Placer County, located northeast of Sacramento, California, includes diverse rural and suburban schools that are spread over a large and varied geographic area. Its underperforming schools serve many English Language Learners, Hispanic students, and economically disadvantaged students, and achievement among these subgroups is up to 40 percent lower in history-social science than that of other students in the county. The first two years of Our Dynamic Nation will focus on building a History Leadership Community who will recruit, train, and support fellow history teachers. Ten teachers (Year 1) and 12 more (Year 2) will attend 4-day summer seminars and 2-day spring and fall seminars to learn historical content and leadership skills. In turn, they will present outreach workshops to recruit 25 teachers, who will join five teacher-leaders for 8-day summer institutes (which include field studies) and four Lesson Study workshops each year. Participating teachers will gain insight into the complexities of American history through the study of key issues, episodes, and turning points and the impact of U.S. social, political, and legal institutions. They will learn to foster historical habits of mind and strengthen students' ability to understand and interpret primary source documents by using graphic organizers, questioning techniques, essay writing, group work, and other teaching strategies. Our Dynamic Nation will produce a cadre of teacher-leaders who will share exemplary lesson plans, provide professional development, and sustain a professional network among Placer County's American history teachers.

The Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District is within Orange County, California. It includes three Title I schools that are in program improvement status, and those schools are targeted for services through The Promise of Democracy. Following a kick-off and recruitment event, selected teachers from across the district will participate in a range of professional development offerings: four 2-week summer institutes with travel-study tours, three 2-day seminars each year, a 4-day Technology as a Tool for Historians session for each participant, two vertical alignment sessions each year, evolving special interest group sessions, and training in cognitive coaching and mentoring for a team of 15 teacher leaders. The summer institute/travel-study tours will be open to 30 of the 128 participants, and the teacher-leader team will be selected from that group. The Promise of Democracy will explore how well America has realized the promise of democracy as it has evolved over time and will emphasize what students must know to be active and responsible citizens in an era of change. Teachers will learn to develop students' historical thinking and writing skills through the use of document-based questioning, expository reading strategies, simulations, debates, role-playing, and technology integration, with special attention to effective strategies for English Language Learners, special education students, and students in alternative education settings. The Promise of Democracy will establish a scope and sequence for history as a separate subject in Grade 5. A culminating countywide showcase conference will feature distribution of lesson materials and presentations of teacher-developed lessons across grade levels.

In these remote northwestern California districts, nearly three fourths of 8th and 11th grade students scored at or below basic on the 2007 statewide U.S. History test. Substance abuse, juvenile crime, and violence are common, and teachers face great challenges in engaging students in academics. This project will help teachers develop their pedagogical skills and content knowledge through a variety of annual activities: four evening book discussions, two weekday workshops, two Saturday workshops, two Constitutional workshops, 20 afterschool workshops, and a variety of summer activities. Participants can join one of two cohorts—the master's program, or MA cohort, or the professional development, PD cohort. Of 70 participants in Years 1-3, half will enter the MA cohort and half the PD cohort; in Years 4-5, another 70 teachers will complete the same program. In addition, 10 preservice teachers will join the activities each year. The MA cohort will pursue a content-dominated program of graduate courses, and the PD cohort will balance pedagogy with content; however, both groups will pay attention to classroom instruction. For example, MA teachers will be required to create and demonstrate teaching "hooks"—quick ways to introduce a topic by using a visual element and a primary source document. In the PD cohort, curriculum groups will develop, test, and edit at least two projects oractivities a year: these might be Web-based activities, field trips, classroom-ready differentiated instruction, or lessons that integrate California history into U.S. history. To make the professional development available to as many teachers as possible, the 20 afterschool workshops will be held at 10 different low-performing schools.

