History, Stonewall style

If a recently completed grant application is approved, Stonewall Middle School students may soon be putting their personal stamp on history.

The Manassas National Battlefield Park and a grassroots conservation and greenway development effort called a Journey Through Hallowed Ground have joined forces with the Manassas area school in order to produce an interactive display called Of the Student,
By the Student, For the Student.

The project will cost $25,000 annually for a three-year period -and will be paid for through grant money from the Virginia Department of Education,  a matching donation by either Prince William County Public Schools or the county government and in-kind hours from the National Park Service.

In 2008, Journey Through Hallowed Ground created a pilot program with Harpers Ferry Middle School (W. Va.) and Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. The students used primary source documents, music, dance, humanities scholarship, dramatic readings, role-playing and digital technology to create vodcasts or “mini-movies”  for Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.

For the Stonewall students, the goal is to begin the project by next fall.  The vodcasts would installed as interpretive materials at the battlefield site and available to educators, students and visitors through the Internet and traveling exhibits by early 2011.
This would fall in line with the Sesquicentennial commemoration of the First Battle of Manassas in July of that year. In year two of the grant, the interpretation of the Battle of Second Manassas would be completed.

A stipulation of the grant was that the educational partner must have at least 40 percent of their student population eligible for free and reduced lunches. That along with its proximity to the battlefield helped Stonewall’s case, said principal John Miller.
Supervisor of Social Studies Ken Bassett called this an exciting opportunity and one that dovetails nicely with the school district’s relationship with both the Battlefield and the Manassas Museum.

“We work to promote the park’s education program for the students and the community in general,” Bassett said. “We are also working to develop programming to commemorate the First Battle of Manassas for the fiscal [year] Sesquicentennial.”

And it fits nicely with a 2008 grant program the school system is involved in called Freedom Rising: Teaching American History, said Miller. According to National History Education Clearinghouse’s website, the grant program is based on the National Staff Development Council’s standards for effective professional development that will improve teachers’ knowledge of traditional American history and provide classroom support and resources.
Staff writer Kipp Hanley can be reached at 703-878-8062.