In Remembrance: September 11, 2001

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Photo, Staten Island Memorial, Aug. 5, 2007, yuan2003, Flickr
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Some students in class today may have clear memories of the events of September 11, 2001. Some may have vague memories. Others may have been born years after the attacks. The 10th anniversary of 9/11 presents an opportunity for educators to explore with students what it means to experience history. Were students alive during the attacks? Do they remember them? How do their parents remember the attacks? How did adults they know make sense of the events as they happened? How do people who were alive during the attacks interpret the past when its events are close and painful? How long does it take for historians to find a framework in which to fit events such as 9/11? People watching the World Trade Center towers collapse knew that 9/11 would appear in history books later—what has happened during students' lifetimes that they think was "history in the making?"

One way to teach 9/11 is to compare and contrast it with other past events that witnesses believed were history in the making. Lesson plans often feature the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the assassination of JFK as comparable to 9/11, but what about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The assassination of Abraham Lincoln? The assassination of William McKinley? The Boston Massacre? The Springfield Race Riot of 1908?

How many people witnessed those events? How many of them witnessed them in person? How well were the witnesses prepared for the events? Did they know ahead of time what the effects might be? Did they share their eyewitness knowledge freely with others, or keep it secret? What did people write about these events immediately after they happened? Years after they happened? Does where something happens make a difference in how people react to it? Has technology made a difference?

Teachinghistory.org Resources

September 11 Spotlight

Regardless of how you choose to teach 9/11 and whether or not you contrast it with other historical events, approach the subject thoughtfully and with clear goals. To honor the anniversary and to help you as you learn about, teach, and remember the day and its effects, we've gathered together our 9/11 resources on one page: "In Remembrance: Teaching 9/11."

Teaching the Recent Past

Our spotlight doesn't include all of the many resources available online. More examples follow. Some were created in the immediate wake of 9/11 and some were created 10 years later, in the present day. You can use the older materials as they are, or use them as primary sources in their own right. They represent snapshots of writers, publications, and educators trying to make sense of a sudden, horrifying event.

If you are contrasting 9/11 with other traumatic events in U.S. history, you may want to compare these early reactions with early reactions to those events. How did schools, educators, and students react to violence in the past?

From 2001:

  • A New York Times lesson plan published on September 12, 2001, suggests ways educators can help students think about and process the attacks.
  • A Special Report from Rethinking Schools discusses teaching in the wake of the attacks.
  • America Responds, a PBS website, documents PBS stations' responses to 9/11, maintained throughout 2001; it includes nine lesson plans.
  • Scholastic catalogs its student and teacher resources published during 2001, on a subsite of its page created for the 1st anniversary of 9/11.

From 2011:

  • Recordings of presentations from September 11: Teaching Contemporary History, a two-day conference presented by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, National September 11 Memorial and Museum, Pentagon Memorial Fund, and Flight 93 National Memorial, consider how understanding of 9/11 has changed.
  • Articles from the Organization of American Historians on teaching 9/11 draw on memories of 9/11 submitted to websites (follow the link and scroll down to the "Editor's Choice" selections).
  • A free curriculum guide from the 4 Action Initiative includes more than 130 lesson plans for K-12.
  • A call for teachers from the New York Times asks educators to contribute their strategies for teaching 9/11, and a later article pulls together NYT resources
  • Two simple timelines look at themes related to the attacks at Pearson's Online Learning Exchange
  • A free oral history lesson plan from Brown University's Choices program
  • EDSITEment's lesson plans on 9/11 and heroism
Additional Resources

Many websites and publications also offer primary sources, yet to be interpreted for educational use or packaged into lesson plans. If you have the time to search for and browse these materials, they can provide a rich base from which to assemble your own comparison of past and present. Here are some examples:

  • The New York Times' "Times Topics" page collects all NYT articles and photographs that mention 9/11. It archives original coverage of September 11 and NYT anniversary pages from 2002 to 2006, as well as short biographies memorializing the victims of the attack (see "Portraits of Grief").
  • Lectures and panels from Columbia University respond to and attempt to contextualize 9/11.
  • Columbia University also created a guide to key documents on presidential, administrative, congressional, and international responses to 9/11.
  • Archived television footage from ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, FOX, and NBC spans September 11–13.
  • Legacy.com's Remember: September 11 preserves biographies of the 9/11 victims, searchable by name, home city and state, and flight.
  • Sourcebooks from the National Security Archive gather up primary sources related to U.S. policies on terrorism, Afghanistan, biological warfare, anthrax attacks, the Taliban, and Osama Bin Laden.
  • More than 50 eyewitness interviews share memories on topics such as "Hijackers," "FBI," and "1993 WTC Bombing," courtesy of National Geographic.
  • The American Red Cross's Exploring Humanitarian Law curriculum, while not focused on 9/11, models strategies for teaching about difficult subjects and thorny emotional and ethical questions.

