From the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History:

"To many, the Great Plains are part of the 'Great Flyover,' whose landscape and history alike are flat and featureless. But in this region in the middle of the nation, cultures have mingled and clashed for thousands of years. We will focus on the nineteenth century, though we will also examine the first peoples and the continuing cultural exchanges of the twentieth century. We will begin with the physical setting, plants, and animals, and consider early humans in both Native American traditions and anthropological/archeological studies. Europeans arriving in the sixteenth century accelerated the long history of change and evolution, initiating more than three centuries of converging peoples and cultures, new centers of power, flourishing trade, calamitous epidemics, and cultural and material intrusions from around the planet. We will visit Bent's Fort to see a cultural crossroads illustrated through one family. We will also examine cattle ranching, homesteading, scientific explorations, and the depiction of the Plains in art."

From the National Humanities Center:

The Civil War caused Americans to re-imagine themselves and their nation. Countrymen once again, however uneasily, Northerners, Southerners, and growing populations in the West had to figure out the meaning of the War and the meaning of citizenship in a nation that now included four million new citizens who had once been enslaved. Public monuments were central to this effort. The decades after the War constitute the greatest era of monument building in our history. In metal and stone those monuments are still with us—generals, soldiers, freedmen. What did they mean to the people who erected them? What did they say about the country the War created? What do they say to us today?

To encourage the use of monuments in instruction, participants will be asked to submit photos of local Civil War memorials for possible analysis in the seminar.

From Alabama Humanities:

World War II is ideally suited to today's classroom. All of the novels selected for the course have been included on high school reading lists for years. Film versions of most of the novels are readily available to the high school teacher. Excerpts from several of these films will be shown during class. Teachers will learn about a number of World War II artists, such as Tom Lea and Kerr Eby, whose artwork can also be used to illustrate the war. Finally, teachers will learn how to use the best audiovisual aids in the classroom: actual veterans of World War II who can be found all over the United States.

From the Salem State College website:

"Picturing Early America explores the primary pictorial forms in American visual art from the British colonial settlement to the aftermath of the Civil War.

The three units—portraiture, history painting, and landscape—will include a particular focus on works drawn from NEH's initiative Picturing America. This NEH poster series, which has already been distributed to thousands of schools, captures forty canonical works of American art that reflect the artistic and cultural history of the United States. Through the institute you will come to a deeper understanding of these works in their historical contexts and explore different methods of visual analysis. You will develop strategies and tools to use the Picturing America series and other examples of American art in your classrooms."