From a Minnesota Historical Society email announcement:

"Join us on Tues., Nov. 24 from 4-7 p.m. for a free Educator's preview of our newest exhibit: "Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World" (limited engagement Nov. 27, 2009 - July 4, 2010).

One of America’s most influential historical figures, Franklin was a scientist, diplomat, and entrepreneur. Our Educator's preview will include samplings from the three Invention History Lessons available through our field trip programs and a History Center Interpreter-guided tour of the exhibit, with helpful hints on how to use the 18th-century artifacts and experiments within the exhibit to get the most enrichment possible for your students.

Participants will receive a goody bag, 10% discount in the museum stores, and prize giveaways."

From the National Humanities Center website:

"As Americans in the eighteenth century became wealthier, they developed a taste for such consumer goods as silver tea pots, fine cloth, and expensive furniture. This workshop will explore what they bought, why they bought it, how these purchases changed their image of themselves, and finally, how they led to the American Revolution."

From the Newberry Library website:

"This course approaches poetry as a force that shapes ideas of citizenship and cultural identity. We will examine the form and content of familiar and less familiar poems from the period of the American Revolution to the present, including works by Longfellow, Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne Rich, and Joy Harjo."

From the Newberry Library website:

"One of the most remarkable debates in history took place in 1787-1788, when American essayists debated the merits of the Constitution drafted in Philadelphia. We will discuss several of the renowned Federalist Papers that supported the Constitution, along with essays of anti-Federalists, whose criticisms helped shape how the Constitution was ultimately implemented and interpreted."

From the Montpelier website:

"What is the purpose of a Bill of Rights? While we may think of the Bill of Rights as a charter of 'rights,' the first ten amendments to the Constitution are, in fact, a list of restrictions on government power. Do they also function as marks of the People's sovereignty and/or foundations for a democratic polity?

In this Seminar you will examine the idea of delineating the rights of persons as contrasted with defining the powers of government, examining the debates among the founders over the inclusion of a Bill of Rights in the Constitution. How is the project of constitution-making continued in the process of amendment?"

"Participants will receive a collection of primary documents in advance of the seminar, specific to the content of each program, which will be the basis of most discussions. They include writings by James Madison, sections of The Federalist Papers, selections from Antifederalist writers, and other fundamental documents. Each seminar includes an intensive session on ways of reading a document of political or constitutional theory. . . . Each seminar will conclude with the lecture 'American Citizenship as Constitutional Citizenship: The Exemplar of James Madison.'

Teachers will also become acquainted with the curriculum We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution, which is widely used across the nation and is compatible with state and national standards. All participants will receive a complete classroom set of the We the People textbooks, appropriate to the grade level they teach. A classroom set includes 30 student texts and 1 teacher's guide."

From the Montpelier website:

"What does it mean to found a country with a 'constitution?' How is an enterprise like the United States begun or put together in the first place?

What is the relevance of a Founding to a country that has grown, evolved, and changed over more than 200 years? How much of America (its institutions, its politics, its people) was founded through the endeavors in Madison's time to establish, elaborate, maintain, and preserve the Constitution of the United States?

The central focus of this Seminar will be Madison's Notes on the Federal Convention of 1787, which he wrote to provide future generations with an account of the creation of the Constitution, so that it could be properly maintained. He intended its drafting to be seen an honorable and hopeful, and he wanted others to have a guide for making similarly ambitious constitutions of their own."

"Participants will receive a collection of primary documents in advance of the seminar, specific to the content of each program, which will be the basis of most discussions. They include writings by James Madison, sections of The Federalist Papers, selections from Antifederalist writers, and other fundamental documents. Each seminar includes an intensive session on ways of reading a document of political or constitutional theory. . . . Each seminar will conclude with the lecture 'American Citizenship as Constitutional Citizenship: The Exemplar of James Madison.'

Teachers will also become acquainted with the curriculum We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution, which is widely used across the nation and is compatible with state and national standards. All participants will receive a complete classroom set of the We the People textbooks, appropriate to the grade level they teach. A classroom set includes 30 student texts and 1 teacher's guide."

From the Montpelier website:

"Citizenship has been considered classically as the single most basic aspect of any constitutional order. And yet the 18th-century founders left the question unresolved. Does the addition of the 14th Amendment in the 1860s represent a continuation of the Founding or a new constitutional order?

What does it mean to be a citizen of a constitutionally founded nation? Among its other innovations, American constitutionalism has redefined the concept of citizenship and political community. How does the Constitution help us define what it means to be an American? How has our understanding of what is a citizen of the American constitutional order evolved (or devolved)?"

"Participants will receive a collection of primary documents in advance of the seminar, specific to the content of each program, which will be the basis of most discussions. They include writings by James Madison, sections of The Federalist Papers, selections from Antifederalist writers, and other fundamental documents. Each seminar includes an intensive session on ways of reading a document of political or constitutional theory. . . . Each seminar will conclude with the lecture 'American Citizenship as Constitutional Citizenship: The Exemplar of James Madison.'

Teachers will also become acquainted with the curriculum We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution, which is widely used across the nation and is compatible with state and national standards. All participants will receive a complete classroom set of the We the People textbooks, appropriate to the grade level they teach. A classroom set includes 30 student texts and 1 teacher's guide."

From the Montpelier website:

"The very idea of 'constitution' is one of the crucial inventions of our founding. How did Federalists and Antifederalists view the nature of a constitution at the time of the founding of the United States?

We will use the concept of a constitution to develop a deeper understanding of American constitutionalism. What is the relationship between a 'constitution' and a social compact among the People, or a contract between citizens and government?

The associated innovations of a Bill of Rights, amendment, and citizenship will be highlighted from the perspective of the unprecedented process of constitution-making as a means to define the contours of a new political world."

"Participants will receive a collection of primary documents in advance of the seminar, specific to the content of each program, which will be the basis of most discussions. They include writings by James Madison, sections of The Federalist Papers, selections from Antifederalist writers, and other fundamental documents. Each seminar includes an intensive session on ways of reading a document of political or constitutional theory. . . . Each seminar will conclude with the lecture 'American Citizenship as Constitutional Citizenship: The Exemplar of James Madison.'

Teachers will also become acquainted with the curriculum We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution, which is widely used across the nation and is compatible with state and national standards. All participants will receive a complete classroom set of the We the People textbooks, appropriate to the grade level they teach. A classroom set includes 30 student texts and 1 teacher's guide."