Cintia Cabib's Interdisciplinary Gardening

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Photography, Plants are Coming Along, 31 May 2007, Tim Patterson, Flickr CC
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Soaring food prices, a hunger for locally grown produce, high obesity rates, and the desire by people to reconnect with nature and with each other have sparked a national renaissance in community gardening. As part of this movement, school gardens are sprouting up everywhere. Teachers are using these green spaces to teach a variety of subjects, including horticulture, nutrition, history, science, math, writing, and art.

The School Garden Movement

The idea of incorporating gardens in schools began in the late 19th century when Henry Lincoln Clapp, a teacher at the George Putnam Grammar School in Boston, MA, established the first school garden. Inspired after visiting school gardens in Europe, Clapp created a wildflower and vegetable garden at Putnam in 1891 with support from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. The establishment of school gardens soon spread throughout the state and eventually became a nationwide movement, with an estimated 75,000 school gardens by 1906.

For garden advocates, integrating school gardens in the public schools served many purposes. It was a way to get city children outside, engage them in physical activity, and instill in them a sense of pride and teamwork as they cultivated and maintained their gardens. Gardening classes provided students with vocational and agricultural training. Teachers taught a variety of subjects through garden activities. Students practiced writing by keeping planting journals and writing compositions about the garden. Math skills were acquired by counting seeds, measuring garden plots, and determining the appropriate soil depth for planting. Students learned botany and entomology by observing plants and insects and their interrelationships. Geography and history came into play when students studied the origins of fruits and vegetables and planting customs among different cultures. The gardens provided inspiration for drawing, painting, and performing music. In 1914, the federal government established the Bureau of Education’s Office of School and Home Gardening, which promoted school gardens and provided “how-to” pamphlets and course guides.

The School Garden Army

Children’s involvement in gardening took on a new urgency when the United States entered World War I in 1917. In order to provide food to European allies facing a food crisis and to U.S. troops fighting overseas, citizens were encouraged to grow food for domestic consumption as part of the war garden campaign. Children were enlisted to join the School Garden Army, which adopted the motto, “A garden for every child, every child in a garden.” Students became important contributors to the garden campaign, growing thousands of dollars worth of produce in their school and home gardens.

Victory Gardens of World War II

When the United States entered World War II, children once again played an active role in growing fruits and vegetables to assist in the war effort. During the war, citizens were encouraged to establish victory gardens in their backyards, vacant lots, and schools to provide food for civilians and troops. Gardening was also promoted to boost morale, encourage physical activity and healthy eating and to help Americans deal with the stresses of war. The U.S. Office of Education encouraged victory gardening at schools and promoted school lunch programs that served locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables. The Boy Scouts of America, 4-H clubs, parks and recreation departments, churches, and many civic organizations were involved in victory gardening programs for children. In 1944, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that victory gardens produced 40 percent of the vegetables that were consumed nationally.

Community Garden Movement of the 1970s

The post-war suburban housing boom of the 1950s and 1960s generated more interest in backyard gardening than in community gardening. This changed in the 1970s when rising food prices, an increase in environmental awareness, and a desire by citizens to revitalize neighborhoods plagued by crime and neglect sparked a new community garden movement. Citizens and non-profit groups, such as Boston Urban Gardeners and New York’s Green Guerillas, turned vacant lots into colorful, productive green spaces. The U.S. Department of Agriculture initiated the Urban Garden Program in 1976 to help residents in major cities grow their own food. Educators and activists who were concerned that children were disconnected from nature and unaware of where their food came from reached out to young people and encouraged them to participate in neighborhood, youth, and school gardens. In a 1974 article in the Washington Post, writer Henry Mitchell noted that in Washington, DC, “there are 1,000 small gardens about town in which children grow such plants as the radish, the onion, and (as the weather stops being barbarous) the tomato.”

Growing Popularity of School Gardens

Since the 1970s, the popularity of school and youth gardens has grown steadily. California took the lead in 1995 by launching the “Garden in Every School” program. As in the school garden movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, teachers are utilizing these outdoor classrooms to teach a wide range of academic subjects through hands-on experiential activities. In addition, educators are using school gardens to encourage a healthier lifestyle, promote environmental stewardship and provide students with the opportunity to develop leadership and team-building skills.

