From the Appalachian State University website:

"We invite you to take part in this historic commemoration year by attending this workshop sponsored by Appalachian State University, which is located less than five miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway in Boone, North Carolina. Participants will have a chance to experience the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains while learning about the history behind the most visited National Park Service site. Based on the campus of Appalachian State University, participants will spend mornings in combination lecture and discussions along with hands-on sessions working with a variety of primary sources. Each participant will have a chance to collect materials and ideas for use in developing curriculum projects. Each afternoon, we will take field trips to explore many of the cultural resources along the Parkway. Evenings will be free to explore the Appalachian Mountain town of Boone, work in the state of the art library, or relax at one of the many local coffee shops while enjoying some traditional Appalachian music. Throughout the week, participants will have many chances to interact with faculty who are experts on the history of the Blue Ridge Parkway and the region of Appalachia as well as meet rangers and managers from the National Park Service."

From the Delta State University website:

"The National Endowment for the Humanities has made it possible for you to explore the Mississippi Delta. You will learn the stories that have given this place such a unique flavor, a mystique unlike any other place in America. You will learn about Charley Patton, the Father of the Delta Blues, and Robert Johnson, who may or may not have sold his soul to the devil in return for guitar virtuosity. You will learn about Senator James O. Eastland, powerful advocate for segregation, and Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, sharecropper and equally powerful advocate for integration, who lived five miles from each other in totally different and separate worlds that were entirely co-dependent on one another. You will learn the tragic story of fourteen year old Emmett Till, and how his lynching sparked the civil rights movement. You will learn the stories of Mound Bayou, founded by former slaves as an all-black enclave, and called by President Teddy Roosevelt 'The Jewel of the Delta.' You will learn how the Mississippi River created the Delta and how the great flood of 1927 destroyed it. You will learn about how waves of Russian Jews, French and Germans, Lebanese, Italians and Chinese immigrated to the Delta. You will learn about the clearing of the wilderness, the arrival of railroads, cotton, plantations, sharecropping, small towns, the Blues and Gospel, and the Great Migration to the North, East and West.

"Most importantly, you will learn about sense of place as you study the place itself as a text. We will learn history where it happened as we move across the Delta, stopping at sites that tell stories. We will read what has been called 'the invisible landscape,' the hidden landscape of stories from the past, as we learn about events that transpired in particular places and how they changed America.

"While doing these things, you will also have the opportunity to taste Delta foods, from fried catfish and okra and barbecue to fried dill pickles and maybe even Kool-Aid pickles if you are bold enough. And of course you will listen to the music of the Delta, the Blues of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Son House, Charley Patton, and Willie Brown, and also the music of Ike Turner, Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin, among others.

"You will also learn from the Delta's landscape, the vast sweep of flat, fertile ground that continues today to produce an agricultural bounty, formerly based on cotton, and now based on corn, soybeans and rice.

"You will also have the opportunity to visit some of our nation's great museums, including the National Civil Rights Museum, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, and the brand new B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center.

"Finally, you will work with your colleagues to discover how other places, including your own, can be read as texts, and how you can return to your own place to teach others how to read their place as text."

From the Delta State University website:

"The National Endowment for the Humanities has made it possible for you to explore the Mississippi Delta. You will learn the stories that have given this place such a unique flavor, a mystique unlike any other place in America. You will learn about Charley Patton, the Father of the Delta Blues, and Robert Johnson, who may or may not have sold his soul to the devil in return for guitar virtuosity. You will learn about Senator James O. Eastland, powerful advocate for segregation, and Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, sharecropper and equally powerful advocate for integration, who lived five miles from each other in totally different and separate worlds that were entirely co-dependent on one another. You will learn the tragic story of fourteen year old Emmett Till, and how his lynching sparked the civil rights movement. You will learn the stories of Mound Bayou, founded by former slaves as an all-black enclave, and called by President Teddy Roosevelt 'The Jewel of the Delta.' You will learn how the Mississippi River created the Delta and how the great flood of 1927 destroyed it. You will learn about how waves of Russian Jews, French and Germans, Lebanese, Italians and Chinese immigrated to the Delta. You will learn about the clearing of the wilderness, the arrival of railroads, cotton, plantations, sharecropping, small towns, the Blues and Gospel, and the Great Migration to the North, East and West.

"Most importantly, you will learn about sense of place as you study the place itself as a text. We will learn history where it happened as we move across the Delta, stopping at sites that tell stories. We will read what has been called 'the invisible landscape,' the hidden landscape of stories from the past, as we learn about events that transpired in particular places and how they changed America.

"While doing these things, you will also have the opportunity to taste Delta foods, from fried catfish and okra and barbecue to fried dill pickles and maybe even Kool-Aid pickles if you are bold enough. And of course you will listen to the music of the Delta, the Blues of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Son House, Charley Patton, and Willie Brown, and also the music of Ike Turner, Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin, among others.

"You will also learn from the Delta's landscape, the vast sweep of flat, fertile ground that continues today to produce an agricultural bounty, formerly based on cotton, and now based on corn, soybeans and rice.

"You will also have the opportunity to visit some of our nation's great museums, including the National Civil Rights Museum, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, and the brand new B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center.

"Finally, you will work with your colleagues to discover how other places, including your own, can be read as texts, and how you can return to your own place to teach others how to read their place as text."

From the Molly Brown House Museum website:

"You've probably heard many tall tales of western women: a sharp shooter splitting a hair with her rifle, an old woman freezing in a mine and a rags-to-riches red head who couldn’t read or write. These iconic figures—Annie Oakley, Baby Doe Tabor and Molly Brown—have long dominated our perception of women's experiences in the West. During the summer of 2010, the Molly Brown House Museum will conduct . . . [a] workshop designed to explore the difference between life and legend in western women's biographies by visiting the real life places where these women lived, studying archival materials and learning from scholars in the field. Throughout the experience you will also explore how to use this information with your students."

