All six of the countywide, southwestern West Virginia districts involved in this project have failed to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress for three or more consecutive years. Two districts are in corrective action, and 18 of the region's elementary, middle, and high schools have been identified as in need of improvement. Project TAH-21 will engage teachers and administrators in learning communities focused on American history, led by Marshall University professors. Two-hour monthly meetings will develop content knowledge and employ lesson study to support instructional skills. Online courses, 1-day mini-institutes, 3-day summer field experiences, and weeklong intensive summer institutes will help teachers develop content knowledge, history thinking skills, and history Habits of Mind. Each year, a new cohort of 30 teachers will participate, and project staff will recruit first from schools that are most in need of improvement. Project TAH-21 aims to link history content, curriculum design, and instruction within a comprehensive American history plan. Teachers will review and analyze original, core documents in a setting that models the strategy for use with students and Professional Learning Communities will foster sustained and purposeful conversations about teaching practice and content delivery. When the grant ends, the project will continue through Professional Learning Communities, ongoing access to online courses on American history topics, and a living Web site of resources for teachers.

Located in the eastern mountains and Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, the eight county-wide districts involved in Framing Our History have 20 middle and high schools that have not made Adequate Yearly Progress for one or more of the past three years, and many teachers in these schools are not highly qualified to teach history. The project will address participant needs through colloquia, institutes, field studies, and other activities that promote greater content knowledge, build pedagogical skills, and create a Professional Learning Community. The project also will provide interventions to nonparticipants at struggling schools and conduct a research study in one district on the project's long-term effects. A total of 40 teachers will participate for the full 5-year period, 30 of whom will be selected from low-performing schools and 10 of whom will be teacher-mentors, who will participate in all project activities. Framing Our History aims to develop teacher-historians who make history relevant to today's students by instilling historical thinking skills and habits of mind. During the summer colloquia, teachers will interact with historians, master teachers, learning/curriculum specialists, and preservice teachers from the higher education partner to explore content as professionals and develop pedagogical skills such as action research. All activities will integrate educational technology and emphasize the use of a variety of resources and delivery media. Teachers will create instructional guides and problem-based learning modules to be published on the state department's Teach 21 Web site. These resources will help other history teachers improve their classroom practice.

Virginia Beach is located in southeastern Virginia, about 200 miles south of Washington, D.C. Although none of its schools are classified as being in need of improvement, several elementary schools are performing below expectations on social studies assessments, and teachers in these schools will be targeted by SAIL for recruitment. Annual professional development activities will include a 10-day summer academy that includes historical site visits, four "history days" during the school year that feature lectures and activities, independent book studies supplemented by online book discussions, mentoring associated with the Lesson Study approach, and online collaboration. Because SAIL targets elementary school teachers who have been prepared as generalists rather than historians, program activities will emphasize best practices in history education, and 10 participants will be selected as master educators who will mentor and train other teachers in the district. SAIL will serve 100 teachers in four cohorts of 25 each, with each cohort receiving two years of history instruction and pedagogical training, beginning with one cohort in Year 1. The unifying theme for SAIL will be the considerable contributions that "ordinary" men and women have made over the course of American history.

Strategies for developing students' literacy and historical thinking skills as they interact with historical fiction and nonfiction will be aligned with the SAIL blueprint, a description of an ideal elementary school history classroom that is based on the Concerns-Based Adoption model. The program will sustain a community of practice by creating an online workspace where teachers can collaborate and share student artifacts and lessons plans.

Newport News, near the Chesapeake Bay in southeastern Virginia, is a high-need district with achievement gaps across all school levels and between student subgroups. Voices of a Nation will focus on vertical aspects of teaching U.S. history with the aim of creating a more cohesive program. Cohort members will commit to participating in activities, most of which will also be open to other teachers who have a U.S. history teaching assignment. Activities will include lectures, seminars, and Professional Learning Team (PLT) meetings during the school year, supplemented by summer graduate courses and technology institutes. Annual cohorts will have 40 teachers in Grades 4 to 12. Each cohort will become a Professional Learning Community and will break into four vertical PLTs of teachers from schools that feed into each other. The theme of Voices of a Nation is embedded in its name. Although all topics and eras will be covered each year, activities will vary and involve different partners. PLTs will meet several times to chat with professional historians, share teaching ideas, review primary sources, create collections of resources, discuss differentiating instruction, or conduct other activities; all activities will be documented online. Each PLT will complete three products: a curriculum map of one U.S. history strand from the state standards, a digital resource such as a SMART board lesson or virtual field trip, and one product to be determined by the team.

The Navasota, Bryan, and College Station Independent School Districts in Brazos Valley, Texas, serve a growing number of English Language Learners. Overall, student scores on state reading and math assessments are below the state average, surveyed students' interest in history is low, and most history teachers do not hold a history certification. The Mystery and Power of History will offer intensive professional development throughout each year of the program, beginning with a 3-day colloquium and continuing with lectures, workshops, guided readings, 1 to 3-day seminars, opportunities for teachers to attend weeklong historical immersion experiences in the field and/or 5-day summer institutes sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and several evening platform discussions led by scholars. Participants can also receive support for obtaining a history certification. The Mystery and Power of History will accommodate 40 teachers, each of whom will commit to participating for one or more years and completing at least 75 percent of the professional development activities offered. The thematic goal of the project is to deepen teachers' and students' understanding of how the principles of liberty and democratic government have helped to shape America's social, political and legal institutions. Instructional strategies derived from Historical Habits of Mind will enhance students' higher order thinking skills and their knowledge of American history. In addition, teachers will use technology to enhance history education. The program will develop a group of master teachers and mentors who can facilitate professional development and sustain a Professional Learning Community among teachers of history in all three districts.