These free resources provide ideas on how to incorporate school gardens into the academic curriculum, including social studies:

Bibliography

Lawson, Laura. City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.

Mitchell, Henry. “A Child’s Garden in The City.” The Washington Post, May 19, 1974.

School Gardens with Constance Carter. Library of Congress webcast.

For more information

Test your knowledge of (modern) historical gardening with our quiz on victory gardens!

In Pursuit of Freedom

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Print, n.d., F. Douglass, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYPL
Question

What made Frederick Douglass a radical abolitionist?

Answer

That Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist is beyond debate. Born a slave, he eventually escaped and became one of the most famous activists to work for emancipation. Whether working as a stump speaker or editing one abolitionist newspaper after another, Douglass expressed tremendous hope that the slave power would eventually fall. He once declared, “There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.” That Douglass was radical in his anti-slavery speeches and newspaper editorials is somewhat debatable, and would depend on how one defines “radical.”

“Hereditary bondmen! Know ye not / Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?”

Frederick Douglass was fond of quoting this line from Lord Byron as it summed up his political activism. This call to the enslaved to be their own liberators reflected a revolutionary urgency and fervor most would associate with radical measures. But compared with abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass’s one-time mentor and fiery editor of the Liberator (whose masthead read “No Union with Slaveholders”), Frederick Douglass appears measured and sensible. For example, Douglass once wrote, “My position now is one of reform, not revolution. I would act for the abolition of slavery through the government—not over its ruins.”

In contrast, Garrison burned a copy of the Constitution in public, calling it “the most bloody and heaven-daring arrangement ever made by men for the continuance and protection of a system of the most atrocious villainy [sic] ever exhibited on earth.” Most famously, he pronounced the Constitution “a covenant with death,” “an agreement with hell,” and “refuge of lies.”

"Mr. Garrison and his friends tell us that while in the Union we are responsible for slavery. . .

Even more extreme was John Brown, who tried to recruit Douglass for a raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, VA, a doomed venture that exacerbated sectional tensions leading up to the 1860 presidential election. Brown believed the seizure of the armory would spur local slaves to rise up against their masters and spark a slave rebellion throughout the South. Douglass shunned the effort. As historian David Blight observed, “For Douglass, the question of violence was always more a tactical than a moral problem. He did not relish the prospect, but morally he believed the slaves had the right to rise up and slay their masters.” Compared with the lawlessness of Garrison and Brown and their disrespect for the Constitution, Douglass’s abolitionism looks less radical, if not tame.

. . . I admit our responsibility for slavery while in the Union, but I deny that going out of the Union would free us from that responsibility. . .

Douglass sought to free the slaves within the confines of the Constitution. He thought only by keeping the slave states within the American Union could the federal government then be used to rid the nation of slavery. Douglass came to view the Constitution as a pro-liberty document, thus agreeing with Lincoln “the Great Emancipator” on the principal means of promoting freedom.

Lincoln understood the Founders to expect slavery to wither away in a generation or two by restricting its importation into the new nation (as early as 1808) and preventing its expansion into federal territory (see, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787). As historian James Oakes writes: “Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass agreed that there was no such thing as a constitutional right to own slaves. But for Lincoln the Constitution recognized the existence of slavery as a practical necessity, whereas for Douglass the absence of a right to own slaves obliged the federal government to overthrow slavery everywhere.”

. . .The American people in the Northern States have helped to enslave the black people. Their duty will not have been done till they give them back their plundered rights." — Frederick Douglass

In sum, what made Frederick Douglass an abolitionist was his experience with slavery firsthand: simply stated, he found it a poor fit for his humanity. He became a radical abolitionist, calling for the immediate abolition of slavery, because he came to view the U.S. Constitution as a pro-liberty document that could be interpreted to permit Congress to abolish slavery not only from federal territories but also in the states where it already existed. One might say his aims were radical, while his means, especially after the break from Garrison, were not radical insofar as they remained within the American constitutional context.

Bibliography

Blight, David W. Frederick Douglass' Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989.

Douglass, Frederick. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass. 5 vols. Edited by Philip S. Foner. New York: International Publishers, 1950-1975.

_______. Autobiographies: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, My Bondage and My Freedom, and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Library of America, 1994.

Myers, Peter C. Frederick Douglass: Race and the Rebirth of American Liberalism. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008.

