Placer County, located northeast of Sacramento, California, includes diverse rural and suburban schools that are spread over a large and varied geographic area. Its underperforming schools serve many English Language Learners, Hispanic students, and economically disadvantaged students, and achievement among these subgroups is up to 40 percent lower in history-social science than that of other students in the county. The first two years of Our Dynamic Nation will focus on building a History Leadership Community who will recruit, train, and support fellow history teachers. Ten teachers (Year 1) and 12 more (Year 2) will attend 4-day summer seminars and 2-day spring and fall seminars to learn historical content and leadership skills. In turn, they will present outreach workshops to recruit 25 teachers, who will join five teacher-leaders for 8-day summer institutes (which include field studies) and four Lesson Study workshops each year. Participating teachers will gain insight into the complexities of American history through the study of key issues, episodes, and turning points and the impact of U.S. social, political, and legal institutions. They will learn to foster historical habits of mind and strengthen students' ability to understand and interpret primary source documents by using graphic organizers, questioning techniques, essay writing, group work, and other teaching strategies. Our Dynamic Nation will produce a cadre of teacher-leaders who will share exemplary lesson plans, provide professional development, and sustain a professional network among Placer County's American history teachers.

The Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District is within Orange County, California. It includes three Title I schools that are in program improvement status, and those schools are targeted for services through The Promise of Democracy. Following a kick-off and recruitment event, selected teachers from across the district will participate in a range of professional development offerings: four 2-week summer institutes with travel-study tours, three 2-day seminars each year, a 4-day Technology as a Tool for Historians session for each participant, two vertical alignment sessions each year, evolving special interest group sessions, and training in cognitive coaching and mentoring for a team of 15 teacher leaders. The summer institute/travel-study tours will be open to 30 of the 128 participants, and the teacher-leader team will be selected from that group. The Promise of Democracy will explore how well America has realized the promise of democracy as it has evolved over time and will emphasize what students must know to be active and responsible citizens in an era of change. Teachers will learn to develop students' historical thinking and writing skills through the use of document-based questioning, expository reading strategies, simulations, debates, role-playing, and technology integration, with special attention to effective strategies for English Language Learners, special education students, and students in alternative education settings. The Promise of Democracy will establish a scope and sequence for history as a separate subject in Grade 5. A culminating countywide showcase conference will feature distribution of lesson materials and presentations of teacher-developed lessons across grade levels.

In these remote northwestern California districts, nearly three fourths of 8th and 11th grade students scored at or below basic on the 2007 statewide U.S. History test. Substance abuse, juvenile crime, and violence are common, and teachers face great challenges in engaging students in academics. This project will help teachers develop their pedagogical skills and content knowledge through a variety of annual activities: four evening book discussions, two weekday workshops, two Saturday workshops, two Constitutional workshops, 20 afterschool workshops, and a variety of summer activities. Participants can join one of two cohorts—the master's program, or MA cohort, or the professional development, PD cohort. Of 70 participants in Years 1-3, half will enter the MA cohort and half the PD cohort; in Years 4-5, another 70 teachers will complete the same program. In addition, 10 preservice teachers will join the activities each year. The MA cohort will pursue a content-dominated program of graduate courses, and the PD cohort will balance pedagogy with content; however, both groups will pay attention to classroom instruction. For example, MA teachers will be required to create and demonstrate teaching "hooks"—quick ways to introduce a topic by using a visual element and a primary source document. In the PD cohort, curriculum groups will develop, test, and edit at least two projects oractivities a year: these might be Web-based activities, field trips, classroom-ready differentiated instruction, or lessons that integrate California history into U.S. history. To make the professional development available to as many teachers as possible, the 20 afterschool workshops will be held at 10 different low-performing schools.

New Heights Charter School and four other schools in the K-8 Charter Consortium, including two that have not achieved Adequate Yearly Progress for 3 years, serve more than 1,500 students in Los Angeles. Understanding American History will guide history teachers in these schools through activities that increase their pedagogical content knowledge, including after-school seminars and museum visits. Teachers will also pilot lessons and units of study in teacher cohort classrooms and use the Tuning Protocol to reflect on the units and refine them in grade-level teams. Recruitment of participants will focus on teachers with multiple subject credentials who teach American history content; 30 teachers will participate (starting with 24 in Year 1, with three more added in Year 2 and another three in Year 3). Teachers will explore significant turning points in American history and the role of individuals as viewed through the lens of core principles set forth in the nation's founding documents that have shaped America's social, political, and legal institutions. Teachers will employ the instructional strategies outlined by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe in Understanding by Design as they design units of study that address "enduring understandings" in American history. Teachers will design 25 American history units of study that motivate students and support English language learning; share what they learn with members of the California Charter Schools Association; and make exemplary units and support materials available online to the larger teaching community.

This suburban district, east of San Francisco and Oakland, has high percentages of schools not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress standards. Nearly 20 percent of students are English Language Learners, and state history-social science test results show 30 percent of 8th grade students and 28 percent of 11th grade students scoring below basic. Each year, American Democracy in Word and Deed will have professional historians, scholars, and educators lead four 2-hour afterschool colloquia, a weeklong summer institute and four daylong colloquia. Activities will include discussions, lectures, and opportunities to develop, teach, evaluate, and revise a lesson each year. Two cohorts, each with 25 teachers from Grades 4 and 5 (early American history) and 25 teachers from grades 8 and 11 (19th- and 20th-century American history), will participate for either two or three years. The project's theme will focus on the words and deeds that gave birth to, nurtured, and tested democracy in American history. Teacher interaction and engagement with content experts will be aimed at helping teachers develop enthusiasm, creativity, and confidence around content knowledge, historical thinking skills, and discipline-specific approaches to reading and writing. The practice of Lesson Study will help teachers become more collaborative, reflective, and effective in their classroom instruction. Each year, every teacher will create and refine a lesson, so the project will produce a collection of activities to share with history district-wide teachers.

