ABSTRACT
This chapter exemplifies using film to represent or visualize the past–to aesthetically present past events, people, and attitudes. Using film in this manner can both motivate students' interest in history as well as help them visualize the context of the events and people they are studying. Teachers must constantly remind their students and themselves that films are still interpretations and are not the actual events and/or people. Toplin postulates that even for directors, producers, and writers who are arduously committed to reliably and realistically presenting the past there are tremendous pressures to add fictional elements to films. The case focused on Glory takes place in the eighth grade classroom of Mr. Irwin at Monet Middle School in northeast Connecticut. The case described and analyzed was part of an 11-day Civil War mini-unit within a larger unit titled "Division and Reunion." The class meets every other day for 90-minute blocks.