Oakes, James. The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2007.

International Aid: How and When the U.S. Helps

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Photo, FEMA supplies from the Pacific Distribution Center, May 7, 2008, NARA
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When the 13 colonies first rebelled against England, they called on the help of established nations—including France and Spain—to succeed. After the Revolutionary War, the newborn United States gradually began to take part in world affairs itself, making payments and treaties, waging war, and withholding or offering aid. Today, the U.S. maneuvers its way through a constant web of decisions. Who does it choose to help and how? What kind of aid should it offer? Military? Economic? Social? When and why does it withhold aid? How have the choices it makes today grown out of those made in the past?

Late 20th-century Aid

Following the March 11 earthquake that rocked Japan, your students may have questions about the U.S. and international aid. Or maybe they're curious about the uprisings in the Middle East, a part of the world with which the U.S. has a complicated history of trade, war, and aid.

A good place to start learning about U.S. aid history is the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.

A good place to start learning about U.S. aid history is, appropriately enough, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. Established in 1961 in an effort to separate non-military and military aid, USAID combined the social and economic aid efforts of a number of smaller initiatives under one "roof." Though the website's history page is dense, it provides a sense of the complexity of aid issues. If you want to dig a little deeper (and read a little more), download the primer on USAID. (The section on "Responding to Crises" may be particularly relevant right now.)

For statements on current events, check out the Senior Staff Speeches and Testimony section. Press releases also feature current information. For a broader view, search by location to learn more about USAID's work in Haiti, Egypt, Thailand, and other nations. Browse issues of USAID's newsletter, FrontLines, starting in 2003, to see what's been given the most press in the past few years.

Tracing Aid Back

Ready to head further back in time? In our Ask a Historian feature, look at aid in the Middle East, both non-military and military, during the 1950s.

As it has grown in power, the U.S. has shifted in its relationship to other parts of the world again and again.

Skip back a few years more and learn about the Marshall Plan, a well-known precursor of USAID designed to help Europe rebuild following World War II. USAID's small online exhibit on the Plan features audio, visual, and text primary sources, while the Library of Congress hosts an exhibit on the Plan. If you need more primary sources, try the document collection Truman & the Marshall Plan at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum.

Of course, U.S international aid didn't begin with the 20th century and isn't limited to the federal government. Read up on the history of the American branch of the Red Cross, an organization founded by Clara Barton in the late 19th century. (The bibliography in the "Students" section recommends American author Pearl S. Buck's 1948 children's novel The Big Wave for learning about tsunamis. You might consider introducing this novel to students as a primary source itself, reflective of Buck and the context in which she wrote.)

Consider having students trace the U.S.'s relationship with a particular country or region back in time. For instance, what part is the U.S. playing in events in Libya now? What is our stance on the country and events there? What was it back in the early years of the U.S.? (For an idea, listen to historian Christine Sears describe the First Barbary War, one of the U.S.'s early overseas conflicts.) Between then and now, how has our position changed and evolved? Have we given aid or taken it away? When and how?

As it has grown in power, the U.S. has shifted in its relationship to other parts of the world again and again. Exploring the history of international aid might help you (or your students) follow these shifts through time and gain a better understanding of responses and relationships today.

150 Years Ago Today...

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Photo, In the midst of battle, Jun. 3, 2007, jonathanjonl, Flickr
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The bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth was celebrated in 2009. This year, 2011, marks a related sesquicentennial. Sesqui? What's that? It means "one and a half," and a sesquicentennial marks something's 150th anniversary. In 1861, 150 years ago as of April 12, Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, SC, and the American Civil War began.

Historical sites, museums, societies, and other organizations have been gearing up to celebrate this anniversary for months, if not years—and as educators you can take advantage of their materials and events.

Looking for digitized primary sources? Downloadable lesson plans? Interested in planning a field trip? Your state (as well as your local community) may have new resources available, or in development, for you.

State Sesquicentennial Commissions

Many states have chosen to make the sesquicentennial an official affair, overseen by a committee or commission recognized by the governor. The websites created by these groups vary widely in quality, but they're a good starting place for exploring the sesquicentennial. Many include timelines, calendars of events, digitized primary sources, educator sections, directories of historic sites, discussion forums, and other resources. The following states have publicized their sesquicentennial preparations online:

The Complications of Commemoration

What states aren't here? Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming do not currently have state Civil War commissions. Illinois may have one forming, and Louisiana may have one that has no web presence.

What was happening in your state in 1861? How much of its history in that year was driven by the Civil War?

