Choosing to Participate Online Workshop
Description
From the Facing History and Ourselves website:
"Educators are invited to join this free online workshop designed to introduce the resources and interactive features of Facing History's newly revised website, Choosing to Participate.
Choosing to Participate: Facing History and Ourselves is an engaging interactive multimedia exhibition that has won national praise for encouraging people of all ages to consider the consequences of their everyday choices and for inspiring them to make a difference in their schools and communities. The exhibition focuses on four individuals and communities whose stories illustrate the courage, initiative, and compassion that are needed to protect democracy and human rights."
Contact email
Sponsoring Organization
Facing History and Ourselves
Phone number
6177351643
Target Audience
Middle and high school educators
Start Date
Cost
Free
Duration
Nine days
End Date
New York Divided: Slavery and the Civil War
Description
From the Lincoln and New York website:
"This course introduces teachers to the scholarship behind the groundbreaking exhibitions Slavery in New York and New York Divided: Slavery and the Civil War. Beginning with a survey of Dutch, British and American practices of slavery, teachers will explore the varied experiences of the enslaved men and women who built New York. In Part II of the course, teachers will examine key themes of the exhibition New York Divided, including New York City's economic and social connections to Southern slavery; the co-existence of anti-black and abolitionist sentiment in New York; and major events in New York during the Civil War, including the Draft Riots and the raising of African-American regiments."
"Teachers wishing to receive professional credit must register online with the New York After-School Professional Development Program; visit their website: https://pci.nycenet.edu/aspdp/. Teachers who do not wish to receive credit may register on Ed-Net, available at http://www.nyhseducationdb.org/login.aspx."
NOTE: The dates for this program are not yet set. It will take place in Spring 2010.
Contact name
James Keary
Contact email
Sponsoring Organization
New-York Historical Society
Phone number
2124859264
Target Audience
PreK-12
Course Credit
30 hours professional development
Contact Title
Administrative Assistant
Understanding the Underground Railroad
Description
From the Lincoln and New York website:
"This course introduces teachers to the scholarship about the history, legacy, and memory of the Underground Railroad. Beginning with a survey of the history of slavery in this country to provide historical context for further learning, participants will then explore the workings of the Underground Railroad. Through document and object analysis, case studies, use of online resources, guest speakers, and field trips, participants will examine key figures in the Underground Railroad and the effects of their actions on the nation. Participants will receive scholarly resources and reproductions of primary source materials."
"Teachers wishing to receive professional credit must register online with the New York After-School Professional Development Program; visit their website: https://pci.nycenet.edu/aspdp/. Teachers who do not wish to receive credit may register on Ed-Net, available at http://www.nyhseducationdb.org/login.aspx."
NOTE: The dates for this program are not yet set. It will take place in Spring 2010.
Contact email
Sponsoring Organization
New-York Historical Society
Phone number
2124859264
Target Audience
PreK-12
Course Credit
30 hours professional development
Contact Title
Administrative Assistant
Monuments to a Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorials
Quiz Webform ID
22415
date_published
quiz_instructions
Ever since Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination in 1968, communities across the U.S. have sought ways to memorialize the ideals King and the civil rights movement came to stand for. Identify the locations of the following monuments to King, each presenting a unique view of his life and legacy.
Quiz Answer
1. A statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. stands on a pedestal engraved with these words: "His dream liberated [. . .] from itself and began a new day of love, mutual respect, and cooperation." Which city fills in the gap?
a. Birmingham, AL
The statue stands in Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, AL. The park, which predates the civil rights movement, was used by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) as a staging point for nonviolent protests in 1963. Protesters, many of them local schoolchildren, massed here to organize for sit-ins, boycotts, and marches; in the streets around the park, law enforcement officers drenched protestors with fire hoses and menaced them with dogs. Photographs of these events created some of the most enduring images of the movement.
Today, the park contains the Freedom Walk, which leads visitors past a number of statues related to the protests, including statues of the dog attacks and children in jail.
2. A 30-foot-tall black granite pinnacle encircled by spirals of steel rises from a pool of water in front of you. You're standing in front of a memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr. in what city?
d. Seattle, WA
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Park in Seattle, WA, honors the memory of King with an abstract sculpture inspired by his final speech, "I've Been to the Mountaintop." No specific event in the civil rights movement or in King's life took place at this location; like memorials, events, and other observances nationwide, the Memorial Park sculpture, by Seattle artist Robert Kelly, reminds the surrounding community not of specific historical events but of the assumed spirit of King's life and of the civil rights movement.
