Students learn about the southern home front, including food scarcity and inflation in the Confederate States. Then they compare and contrast the northern and southern home fronts.
Students learn about the southern home front, including food scarcity and inflation in the Confederate States. Then they compare and contrast the northern and southern home fronts.
Students view an image of the burning of Columbia, South Carolina and read a brief introduction describing how battles in the South brought destruction and hardship to civilians. They then respond to a word cloud prompt by posting words or short phrases that come to mind when they think about life in the South during the Civil War.
Teacher MovesIntroduce the focus of the experience on hardships of the southern home front. Invite students to share and discuss some of the words they contributed to the word cloud (for example, fighting, burning, starvation, bloody, battles, death, despair, patriotism) to surface initial ideas about civilian life in the South.
Students examine a map of the Union blockade and read background text explaining how the blockade and Confederate economic policies led to shortages and rising prices on the southern home front. They read Southern Home Front to gather more details, then complete a concept map graphic organizer with key information about conditions in the South, including clothing shortages, high inflation, food shortages, and women’s changing roles. Next, they read an explanation of Confederate inflation and study a line graph comparing shoe prices in the North and South. They interpret the chart by explaining what the shapes of the red and blue lines show about price changes, and finally post to a class wall explaining how a high rate of inflation would affect life on the home front.
Teacher MovesGuide students as they analyze the Union blockade map and southern home front reading, prompting them to connect the blockade and government money policies to shortages and inflation. Review student entries in the concept map and chart explanation table, emphasizing that the steep upward trend in the southern (red) line indicates continually rising prices and severe inflation in the Confederacy, in contrast to the North. Use student wall responses about inflation’s impact on daily life to deepen discussion of how economic conditions shaped civilian experiences.
Students view an image related to the Southern Bread Riots and read text describing food scarcity in the Confederate States, including a Jefferson Davis anecdote about Union troops plundering a widow’s farm. They then read more about Civil War food shortages in Food Shortages and complete a graphic organizer identifying three reasons for the southern food shortage, such as the Union blockade, damaged railroads, and disrupted farming. Finally, they post to a class wall explaining how food shortages and rising prices may have affected morale on the southern home front.
Teacher MovesHighlight the severity of food scarcity using the Jefferson Davis quote and the bread riot image, then support students as they identify multiple causes of the shortages in the graphic organizer. Select interesting or exemplary wall responses to share with the class and lead a discussion connecting home-front hardships to low morale and widespread Confederate desertion, noting that many soldiers left the army to help their families survive and that the Confederacy’s failure to protect and feed civilians contributed to its defeat.
Students synthesize their learning by comparing and contrasting the Union and Confederate home fronts. Using a three-part Venn diagram graphic organizer labeled Northern Home Front, Both, and Southern Home Front, they record similarities and differences in areas such as economic conditions, shortages, inflation, draft resistance, women’s roles, and morale. As needed, they refer back to the readings The Northern Home Front and The Southern Home Front to support their comparisons.
Teacher MovesRemind students that the goal is to summarize and compare conditions on both home fronts, not just list isolated facts. Encourage them to use evidence from the earlier readings to identify clear similarities and differences, and prompt them to consider how economic, social, and military factors interacted to shape civilian experiences in the North and South.
Students complete the exit quiz by answering all the questions.
Teacher MovesFacilitate the assessment and use student data to evaluate understanding, address misconceptions, and identify areas for growth.
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