From the Molly Brown House Museum website:

"You've probably heard many tall tales of western women: a sharp shooter splitting a hair with her rifle, an old woman freezing in a mine and a rags-to-riches red head who couldn’t read or write. These iconic figures—Annie Oakley, Baby Doe Tabor and Molly Brown—have long dominated our perception of women's experiences in the West. During the summer of 2010, the Molly Brown House Museum will conduct . . . [a] workshop designed to explore the difference between life and legend in western women's biographies by visiting the real life places where these women lived, studying archival materials and learning from scholars in the field. Throughout the experience you will also explore how to use this information with your students."

From the Florida Humanities Council website:

"Daily life in Eatonville was recounted in Hurston's first fieldwork as an anthropologist. Her best known folklore collection, Mules and Men (1935), included black music, games, oral lore, and religious practices reflective of her early life growing up in Eatonville. Hurston's ethnographic study of her racial heritage influenced several Harlem Renaissance writers, and later such contemporary authors as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison.

"Eatonville provides a fascinating vantage point for examining black life and social structures in the South after the Civil War. To paraphrase Hurston, how did these self-governed Negro towns differ from the 'black back-side of some white-folks' town?' Is it merely coincidental that this historic town brought forth one of America's most fascinating and provocative writers, a writer who provides us with a new perspective on race?

"These weeklong seminars will bring together a distinguished team of humanities scholars who will provide an interdisciplinary exploration of Hurston's life and work. They include a literary scholar who has written extensively on Hurston; a folklorist who wrote the application that placed Eatonville on the Historic Register; a Hurston biographer; the director of the American Folk Life Center at the Library of Congress, where most of Hurston's folklife collection resides; and a colleague of Hurston's in the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Participants will examine Hurston's accomplishments within the context of the historical and cultural development of the Eatonville community. They will grapple with compelling questions about how this unique black enclave fueled Hurston's appreciation of folk culture, inspired her literary works, created her racial identity, and formed her sometimes controversial views on race."

From the Florida Humanities Council website:

"Daily life in Eatonville was recounted in Hurston's first fieldwork as an anthropologist. Her best known folklore collection, Mules and Men (1935), included black music, games, oral lore, and religious practices reflective of her early life growing up in Eatonville. Hurston's ethnographic study of her racial heritage influenced several Harlem Renaissance writers, and later such contemporary authors as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison.

"Eatonville provides a fascinating vantage point for examining black life and social structures in the South after the Civil War. To paraphrase Hurston, how did these self-governed Negro towns differ from the 'black back-side of some white-folks' town?' Is it merely coincidental that this historic town brought forth one of America's most fascinating and provocative writers, a writer who provides us with a new perspective on race?

"These weeklong seminars will bring together a distinguished team of humanities scholars who will provide an interdisciplinary exploration of Hurston's life and work. They include a literary scholar who has written extensively on Hurston; a folklorist who wrote the application that placed Eatonville on the Historic Register; a Hurston biographer; the director of the American Folk Life Center at the Library of Congress, where most of Hurston's folklife collection resides; and a colleague of Hurston's in the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Participants will examine Hurston's accomplishments within the context of the historical and cultural development of the Eatonville community. They will grapple with compelling questions about how this unique black enclave fueled Hurston's appreciation of folk culture, inspired her literary works, created her racial identity, and formed her sometimes controversial views on race."

From the James Madison's Montpelier workshop:

"James Madison's life encompassed the development, establishment, and maintenance of a new constitutional enterprise. His career was dedicated to establishing the new nation and its constitutional system, and in the process he made the transition from founder to citizen—that is, from the outside to the inside of the political system, from regime-making power to institutionalized governmental authority.

"Explore James Madison's role in the invention of fundamentally new concepts of a constitution, a bill of rights, and citizenship—and explore Montpelier, his lifelong home and plantation in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains."

From the James Madison's Montpelier workshop:

"James Madison's life encompassed the development, establishment, and maintenance of a new constitutional enterprise. His career was dedicated to establishing the new nation and its constitutional system, and in the process he made the transition from founder to citizen—that is, from the outside to the inside of the political system, from regime-making power to institutionalized governmental authority.

"Explore James Madison's role in the invention of fundamentally new concepts of a constitution, a bill of rights, and citizenship—and explore Montpelier, his lifelong home and plantation in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains."

From the Tsongas Industrial History Center website:

"The Inventing America Workshop combines scholarly presentations with on-site investigations of the canals, mills, worker housing, and exhibits of Lowell National Historical Park and of other sites in Lowell's historic district.

"Sessions draw on scholarly monographs, primary sources (such as 'mill girl' letters), and works of literature and historical fiction. We intersperse hands-on activities with lecture-discussions and field investigations.

"In addition to Lowell's landmark resources, we take full advantage of Old Sturbridge Village exhibits and scholars to explore pre-industrial rural life and draw on the expertise of scholars and presenters at Walden Pond and Minute Man National Historical Park in Concord, Massachusetts, to explore how prominent authors addressed the question of industrialization's effect on American life, values, and the environment.

Hands-on activities deepen participants' understanding by engaging them in simulations where they weave cloth, build water-powered mill systems, and work on assembly lines. Participants even cook a meal over fireplaces at Old Sturbridge Village and discuss farm vs. factory life after a boardinghouse dinner at the Boott Cotton Mills."