Civil War

Doug Bidjarano

01/13/14

AP US History

Naughton

Causes of the Civil War Simulation - Reflection

First, I'd like to take a look at my performance. One day one, I will admit I was outright unpreparedI had been distracted by work from other classes as well as thought that only a small deal of questions that weren't extremely specific or thought provoking would be asked. I was extremely wrong. . I didn't have my written paragraphs for my topics that basically outline my speech to give, and so I ended up giving very brief speeches, as well as unconfident, short answers to questions that likely didn't help the students asking the questions. On day two, I feel that I made up for my previous performance, coming prepared and giving good, quality answers to my questions. I feel that the background of my character limited the answers I could give without being incorrect, as Stephen Douglas wouldn't take sides on many arguments to prevent political support loss.

English: Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President ...

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass portrait

Thus many of the events that were slavery based has me struggling for a strong answer to questions, as Douglas ran an inherited slave farm through a middleman, yet denied all of this in interviews and kept his views out of the light entirely, being neither for or against slavery. The same scenario occurred on day 3, my performance pretty much the same as that of day 3.

Reflecting on the format of the simulation, I do have some complaints. While it was explained before break that characters would need to put in the work early vs later in comparison to voters, it was not explained that the workload was tremendous compared to that of the voter and held at a higher standard. If I am a voter, I have significantly less things to write...