Ask your students to think about this list. Why might these states not be celebrating the sesquicentennial? The answer for some of them should be clear—they weren't states at the time! Yet textbooks emphasize disagreement over whether slavery should extend into the territories as one of the causes of the Civil War, and history certainly didn't stop happening in these regions during the war.

Consider giving your students a state. Maybe you want all of them to study your own state's Civil War history. Ask them to look at how your state is commemorating the sesquicentennial. What Civil War sites are located in your state? Are they preserved? What was happening in your state in 1861? How much of its history in that year was driven by the Civil War? Were there major events that seemed unrelated to the war? What events seem to be talked about most often in your textbook and the resources about your state's 1861 history that you can find? What events are given very little space? Does your state have a history of celebrating Civil War memorials? What kind? Have celebrations changed over time?

You might also give each student a different state. Include wildcards, like Hawaii and Alaska, that weren't even territories at the time. Have them research 1861 in their state histories. What was happening in each state (or the areas that would become their states)? How much was related to the Civil War? Were there events that your students think deserve commemoration (even if they weren't related to the war)? Have them put together a theoretical sesquicentennial commemoration for their state, celebrating the year 1861. Remind them that events don't have to be Civil War-related!

More Resources

If you've looked through the sesquicentennial websites above and can't find resources to suit your needs, try searching our Website Reviews. We've visited more than 300 websites with resources on the years 1850–1877, and annotated all of them.

However you want to approach Civil War history, chances are good you'll find a site with relevant resources cataloged here.

National Constitution Center (PA)

Description

The National Constitution Center is an independent, non-partisan, and non-profit organization dedicated to increasing public understanding of, and appreciation for, the Constitution, its history, and its contemporary relevance, through an interactive, interpretive facility within Independence National Historic Park and a program of national outreach, so that "We the People" may better secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

The Center has exhibits, programs for teachers and students, and outreach events.

Elementary Military History Resources

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Negative, Powder monkey by gun..., 1864-1865, Library of Congress
Question

I'm looking for military history resources for elementary school children. In particular:

  • Where can I find books for elementary school students on U.S. military history and involvement in wars at home and abroad? Do you have any specific recommendations for books on Iwo Jima?
  • Is there a good timeline available of US military history?
  • How can I find local museums for students to visit who are especially interested in war and military history?
Answer

Finding resources for educating elementary school students about military history can be a challenge. But they’re out there.

Books

One good place to start is with Eyewitness Books. Covering conflicts like the American Revolution and World War II, these books are packed with pictures; and targeted at students ages 9-12.

Another approach to finding books is through grade-appropriate reading lists. The School of Library and Information Science at the University of Kentucky, for instance, has a great reading list for children PreK-Grade 6. Scroll down to "historical fiction" in the list and look for what might be relevant to your interests there.

Another approach to finding books is through grade-appropriate reading lists.

Libraries are another obvious choice for booklists. One great source is the Springfield, MA American Historical Fiction Reading List. Presenting books appropriate for students in grades 4, 5, and 6, the list includes books on the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and Vietnam. Although targeted at older elementary students, the Young Adult Library Services Association’s History booklist has some good resources and includes a number of books dealing with military history. Library Booklists—a clearinghouse of public libraries across the nation—is another good source for book lists compiled by librarians. Their Young Adult Historical Fiction page has a number of different lists on it, addressing different historical topics and themes.

Another approach you can take is to check out social studies reading lists with works for students of all ages, which will include some elementary-level works dealing with military history. One great list is the recommended books archive for social studies on the PBS Teachers website. Bear in mind, though, that these books are for all readers, not just elementary students.

Finally, there are other websites available online that compile booklists by topic and by grade-level. One relatively comprehensive example is the "Children’s Books about War" page on the Family Education website. The forty books on the list range by grade level, but all focus in some way on military conflict and war.

Timelines

In terms of a timeline, one of the more comprehensive military timelines on the web is the Military History Timeline available on warscholar.com. Though perhaps too complex for younger elementary students, it's a great resource for students headed into middle school.

Local Resources

As for field trips for students interested in war and military history, there is a wide range of museums and historic sites. A wide range of museums exists, from the American Civil War Museum in Gettysburg, PA, to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, to the Korean War National Museum in Springfield, IL, dealing with specific wars, and those museums frequently have educational outreach programs.

Other, state-specific museums, like the Virginia War Museum, or the Texas Civil War Museum, look more closely at military history within particular states. Another great resource is the National Park Service, which maintains both Revolutionary War Sites and Civil War Sites—sites that students can visit in a number of different states and that frequently offer educational outreach.

