The Civil War Twitter Challenge

After a student pitched this amazingly awesome twitter idea to me, I decided we needed to roll with it and try it out for an assignment.  I have absolutely NO idea how this is going to turn out: it could be a total dud, or something really cool...only time will tell!

Until then, here's the task one of my classes has been given: (or check out the Google Doc HERE)

Your Goal: create and maintain a historically accurate twitter feed for the Civil War figure you’ve been assigned.

Your Task:

• start here...find your person: http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/war/biographies/barton.html
• immerse yourself in the historical figure you’ve been assigned: everything you “tweet” should be from their perspective
• make sure your tweets are appropriate to the time (Civil War era) and person; unless they would have said it, don’t tweet it!
• your tweets can be about anything as long as they are “from” that person...ideas to tweet about:
• their life
• their role in the Civil War
• things they like, hobbies
• their friends and family
• their job
• follow the other Civil War twitter accounts...reply and comment back on things they say...remember, YOU ARE YOUR PERSON!! DON’T COME OUT OF YOUR CHARACTER!
• send AT LEAST ONE tweet a day from your person--remember, you are pretending you are this person, so what you tweet should be from their perspective (like you are really them!)

Like I said, this could be a total wash, or a really cool assignment...so we'll see how it goes! Hopefully the students will learn about their Civil War figure and really take into account their perspective and how that person saw the world--creating almost a synthesis between modern "twitter" technology and what their person was like during the Civil War.

Curious as to what these historical figures (or students!) are going to actually "say"? Check out each of their historical figures' twitter links below to see what they're talking about, or check out the twitter hashtag for this assignment. Enjoy!

#civilwarMRH

Mary Chestnut

Walt Whitman

Mary Ann Bickerdyke

Mathew Brady

Clara Barton

Wendell Phillips

John Brown

George T. Strong