Eighteen schools in four districts on the central California coast have been identified as in need of improvement. Many teachers in this multi-ethnic region have said they need more support for teaching American history. The Equity project will provide support in the form of workshops, study groups that meet in person and online, mentoring, book studies, and summer academies that include field studies at local, regional, and national historic sites. Historians and master teachers will lead sessions and field trips, and teachers will identify and gather classroom resources as part of the activities. The project cohort of 50 teachers will blend grades and school levels, with the aim of giving teachers a vertical perspective and within and cross-grade interactions. The Equity project theme of exploring history in a scholarly way will be reinforced by contacts with professional historians throughout the 5-year project. Content will be selected to meet the needs of elementary and middle school teachers, who want chronological surveys of content, and the needs of high school teachers, who want in-depth exploration of specific topics. Content will include findings from current research, primary source analysis, and review of historiographic issues. Instructional strategies will focus on how to design inquiry-based instructional activities that incorporate primary sources, help students build context or background knowledge, and make connections to the present, as well as integrate multiple perspectives. Equity teachers will develop lesson plans and compile classroom resources to help them create rich learning environments and to share with other teachers on the project Web site.

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.

The Elk Grove Unified School District serves culturally, ethnically, linguistically, and economically diverse students in southern Sacramento County and Elk Grove. Twelve of its 22 secondary schools are not achieving Adequate Yearly Progress, and on the California Standards Test, 48 percent to 68 percent of eighth and eleventh-graders score below "proficient" on questions related to American history. Teachers who participate in American Citizen: A Study of Liberty and Rights (American Citizen) in Years 1-3 will take one or more professional development pathways: Mastering History (an intensive, 2½-year master's degree program in history that includes evening and weekend classes and reading seminars); Talking History (an annual series of six scholarly lectures, including two book studies); Doing History (four 2-day workshops); and Living History (four 2-day colloquia, a week-long summer institute at a historic site, and collaboratively developed units). In Years 1-3, 16 teachers will participate in the master's degree program, 50 in Talking History, and 25 each in Doing History and Living History. In Years 4-5, American Citizen will expand its reach through district-wide extension activities: a learning collaborative, monthly professional development trainings led by master teachers, participation in National History Day, continuation of Talking History and Living History programs, and possibly a master's degree program for a second cohort. The unifying theme will be the liberty and rights of the American citizen. Teachers will learn strategies for differentiated instruction, primary source analysis, historical writing, historical inquiry, document-based questioning, and the effective use of biography and multimedia. A program Web site will publish lesson plans and enable history teachers to share ideas for improving instruction.

America's Story: Forging Identity Through E Pluribus Unum (America's Story) involves three urban, K-8 districts in east San Jose, California. Many students in these ethnically diverse schools (40 languages are spoken) are English Language Learners, and teachers want support with history teaching in general and with teaching to English learners specifically. Annual project activities will include both content and academic literacy instruction during four school-year colloquia, a 5-day summer institute, and grade-level groups supporting teachers. The participant cohorts will contain 12 teachers each year; they will be supported by three academic literacy coaches and two teacher advisory team members. America's Story will examine how American identity has developed over time through people's words and deeds, successes and setbacks in nation-building, and immigration and migration. Elements of this theme will be matched with specific state content standards. American history coaches will lead professional development and facilitate lesson creation, using the Backward Design approach for framing lessons and driving student inquiry. Academic literacy teacher facilitators will provide leadership for implementing strategies in the schools, using the UC Berkeley project's academic literacy program, which develops students' reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. The project will result in a collection of teacher-designed instructional units to be posted online, plus information and resources about the project that can be used to replicate the training with other teachers.

Mesa Unified School District, the largest school district in Arizona, serves students from Mesa, Salt River, Fort McDowell, and the Navaho and Hopi communities. East Meets Southwest will focus on 10 of the district's most disadvantaged/underachieving schools as it immerses teachers in substantive professional development. Annual activities will include a day-long Library of Congress training and a 2-day National Archives Training (Year 1), summer mentoring institutes (Years 1 and 2), a 5-day summer colloquium, two 1-day seminars, a 2-day workshop, two half-day curriculum mapping sessions, and travel-study field experiences. Lectures, peer discussions, independent study, research, and electronic field trips will be embedded in program activities. Under the mentorship of teachers with experience in another Teaching American History grant, participating teachers will meet in Professional Learning Communities to accomplish vertical articulation of content and teaching practices, to develop assessments, to review lesson plans, and to develop new content that can be incorporated by teachers throughout the district. Thirty teachers from six elementary schools and four junior high schools will participate throughout all three years of the program. East Meets Southwest will explore the country's traditions, founding principles, and ongoing struggles by connecting regional history to a meaningful narrative of traditional American history. Teachers will learn to incorporate historical thinking, primary source materials, biography, content-based teaching strategies, and strategies such as debate, role-play, and historical reenactment. Professional Learning Communities will be sustained beyond the life of the program, and a Web site will provide district-wide access to lesson plans, alternative assessments, primary source information, and other resources.