Of course, one of the easiest ways to find potential field trip locations is by using the Museums and Historic Sites search engine on the National History Education Clearinghouse website.

Searching for Sesquicentennial Sources

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Civil War envelope showing a firing cannon, c.1861-1865, Library of Congress
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In February, Teachinghistory.org rounded up sesquicentennial resources state by state. Now, with April and the anniversary of the April 12 bombardment of Fort Sumter upon us, let's look at some materials that aren't state-specific.

Blogosphere

Peruse the blogosphere for updates on new materials and tips on finding the best of preexisting websites and archives. Education Week's blog "Curriculum Matters" posted two entries looking at websites, curriculum, and blogs focusing on the sesquicentennial in March: one entry on the 21st and one on the 24th. Watch for more to come.

Peruse the blogosphere for updates on new materials and tips on finding the best of preexisting websites and archives.

The American Historical Association blogged on teaching the sesquicentennial, and History News Network gave the anniversary a turn as a hot topic. Plenty of individuals have set up blogs of their own to track sesquicentennial developments—look around, and see if anyone's taking a tack that interests you. Remember to assess the credentials and viewpoints of any blog you follow—who's writing it, and what is their goal in writing?

Here are two blogs whose "authors" you might recognize: the New York Times' "Disunion" and the Washington Post's "A House Divided". Both blogs feature entries by historians, published authors, and others (remember to assess the credibility of these writers for yourself, just as you would with an individual blogger!) on Civil War topics.

"Disunion"'s short-essay-style articles often include links to primary sources, while "A House Divided" answers questions on the Civil War. (Browse the Post's "Civil War 150" feature for more videos, articles, and event updates related to the sesquicentennial.)

Lesson Plans

If you're looking for lesson plans, the Civil War Trust recently released a new free curriculum set , including nine lessons and an exam for each level (elementary, middle, and high). The Trust's website also includes primary sources, maps of battlefields, a directory of Civil War sites, and more than 50 other lesson plans.

Try the Smithsonian National Museum of American History's History Explorer for more than 80 lesson plans.

EDSITEment has an abundance of lesson plans—more than 40 related to the war. Also try the Smithsonian National Museum of American History's History Explorer for more than 80 lesson plans.

The American Red Cross, working with teachers, academics, and legal scholars, has developed a series of lesson plans entitled The American Civil War: A Humanitarian Perspective. Through activities that use primary sources, students learn about the roots of the American Red Cross through Clara Barton's work, battlefield conduct laws created by President Lincoln that predate the first Geneva Convention, and basic principles of humanitarian law.

Primary Sources

Looking for some orientation to all of those sources? Sign up for one of the Smithsonian's April webinars designed to show teachers around Smithsonian Civil War resources. Or explore the Library of Congress's guide to 21 sources related to Southern secession.

How about primary sources such as letters from Lincoln, Grant, Lee, and other Civil War era figures?

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) invites you to examine the Civil War through "little-known stories, seldom-seen documents, and unusual perspectives" in their new exhibit "Discovering the Civil War", including lesson plans and other teaching resources.

The Library of Virginia's online exhibit "Union or Succession" also focuses on primary sources from the debate over secession. Check out the Library's "CW 150 Legacy Project," too—are any organizations in your area working on collecting sources?

How about primary sources such as letters from Lincoln, Grant, Lee, and other Civil War era figures? Today in the Civil War: Dispatches from the Rosenbach Collection reproduces Civil War-era documents from the Rosenbach Collection 150 years after their creation. Each day a new item is posted, accompanied by a full or partial transcript.

Keep Looking!

This barely scratches the surface of the Civil War materials available to you. Maybe you'd rather listen to your Civil War history—Gilder Lehrman offers more than 20 podcasts on the Civil War era. Longwood University also has you covered, with its "That a Nation Might Live" podcasts following the war week by week.

Would you rather follow (present-day) events as they unfold? Track commemorations nationwide with the National Park System's Civil War website.

Take a look around the Internet, see what else you can uncover, and share your finds in comments here! The sesquicentennial starts this month, but it will last for years. New resources will appear, and established ones will expand, so keep your eyes open!

For more information

Give our improved search engine a try to find even more Teachinghistory.org resources on the Civil War.

Teaching and Learning History in the Digital Age (AHA 2011)

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American Historical Association conference Boston 2011
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The degree of difficulty educators face when dealing with new technologies varies, but the sensation of feeling like a “newbie” when it comes to technology can often create tech-wariness among teachers. Educators should not feel this way.

