This institute will provide educators the opportunity to engage in serious study and seminar-style discussion of basic issues of political theory and the values and principles of American constitutional democracy.

This workshop explores the American Revolution and the creation of the U.S. Constitution through the use of the National Constitution Center's innovative museum exhibits, lectures by leading scholars, interactive discussion, and visits to numerous historic landmarks.

This workshop explores the American Revolution and the creation of the U.S. Constitution through the use of the National Constitution Center's innovative museum exhibits, lectures by leading scholars, interactive discussion, and visits to numerous historic landmarks.

The workshop features the presentations of several preeminent Twain and Gilded Age scholars. The combined expertise of this distinguished faculty affords teachers an outstanding opportunity to enhance their understanding of Mark Twain's legacy. The culmination of participants' work with this exceptional slate of scholars will be their creation of Twain-related lesson plans that they can use in their classrooms.

Participants in this workshop will travel throughout the Delta as they visit sites where significant events occurred. They will discuss and learn about issues involving civil rights and political leadership, immigrants' experiences in the Delta, the Blues, the great migration, agriculture, and the Mississippi River, among other things. They will sample Delta foods, visit local museums, and listen to the Blues. Field trips will roam as far as Greenville, Greenwood, and Memphis, with stops in between.

During this workshop, participants will consider three major topics. First, they will examine Dickinson the writer. Emily Dickinson is now considered one of the greatest poets in the English language, yet her work was not known outside of a small circle of family and friends until after her death. Because Dickinson herself gave few explicit clues about her attitude toward publication, scholars debate reasons that she did not share her poetry with a wider audience. Ongoing discussion about the authenticity of Dickinson's manuscripts versus the printed poems, which were edited by others, lies at the heart of that debate. Second, they will consider Dickinson, a woman in 19th-century America. Because Dickinson's poems resonate in style and content with the 21st-century reader, her work is often described as "ahead of its time." Critics are often tempted to read her work out of its historical context, to focus on its universal connections to the exclusion of its 19th-century origins. Yet, as recent scholarship asserts, Dickinson's poetry is inseparable from the times in which it was written. Several new essay collections about the poet are devoted to questions of Dickinson's experience of the Civil War, her political opinions, her response to religious movements, and her interest in and connections to her literary contemporaries. Finally, participants will consdier Dickinson, resident of rural New England. Dickinson ended a poem with "I see New Englandly." Dickinson's ancestors settled in western New England in the 1600s. Her world was defined by its character and landscape, and the imagery and diction of her poetry reveal her deep connections to place. This aspect of Dickinson's poetry has long attracted the attention of readers and scholars, yet it has sometimes limited their appreciation for her artistic achievements, marking her as a quaint New England poetess. By modeling different approaches to inquiry-based and object-based learning, the workshop will equip educators with new pedagogical tools and will help them address national standards in English and social studies. They will explore their own interests in Dickinson's life and work through a series of meetings with mentor teachers that will culminate in an outline for a new or revised curriculum unit or a plan for new classroom resources.

This Institute will explore segregated education in Virginia and trace the efforts of African Americans who fought for quality schools in the years before Brown v. Board of Education. It will examine Brown and both efforts to implement and resist the decision in Virginia. Finally, it will look at the legacy of Brown. Participants will interact with historians and educators and will take part in lectures, discussions, and workshops and go on field trips to Farmville and the state capitol. They will work with Virginia Historical Society staff to explore teaching strategies and the Society's resources.

The Federalist is a complex political work comprised of arguments about war, economics, national unity, and liberty (among other things) based on appeals to human nature, history, reason, and prudence. In this course participants will examine and discuss the Federalist as fully and as deeply as possible, aiming to understand how (or whether) its parts fit together in a coherent whole and its enduring contribution to U.S. understanding of politics.