This suburban district, east of San Francisco and Oakland, has high percentages of schools not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress standards. Nearly 20 percent of students are English Language Learners, and state history-social science test results show 30 percent of 8th grade students and 28 percent of 11th grade students scoring below basic. Each year, American Democracy in Word and Deed will have professional historians, scholars, and educators lead four 2-hour afterschool colloquia, a weeklong summer institute and four daylong colloquia. Activities will include discussions, lectures, and opportunities to develop, teach, evaluate, and revise a lesson each year. Two cohorts, each with 25 teachers from Grades 4 and 5 (early American history) and 25 teachers from grades 8 and 11 (19th- and 20th-century American history), will participate for either two or three years. The project's theme will focus on the words and deeds that gave birth to, nurtured, and tested democracy in American history. Teacher interaction and engagement with content experts will be aimed at helping teachers develop enthusiasm, creativity, and confidence around content knowledge, historical thinking skills, and discipline-specific approaches to reading and writing. The practice of Lesson Study will help teachers become more collaborative, reflective, and effective in their classroom instruction. Each year, every teacher will create and refine a lesson, so the project will produce a collection of activities to share with history district-wide teachers.

Eighteen schools in four districts on the central California coast have been identified as in need of improvement. Many teachers in this multi-ethnic region have said they need more support for teaching American history. The Equity project will provide support in the form of workshops, study groups that meet in person and online, mentoring, book studies, and summer academies that include field studies at local, regional, and national historic sites. Historians and master teachers will lead sessions and field trips, and teachers will identify and gather classroom resources as part of the activities. The project cohort of 50 teachers will blend grades and school levels, with the aim of giving teachers a vertical perspective and within and cross-grade interactions. The Equity project theme of exploring history in a scholarly way will be reinforced by contacts with professional historians throughout the 5-year project. Content will be selected to meet the needs of elementary and middle school teachers, who want chronological surveys of content, and the needs of high school teachers, who want in-depth exploration of specific topics. Content will include findings from current research, primary source analysis, and review of historiographic issues. Instructional strategies will focus on how to design inquiry-based instructional activities that incorporate primary sources, help students build context or background knowledge, and make connections to the present, as well as integrate multiple perspectives. Equity teachers will develop lesson plans and compile classroom resources to help them create rich learning environments and to share with other teachers on the project Web site.

The Elk Grove Unified School District serves culturally, ethnically, linguistically, and economically diverse students in southern Sacramento County and Elk Grove. Twelve of its 22 secondary schools are not achieving Adequate Yearly Progress, and on the California Standards Test, 48 percent to 68 percent of eighth and eleventh-graders score below "proficient" on questions related to American history. Teachers who participate in American Citizen: A Study of Liberty and Rights (American Citizen) in Years 1-3 will take one or more professional development pathways: Mastering History (an intensive, 2½-year master's degree program in history that includes evening and weekend classes and reading seminars); Talking History (an annual series of six scholarly lectures, including two book studies); Doing History (four 2-day workshops); and Living History (four 2-day colloquia, a week-long summer institute at a historic site, and collaboratively developed units). In Years 1-3, 16 teachers will participate in the master's degree program, 50 in Talking History, and 25 each in Doing History and Living History. In Years 4-5, American Citizen will expand its reach through district-wide extension activities: a learning collaborative, monthly professional development trainings led by master teachers, participation in National History Day, continuation of Talking History and Living History programs, and possibly a master's degree program for a second cohort. The unifying theme will be the liberty and rights of the American citizen. Teachers will learn strategies for differentiated instruction, primary source analysis, historical writing, historical inquiry, document-based questioning, and the effective use of biography and multimedia. A program Web site will publish lesson plans and enable history teachers to share ideas for improving instruction.

This large district in the San Francisco Bay area has 11 high schools, six of which are in improvement. Only 35 percent of high school students tested at or above proficient in American history in 2007, and about half of the students speak a primary language other than English at home. The East Side Teaching American History Project will present six content seminars each year. To make them accessible to teachers, seminars will be presented once in the northern part of the district and once in the southern part. Additional activities will include a 5-day summer institute focused on pedagogy, strategies, and lesson plans; a 1-day summer field study at a local historical site; and two history book studies. An annual cohort of 33 teachers will participate, with some staying for more than a year. The project goal is to achieve systemic change, making American history a viable and relevant subject. During summer institutes, teachers will learn how to present the content studied during the seminars. Methods will include using research-based frameworks and adapting lessons to different learning styles and for English Language Learners. Approaches will include increasing empathy for events and figures in history, using multiple perspectives to teach the same event, and using stories to bring home the personal impact of events. A portion of institute time will be dedicated to developing lesson plans. Each year, every participating teacher will create at least two new lesson plans, which will be available for all high school history teachers to use in their classrooms.

