From the Chicago History Museum website:

"In this workshop, middle- and high-school students play the role of historians. Facilitated by teacher and author of Summers with Lincoln James Percoco, students investigate the meanings and legacies of Abraham Lincoln in public art. Students explore the exhibition 'Abraham Lincoln Transformed,' analyze the monument in the museum's backyard, and work with a local artist to formulate a creative response to the statue."

From the Chicago History Museum website:

"Tour the Museum's two new exhibitions, 'Abraham Lincoln Transformed' and 'Benito Juárez and the Making of Modern Mexico.' Meet the curators, plan your field trip, and receive classroom resource materials. Enjoy light refreshments and raffle drawings."

From the Newberry Library website:

"This course approaches poetry as a force that shapes ideas of citizenship and cultural identity. We will examine the form and content of familiar and less familiar poems from the period of the American Revolution to the present, including works by Longfellow, Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne Rich, and Joy Harjo."

From the Newberry Library website:

"One of the most remarkable debates in history took place in 1787-1788, when American essayists debated the merits of the Constitution drafted in Philadelphia. We will discuss several of the renowned Federalist Papers that supported the Constitution, along with essays of anti-Federalists, whose criticisms helped shape how the Constitution was ultimately implemented and interpreted."

From the Newberry Library website:

"Many researchers mistakenly believe that the Great Fire of 1871 destroyed all record of early Chicago. This seminar belies that common misconception by introducing participants to the wide variety of rich resources available for exploring pre-fire Chicago. Using a thematic approach, we will explore maps, city directories, railroad guides, newspapers, diaries, church records, sheet music, and much more. We will also discuss relevant holdings at local institutions and search strategies for further research."

From the Newberry Library website:

"This course will explore the social history of Chicago in the years between the Great Fire of 1871 and the modern Civil Rights Movement. Our core texts will be works of historical fiction, including selections from Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, and Richard Wright's Native Son. Using these as windows into the city's vibrant past, we will investigate the changing texture of everyday life amidst vast social, political, and economic change."

From the Newberry Library website:

"The Plan of Chicago (1909) was based on the conviction of its principle writer, Daniel Burnham, that citizens can intervene in the rush of unplanned urban growth to re-direct Chicago's physical structure, creating conditions conducive to humane and prosperous living. We will read and discuss the text, diagrams, and illustrations of the Plan itself, to learn about an important epoch in Chicago's history and to reflect on the challenge it poses to our experience of living in Chicago a century later."

From the National Humanities Center website:

"During the 17th and 18th centuries, many 'freethinking' Europeans embraced Deism, a theology that subjected religious truth to the authority of human reason. In colonial America, Deism found few adherents, but those who were attracted to it tended to be wealthy and educated, leaders in colonial society and politics. Today, debate swirls around the role deism played in the founding of the nation. What was this 'religion of nature?' How can we explain it to students? Who among the Founders were Deists? What influence did Deism have on the culture of the new nation?"

From the Montpelier website:

"What is the purpose of a Bill of Rights? While we may think of the Bill of Rights as a charter of 'rights,' the first ten amendments to the Constitution are, in fact, a list of restrictions on government power. Do they also function as marks of the People's sovereignty and/or foundations for a democratic polity?

In this Seminar you will examine the idea of delineating the rights of persons as contrasted with defining the powers of government, examining the debates among the founders over the inclusion of a Bill of Rights in the Constitution. How is the project of constitution-making continued in the process of amendment?"

"Participants will receive a collection of primary documents in advance of the seminar, specific to the content of each program, which will be the basis of most discussions. They include writings by James Madison, sections of The Federalist Papers, selections from Antifederalist writers, and other fundamental documents. Each seminar includes an intensive session on ways of reading a document of political or constitutional theory. . . . Each seminar will conclude with the lecture 'American Citizenship as Constitutional Citizenship: The Exemplar of James Madison.'

Teachers will also become acquainted with the curriculum We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution, which is widely used across the nation and is compatible with state and national standards. All participants will receive a complete classroom set of the We the People textbooks, appropriate to the grade level they teach. A classroom set includes 30 student texts and 1 teacher's guide."