Teachinghistory.org's presentation at the 2011 American Historical Association (AHA) conference, entitled “Teaching and Learning History in the Digital Age,” offered attendees exposure to free and easy-to-use tools that can work for teachers, regardless of their technological abilities. The main message of this presentation? Start small and be willing to face unexpected hiccups along the way.

Starting Out with Digital Tools

One educator, nearing retirement, was curious about digital tools as I shared with her the topic of my presentation while walking to another conference event. She was initially interested in attending my presentation but found that the whole topic of digital tools was too complex for her.

Start with what feels comfortable.

Besides, where would she even begin searching for new media tools? She found herself regretting her earlier decision to skip panels on digital tools. It seemed that her own dilemma—where to start looking for digital tools—is not unique. The goal of the presentation was to help educators like her gain exposure to technology that is easily available. My advice to her was the same as I provided the audience: Start with what feels comfortable.

Some educators might enjoy exploring complex tools, “going under the hood,” and learning new skills. Other educators might want a ready-made tool, like Wordpress, to help build a course website. The open-source nature of platforms and browsers like Wordpress, Firefox, Zotero, and Omeka allow daring educators to invent the new plug-ins that can radically transform educational tools. For the less adventurous educators, these platforms allow them to take advantage of the work of others.

So . . . What Can Educators Do on the Web?

The presentation at AHA was, in part, inspired by a recent series of articles by Robert Townsend in AHA's Perspectives on History (Oct.Nov., Dec.). In his findings, which surveyed over 4,000 two- and four-year college faculty, Townsend noted that educators are increasingly embracing digital tools. Nearly 70% of respondents characterized themselves as “active users”—a number that might surprise many. Upon closer inspection, however, active digital users are mostly younger (no surprise here), and the most popular tools are not what many digitally-savvy educators would necessarily consider cutting-edge: digital cameras, scanners, search engines, word processors, and online archive searches. Tools that have the potential to change how we “do” history—text mining, social media, GIS/mapping, and data visualizations—received few responses in AHA's survey.

My immediate reaction to Townsend's articles? Is that it? On the one hand, I found it rather underwhelming to see what passes as “digital history” in the second decade of the 21st century. On the other hand, a utopian view of this subject is probably not well-served considering the budgetary and curricular constraints teachers face; lasting change rarely develops out of radical, or revolutionary, change. A more measured approach would be to acknowledge that significant uses of technology in the history classroom will gradually occur through funding for technology training, or, more likely, through collaborative exchanging of ideas among staff.

Key Areas in Digital Tool Use

The presentation at AHA, then, was structured to address three or four key areas teachers address in their planning stages. As always, these tools are helpful, but only when applied with thoughtful consideration towards teaching and research (several good reads recently posted on Edwired deal with the perils and possibilities of web tools).

Digital Tools for Presentations

  • Google Maps is a good instrument for examining memorials, battlefields, and other historical sites, while also allowing users to create new and interesting links between locations.
  • Google Earth allows users to create placemarks, polygon shapes, paths, and images on Google's database of satellite images. This is ideal for creating original maps or recreating routes on military campaigns, plotting the Underground Railroad, or analyzing the Great Migration patterns of African Americans to see if new relationships emerge.
  • ManyEyes users can upload data and choose visualization preferences that might reveal new information about the past.
  • Hypercities uses historical overlays on geographic maps to show change over time
  • Prezi is a structural and/or non-structural approach to presentations where you can type text, embed media files, graphically organize items, and highlight the importance of elements—relative to other ones on the infinite canvas platform—based on size and colors. The presentation at the AHA conference used a Prezi.

Digital Tools for Communication

  • Facebook and Ning allow users to create networks from scratch to imagine what social networks among Bostonian revolutionaries or suffragettes in the early 20th century might talk about. Multiple other free options exist.
  • Twitter lets users publish 140-character updates. What would Abe Lincoln’s Twitter feed look like? What about soldiers on the Pacific front in World War II? John Quincy Adams is already on Twitter!
  • Skype can help bring scholars and institutions together, establishing relationships with sister cities, schools overseas, and other individuals and organizations.
  • Blogs can become a standard classroom management program (if scholars are not tied to BlackBoard), serve as a professional portfolio, or can help historians re-imagine the possibilities for what scholarship on the web looks like.
  • Zotero, in a nutshell, functions like digital flashcards and a note-saving device by adding research items from a database (WorldCat works well), allowing users to create notes for each entry, and providing tagging, sharing, and publication functions. Zotero is a helpful tool for collaborative projects and archiving research sources over time.

