9 students have begun presenting the causes of the American Civil War–a complicated, long story of interrelated people, places, and events. Each student was assigned a major long- or short-term cause on which to present and create a revision sheet for the class.
By the end of these presentations, my hope is that the class will see how wars are not the product of a single, major event or person or system (though it often appears that way). Identifying and analyzing the causes of this particular war will help them look at other conflicts in a broader, more complete way.