Katelyn Wolfgang, Jacquelyn Schneider, Molly Sullivan National History Day 2014

Process Paper When our group found out that this years topic was Rights and Responsibilities in History we all threw around some great ideas. At first, we thought about doing the Womens Rights movement in the 20s or the Jim Crow Law in the 50s, but we wanted to focus on something more recent. We talked to our social studies teacher and she mention the Berlin Wall. Our group had heard of the Berlin Wall, but we knew little about it, so we all went home that night and started our research. The next day, we were hooked. Soon, many questions about how a government could pull a huge stunt like this and how it affected the lives of the people; circled in our heads. We knew that we were compelled to focus or NHD project on the Berlin Wall. We started our in-depth research by looking at the encyclopedias online and at our school. The encyclopedias gave us quick summaries of the information, so we had an idea of what we should concentrate on. From there, our group focused on the numerous books that our school and public library had to offer. We took notes and outlined our ideas and realized we needed more. After exhausting our book resources, we turned to online databases. Here, we found several primary sources that helped us visualize what life was like in Berlin and to hear firsthand accounts of the terror. As we added more sources, we continued to develop our annotated bibliography. Finally, with all of our research finished, we created a revised outline for our project.

The Berlin Wall was an event that was heavily mediatized, meaning tons of photographs, audio clips, and video clips were at our disposal. Knowing this, our group decided that the best way to show case our research was through a website. A website allowed us to include useful multimedia elements to aid the viewers understanding of our topic. Using our revised outline, our group broke down the website into categories and subcategories. We began to add our secondary sources in first, to create a base of knowledge for our viewers. Once our secondary sources were complete, we blended in our primary sources to create a nice balance. Our final step was to incorporate the multimedia clips to enhance the message we were displaying. Through our research, we determined that the Berlin Wall restricted the rights of Berliners and highlighted a government that was unable to fulfill their responsibilities. The Soviet Union created a wall that separated families and eliminated the right to travel freely for all of Berlin. The government knew the magnitude of their actions and still carried them out. Many people died trying to fight for their rights and by attempting to escape. The Soviet Union failed their governmental duties to protect their citizens rights, but actually fortified a barrier to restrain them.