Description

The War Between the States is a gigantic timeline of facts, develops study skills, strengthens research skills, and promotes the practice of critical and creative thinking skills. The multidisciplinary approach forces relationships between the Civil War and the following disciplines: mathematics, social science (history, politics, economics, and geography,) fine arts (art, music, drama, and dance,) language arts (creative writing, literature, and language,) science , and the occupational arts.

The game consists of a 'board' of over 346 spaces, which are displayed in sequential order all around a classroom or other large room. Each player will create their own pawn to move, based on some historical item from the period: a cannon, a horse and carriage, a Southern Belle figurine, etc.

The goal of the game is to complete all the activities through the end of the war. The player with the highest score wins. No additional points are specifically assigned for speed, but players who do finish before other players are done may go back to the beginning of the board and play through more spaces to earn more points.

Each player takes their turn independently; they do not have to wait for others to catch up. Each space on the board contains either an activity, a quiz, a research project, all in chronological order starting in the 1830's and ending at the surrender of the Confederate forces in 1865. If a player cannot complete the task in the space after a reasonable amount of time, they are allowed to move either one space back or forward, and try again.

Each player has a Personal Score sheet and a Witness Tally sheet. When a player completes the task on a board space, they are scored on a scale of 1 to 5 according to the completeness of the effort. Witnesses are assigned for each session, and they function as rules enforcers while other players are taking their turns. Witnesses also earn points for monitoring other players, and log their activity accurately on the Witness Tally sheet.

The game ends when either all players complete a course through the spaces to the end, or a pre-determined time limit has been reached.