UMUC

Center for Teaching and Learning

Online Faculty Innovators: Wayne Smith

Transcript:

How did you come to scan these letters?

These six or seven letters from Samuel Carbaugh were found in his pension file in the National Archives. The letters are from his mother, who's trying to show that she was dependent on him sending home money, and I just accidentally ran across them. These letters are not accessible unless you go in and dig deeply into the document. I had used the letters in a regular classroom for about seven or eight years, and I decided that they had such an interesting story that I wanted to make them available to the students online.

What is the pedagogical value of this object?

One, they've never had a chance to read documents from the 19th century, and so they have difficulty reading the penmanship of the young man. And in fact, I tell the students that that's to some degree the fun of the project; and I can't read all of the words either, but try to get the story. The second reaction is that students enjoy reading the letters of a common soldier, whereas in most classrooms like this you're focusing on generals and people at the top. Well, I think it's a very interesting project. And thirdly, it gives students the opportunity to read the documents from that time, which you don't do in many classes.

How do your military students react to this exercise?

One of the interesting things about it is I've encouraged some of the military that I've taught to make their letters available with the Army Institute in Carlisle. And I think because they read these letters, they've been encouraged to do that.