McAllen Independent School District in southern Texas serves mostly Hispanic students, a fourth of whom are classified as English Language Learners. Five of the district's 34 schools have not achieved Adequate Yearly Progress: the average Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) score for these five schools is 55 percent, compared to the state average of 72 percent. Most history teachers in the district have minimal credentials in the subject area and few opportunities for professional development. McAllen ISD Project TEACH (Teachers Engaged in American Culture and History) will target low-performing schools and engage 50 teachers annually in four 2-day colloquia, eight 3-hour seminars, and a 4-day summer institute. At least half of the teachers will participate in a 5-day historical site visit each year. The project will also provide support and tuition for five participants interested in pursuing a master's degree in American history. Themes explored in Project TEACH will include complex political, economic, and social dynamics that have shaped America from colonial times through the present. Through training, observation, and feedback, teachers will implement an instructional strategy called document-based questioning. Participating teachers will also share their work with colleagues face-to-face and online, mentor other history teachers, and use Texas's Web-based curriculum management tool to align classroom instruction to district curriculum. The teachers will create thematic "toolbox libraries" for classroom use.

The Fort Bend and Spring Branch Independent School Districts serve a diverse population from disadvantaged communities across Houston, Texas, where many students are first-generation Americans. Through the Teachers as Historians program, the two-district consortium will deliver teacher training and support to 14 schools that have not made Adequate Yearly Progress and to 49 additional Title I schools. Annual activities will include a 2-week summer seminar at Rice University, followed by a week-long experiential field study, two workshops and a field study during the school year, three district planning meetings, access to an online community network and digital library, a community lecture by a distinguished historian, and a mentor network facilitated by district curriculum specialists. Each participating teacher will research and create two lessons with the help of a content specialist and a master teacher. Participants who fulfill their grant obligations may apply for a $750 grant, which they can apply toward personal professional development opportunities and classroom resources. A new cohort of 30 teachers will be involved in the program's core activities each year and will be encouraged to continue their participation in the mentor network. The goal of the program is to teach students to think critically about what it means to be an American. Interactive instructional strategies will emphasize critical thinking in response to primary source documents. Lesson plans and resources focused on traditional American history will be presented by teachers at local, state, or national events and will also be uploaded to a digital library and made accessible to history teachers nationwide.

Seven central Texas school districts within the Education Service Center Region 12 service area have formed a consortium to deliver targeted services to nine elementary and secondary schools that have not achieved Adequate Yearly Progress. Through the Lyndon B. Johnson Liberty Fellowship program, consortium teachers of American history in Grades 5, 8, and 11 will be prepared to teach American history as a distinct subject. Annual professional development activities will include a 5-day summer institute, a 2-day fall colloquium, a 3-day winter colloquium, and a 2-day field-study trip. Teachers will also view the American Institute for History Education's monthly Talking History webinars and participate in regular half-day research/lesson development sessions throughout the year. The program will serve 40 fellows, including five seasoned veterans who will serve as teacher-leader content specialists and conduct turnkey sessions for history teachers in all nine schools. A guiding theme woven into fellows' research and instruction will be how geography, economics, and political thought contributed to events in American History. Instructional strategies will incorporate the Understanding by Design approach to constructing lessons, the American Institute for History Education's Twelve Effective Steps to Optimum Teaching, and thereNow's IRIS, which will allow coaches and trusted peers to watch teachers deliver lessons in real time and make constructive comments about the lesson as it happens. Based on their research and training, teachers will create historical narratives, lessons, virtual field tours, and innovative activities to be shared with other history teachers via a Web site.

Located in central South Carolina, Sumter County School District Two, Sumter School District 17, and Clarendon County School District Two have not achieved Adequate Yearly Progress for the past two years. U.S. history end-of-course test results show that student performance in history lags far behind performance in math and English language arts in the districts. To develop more knowledgeable history teachers in the districts' elementary, middle, and high schools and to improve student performance, yearly STEP activities for participating teachers will include a 5-day summer institute, a 6-day field study trip, a history educators' forum, and three workshop days featuring local historians. STEP also includes a mentoring component and a technology component. Thirty teachers will be invited to participate in STEP for at least two years and preferably throughout all five years of the project. STEP will provide firsthand encounters with historical places, archives, and ideas to enable teachers to "see, touch, and talk history" and connect local and national history for their students as they explore the role of economics and technological changes and their relationship to society, ideas, and the environment. Instructional strategies will integrate technology and best practices in teaching the content of traditional American history. Teachers will create quality lessons plans and materials that engage students in activities that require higher-level thinking. These lessons will be posted on the districts' Web sites.

Florence School Districts One to Five are located in northeastern South Carolina. All five districts are in restructuring, and 31 percent or more of students in each district scored below basic on the state social studies test in 2007. To help history teachers gain the content knowledge they want, RWS will offer online graduate-level courses on a traditional semester schedule and through intensive study in 2-week summer institutes. Participants will conduct online discussions about history teaching, attend mini-institutes on examining student work and assessment and, in Year 3, become mentors to nonparticipating teachers to help them improve their knowledge and instructional practices. One cohort of 50 teachers drawn from all school levels will complete the 5-year program. Each year, half will take the online course and the other half will participate in the intensive summer institute. RWS aims to develop teacher-historians through increasing participants' knowledge of significant events, principles, historical thinking, and special topics, and by encouraging the practices of collaboration, curriculum design, and reflection. The graduate-level courses will focus on the eras and topics of American history outlined in the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the state's social studies curriculum framework. Other activities will focus on curriculum and instruction designed to build literacy skills and to engage both teachers and students in American history content. The project will result in a collection of teacher-created, technology-driven instructional units to be shared locally and nationally through the RWS Web site, which will also offer teaching resources and links to a variety of primary documents.