The Teaching American History program in Arkansas's Little Rock School District will target teachers who are new to the district or to teaching American history in 19 schools most in need of improvement and where student literacy levels are low. Only one percent of the district's history teachers have a degree in American history; therefore, Teaching American History will provide content-rich professional development: an American History Academy (a 45-hour online course and seven 1-day colloquia during the year); a 5-day summer history institute; a 5-day summer field study; three seminars on using history sources in an online environment; history book club meetings; community-based symposia featuring guest speakers; and a co-teaching program for high school teachers. A cadre of six lead teachers will create opportunities for collaboration among history teachers across the district. Teaching American History will begin with a core group of 28 teachers participating in the academy; by the end of Year 1, 53 teachers will be engaged, with approximately 50 teachers added in each subsequent year until all 201 history teachers in the targeted schools are included by Year 5. Participating teachers will explore how the concepts in the Preamble to the Constitution (justice, domestic tranquility, common defense, general welfare, and liberty) have been a refining and defining force in shaping a more perfect union. Instructional strategies will focus on historical thinking, reading and writing in the content areas, technology integration, and analysis of primary sources. Lessons learned and best practices will be disseminated within professional networks at the local, regional, and national levels.

The Deer Valley School District in Phoenix has many teachers who have little formal history training and have expressed a lack of confidence in teaching the full scope of American history content. At annual Gathering Lessons from Yesterday's Peoples and Happenings (GLYPH) kick-off events, staff will preview the year's topics and teachers will receive materials for book studies and classroom use. Day-long history workshops, week-long summer academies at historic sites, book studies, Lesson Study, mentoring, and elective activities will provide content information, field experiences, and instructional strategies practice. The cohort of 45 teachers will be selected through nominations by principals and invitations to all history teachers from schools in need of improvement, with a goal of including teachers who need the most support. The theme of highlighting the perspectives of diverse groups in American history provides the backdrop for historical inquiry and developing relevant context and multidimensional understanding of history. GLYPH activities will address identified gaps in teachers' knowledge by selecting two topics for each summer academy and other topics for workshops during the school year. Teachers who participate in at least 75 percent of annual activities will be eligible to attend the summer academy. University historians and skilled GLYPH teachers will lead two book study circles each year, and GLYPH staff will provide classroom demonstrations and observations, as well as ongoing, one-on-one mentoring in using Lesson Study. The Lesson Study cycle will result in lessons to be shared with other teachers, and the project will also provide classroom resource materials, including multimedia libraries related to specific topics.

Tuscaloosa City and County Schools will collaborate with Hale County Schools, which is located in Alabama's Black Belt. Many teachers in these districts have not taken a formal American history course for 10 or more years, and a survey of selected students found little or no knowledge about the way historians study and think about history. Each year will feature a kick-off event designed to set the historical context and to distribute books for independent study and classroom resource packets. Other annual activities will include day-long workshops, evening speakers' forums, a week-long summer institute, an independent book study, online discussions and team study, and peer coaching in small groups that combine veteran and less experienced teachers. A two-part cohort approach will select 20 high-needs teachers to participate in all 5 years, and add 10 teachers each year who will participate on a year-to-year basis. OUR will focus on delivering relevant context and multidimensional understanding of history topics that teachers have identified as important and that align with Alabama content standards. Delivery of content and instructional strategies will conform to the OUR blueprint for an ideal classroom environment: using primary source analysis and historical inquiry, history-related service learning, print and electronic resources, and intellectual challenge; collaborating with colleagues to plan, teach, observe, and critique lessons; and implementing best teaching practices and new historical content and resources. OUR products will include the classroom blueprint, teaching materials (e.g., primary source documents, DVDs, historical fiction, and nonfiction), an online community, and traveling history trunks for classroom use.