Forging Connections through the Civil War

In 2006, when Dan Covino ’10 was a first-year student in Sarah Purcell ’92’s Democracy in America: 1787 to 1848, he was terrified she was going to call on him. He felt like he didn’t belong at Grinnell. “I didn’t feel like I clicked with the campus and actually considered transferring,” Covino says.

He ultimately decided to stay, majored in history, and worked with Purcell, professor of history and director of the Rosenfield Program in Public Affairs, International Relations, and Human Rights, as his adviser. Covino completed his student teaching at Grinnell Community High School (GHS) and accepted a social studies teaching job there. “I’ve never left,” says the New Jersey native.

Covino and Purcell talk often about history and teaching. They’ve done several events — as guest speaker or panelist, for example — on each other’s campuses, too.

When Covino learned that he’d be teaching a special-topic history course about the Civil War in spring 2014, he had an idea. Purcell teaches The American Civil War and Reconstruction every spring. Their two classes could collaborate on a research project that would also offer service learning.

Purcell loved the idea. “We’re always trying to find engaging activities with authentic tasks for our students,” she says.

The main priority was to provide a student-to-student exchange. Purcell’s 21 College students developed a list of research topics. Covino’s 50 high school students — sophomores through seniors — chose their top five from that list. The list included Civil War cartoons, Jefferson Davis, the 14th Amendment, and photography, to name a few.

Small groups were formed based on mutual interest in a research topic, with each group made up of one College student and two or three high school students.

An important component of the course was the analysis of primary materials. Covino says, “Primary sources are more interesting to analyze and interpret. When you put this opportunity in front of high school students, they’re engaged by it.”

“Before this project, I didn’t really know how to conduct the research process,” says Lily Hamilton, now a senior at GHS. “I really liked the free-flowing process of research, coming up with ideas, revising our thesis, and doing more research.”

Purcell’s students created research guides for their high school partners that included annotated bibliographies of primary and secondary sources available at Burling Library and through online databases. The College students took the lead in their groups, delegating various research tasks and serving as research mentors.

Purcell’s students found the mentoring part of the experience valuable. “It wasn’t just one more group project but a chance to take the lead on a project and thoughtfully engage,” she says.

Covino says, “The high school students learned the research and analysis skills that historians use, but they also learned teamwork and the importance of communicating with people.”

The student project teams met face to face several times, including four times in Burling Library. Many of Purcell’s students also visited Grinnell High School and worked in Covino’s classroom with their teams. Outside of scheduled meetings, teams used an OrgSync portal, a monitored, online collaboration and project management space.

Early in their course planning, Purcell and Covino decided that the final product of their students’ collaborations would be poster presentations. While poster sessions are common in the sciences, they’re fairly new as a presentation method for historical scholarship, Purcell says.

“The best, most interesting posters engaged deeply with the primary and secondary sources,” Purcell says. “Several groups were able to achieve creative, original scholarship.”

“The class was hard and time-consuming, but really worth it,” says Ruth Isaacs ’17, from Silver Spring, Md. “I’m happy with every step of the project.”

Covino says, “The level of work expected of the high school students was way beyond what’s typical. It was driven not only by the collaboration, but also by the audience to which they were presenting. It was very authentic.”

“Students learned a lot about the Civil War,” Purcell says. “They also learned how to present history to the public. What does the public need to know? How do you explain something in plain language? Having a real audience was very important. It raises the stakes.”

Students interacted with their audience May 2, 2014, in the Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center. The audience included parents, many of whom are College faculty and staff; other College and high school faculty; College students, especially history majors; high school students; members of the local school board; and people from town who are interested in the Civil War.

“Students did an excellent job of talking about their research projects,” Purcell says. “They engaged with one another as well as with the audience.”

Covino agrees. “I think they were surprised with themselves. They answered questions they didn’t realize they knew the answers to. It was fun to watch.”

Before his students created their posters and gave their presentations, they couldn’t imagine what a poster session would be like, Covino says. Afterward, some of Covino’s students told him that presenting during the poster session was one of the most enjoyable experiences they’d had in high school.

“A lot of people have asked me when we’re going to do it again,” Purcell says. “To me that was a positive indication that people found it valuable.”

Purcell found it valuable from a teaching standpoint, too. She had her students reflect about how and why they learned. “I was so pleased by that aspect of the project that I decided I need to incorporate more of that kind of reflection into my other classes,” Purcell says.

Another piece that worked well? The behind-the-scenes logistics, including the management of the OrgSync technology for easy communication among students and faculty.

“It went smoothly logistically because we worked on it,” says Susan Sanning, director of service learning and civic engagement at Grinnell. In her experience, the size and scope of this collaboration makes it fairly unique —71 students and two faculty members.

It became a model of collaboration.

“This project was a conception of service that isn’t just the College helping the high school,” Purcell says. “This was totally a two-way-street collaborative process. We’re evaluating our own students’ work, but other than that we completely worked together on the whole thing.”

It’s clear from watching Covino and Purcell interact — with each other, with their own students, and with each other’s students — that they make a great team.

“It was enjoyable for me to collaborate with Dan,” Purcell says. “For me, it’s very, very gratifying because Dan was my student. To have the chance to have someone you closely mentored work with you as an equal — it’s extremely fulfilling as a teacher.”

“If I’m successful,” Covino says, “it’s because of Sarah. I never could have imagined this eight or nine years ago as a freshman in her class.”