Digital Tools for Production

  • Anthologize puts together an original book or compilation from blogs and other sites across the web.
  • Wiki allows users to develop wiki pages for class projects (upload maps, images, and other files) or research project items.
  • Wordle graphically produces a word cloud based on text-mining activities, which often reveals interesting insights otherwise difficult to see in large chunks of text.
  • YouTube and Vimeo are hosting platforms for any original video production.
  • Picasa and Flickr have potential as forums for hosting photo collections (privately or publicly), helping educators and students find visual sources, annotate information, understand copyright laws, and connect images to historical events that are not visible at first (good places to search for images largely in the public domain include the Creative Commons search engine, Library of Congress, National Archives, NY Public Library Digital Collection, and the Smithsonian).
  • iMovie and MovieMaker put users in the driver's seat in using images, text, music, and voiceovers—simple elements of a digital storytelling project—to create original documentaries or short films.
  • Animoto is a simple tool that uses images, uploaded with music and text, to create small videos.

Digital Tools for Miscellaneous Tasks

  • Mindmeister, FreeMind, and OmniGraffle create graphic organizers for study or for lesson/unit plans, and many of them can be placed online for collaborative work.
  • Gaming has untapped potential as a teaching tool; see: Mission USDo I Have a Right?BBC History Games, and Playinghistory.org (a good collection of games).
  • Diigo provides a way to annotate the web (highlighting and Post-it notes). It can be added to your browser toolbar and, as long as you are logged in, notes will always appear as you re-visit the page.

With such a long list, but one that barely touches the surface of what scholars can do with new media, it is easy to see that free and open-access tools are readily found online. The problem, however, is that many educators feel the same way as our curious veteran educator at AHA. The question “Where can I find these tools?” is still a bit too commonplace these days. As a result, teachers are often hesitant to seek out new technology—not necessarily due to a lack of will, but rather because many simply don't know what (or where) to search.

This presentation aimed at closing that gap in a small way.

Bibliography

Townsend, Robert B. "Assimilation of New Media into History Teaching: Some Snapshots from the Edge." Perspectives on History (Dec. 2010).

Townsend, Robert B. "How Is New Media Reshaping the Work of Historians?" Perspectives on History (Nov. 2010).

Townsend, Robert B. "A Profile of the History Profession, 2010." Perspectives on History (Oct. 2010).

For more information

Ready to explore the digital tools mentioned above—and more? Check out our Digital Classroom section.

Upcoming Deadlines for Professional Development

Date Published
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Photo, Deadline, Mar. 31, 2009, Moonrhino, Flickr
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Deadlines are approaching for several national professional development programs!

On Feb. 1 (NOTE: deadline extended to Feb. 15th!), the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History stops accepting applications for its summer seminars for teachers. The week-long seminars take place at colleges and universities nationwide, and teach classroom strategies focused on using primary sources effectively. Apply for any of 40 seminars on a range of topics, including Native American history, the Civil War in global context, the 20th-century women's rights movements, and the role of the Supreme Court in American history. Participants will receive a $400 reimbursement.

On Mar. 1, the National Endowment for the Humanities stops accepting applications for its Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops for School Teachers and Summer Seminars and Institutes for School Teachers. The 20 one-week workshops take place at or near significant cultural or historical sites and explore strategies for teaching with place and primary sources. Topics range from "Crafting Freedom: Black Artisans, Entrepreneurs, and Abolitionists in the Antebellum Upper South" to "The Richest Hills: Mining in the Far West, 1865–1920," and participants receive a $1,200 stipend. The seminars and institutes last from two to six weeks, with 13 focusing on U.S. history, including, among other topics, teaching American history through song, Appalachian history and culture, jazz and Motown, and Upper Mississippi River Valley archaeology. Participants receive stipends ranging from $2,100 to $4,500.

February 11 is the deadline for applications to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Teacher Fellowship program. Each year, 15 secondary-level educators from across the country are chosen to serve as museum representatives, engaging in outreach activities to encourage quality teaching on the Holocaust. Participants attend a five-day all-expenses-paid summer institute in DC.

For more information

Not sure where to look for professional development opportunities? Our previous blog post, Finding Professional Development, offers some suggestions.

And remember that nominations for Gilder Lehrman's History Teacher of the Year Award also cut off on Feb. 1!