ALL Americans Project
The ALL Americans districts are on the California coast near Los Angeles. Across the districts, 8th grade student achievement in history is low, especially among Hispanic students and English Language Learners, who are 48 percent and 26 percent of the student population, respectively. Each year's activities will include nine seminar/workshop events (content, pedagogy, book/film club), several hours of individual coaching, and a summer institute with a field study trip. Teachers will be recruited to participate as fellows (40 per year), who commit to regular attendance, and associates (20 per year), who attend on an event-by-event basis. Fellows apply annually and may stay for more than one year. Within its theme, the project will help teachers examine American history through the lens of immigration and internal migration, looking at the interactions of peoples, cultures, and ideas. In response to teacher-defined needs, the project will present content related to immigrants in U.S. history; Mexican-American and California history; and the basics of significant documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Teachers defined three areas of pedagogical needs: improving student engagement, closing the achievement gap, and making the curriculum accessible to English learners. Strategies to support these needs will include training on affirming different cultures in the classroom; using Marzano's Classroom Instruction That Works; and using digital pictures, video, audio, and text to integrate into multimedia classroom presentations. At the end of each year, teachers will share multimedia presentations, units, and lessons on the project Web site.