3. A well-muscled African American man, wearing only a loincloth, holds his newborn up to the sky. Which city are you visiting now?
d. Atlanta, GA
Sculptor Patrick Morelli's BEHOLD stands in the Peace Plaza in Atlanta, GA. Around the plaza range sites important in the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., including his birth home and Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King preached as co-pastor with his father. Newer sites also surround the statue and plaza: The King Center, the location of King's tomb, founded by King's widow, Coretta Scott King, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Visitor Center, maintained by the National Park Service.
4. Surrounded by trees, you walk from one upwelling of water to the next. Each small fountain, set back into a semicircular niche of stone, commemorates a martyr to the civil rights movement. You're strolling through the King memorial in which city?
c. Washington, DC
The Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial does not yet exist, but the memorial's design has been completed and ground broken, ceremonially, on the proposed site. When finished, the envisioned four-acre memorial will be positioned along the edge of the Tidal Basin, along a sightline stretching from the Lincoln Memorial to the Jefferson Memorial. Difficulties and controversy have dogged the memorial's progress, including backlash when Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin was chosen to carve the nearly-three-story-tall statue of King that will anchor the memorial.
For more information
The National Park Service's travel itinerary We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement describes the historical significance of the Kelly Ingram Park (also known as West Park). Adjoining the park, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute preserves and interprets the history of the Birmingham protests and the civil rights movement as a whole.
For images of the Martin Luther King, Jr. statue and the park's other statues, try a Google images search using the keywords "Kelly Ingram Park."
Seattle's official website for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Park offers very little information, but the Historical Marker Database's entry provides photos of the sculpture and the plaques describing events in King's life that surround the memorial.
For the full text and audio recording of King's "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, refer to American Radioworks' page on the speech, part of its Say It Plain feature, examining speeches by 12 great African American speakers.
The National Park Service's website for the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site features an article on BEHOLD's artist's intentions and a photo of the statue. For more on the nearby King Center, try our Museums and Historic Sites listing.
At BuildTheDream.org, the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Foundation describes the history and goals of the project to build the King national memorial. Sections of the website provide a timeline of the project, evocative descriptions of its proposed design, press releases and news articles related to the memorial, and suggestions for students to get involved. A Google search using "Lei Yixin" and "Martin Luther King" will bring up a number of articles on the controversy over Lei Yixin's selection as sculptor; students might look at these to consider the range of viewpoints on the issue, and the emotion and ideals involved in creating a monument like the King memorial.
Sources
- National Park Service, Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement: We Shall Overcome (accessed October 1, 2009).
- Richard E. Miller, "Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Park," Historical Marker Database (accessed October 1, 2009).
- National Memorial Project Foundation, Inc., BuildTheDream.org (accessed October 7, 2009).
- National Park Service, Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, (accessed October 2, 2009).
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Teaching the 20th
Quiz Webform ID
22410
date_published
quiz_instructions
We see the past through the filter of the present. How does that filter change perceptions as the distance between past and present widens? Date the following textbook excerpts—two on the women's movement in the later 20th century and two on Ronald Reagan's presidency—and consider the change in how writers interpret the present as it becomes the past.
Quiz Answer
1. A steadily growing number [of women] were entering the professions of medicine, law, education, religion, and the various fields of science and engineering. More and more were occupying positions of leadership in business and government formerly held only by men.
The above textbook excerpt on feminism and the post-World-Wars women's movement dates from:
a. 1966
This excerpt comes from Harcourt and Brace's Rise of the American Nation, by Lewis Paul Todd and Merle Curti. The excerpt has a tone of optimism—more and more women, the text says, were and are entering male-dominated fields. This excerpt also reveals which career fields the 1966 authors considered previously barred to women.
2. In some ways, the position of women in American society was worse in the 1960s than it had been in the 1920s. After forty years, there was a lower percentage of women enrolled in the nation's colleges and professional schools. Women were still relegated to stereotyped occupations like nursing and teaching; there were few female lawyers and even fewer women doctors.
This textbook excerpt on feminism and the women's movement dates from:
c. 1995
This excerpt comes from HarperCollins' America Past and Present, by Robert A. Divine et al. Contrast this excerpt with that in Question 1. By 1995, HarperCollins' textbook authors see the 1960s not as a period of "steady growth" in women's rights, but instead as a time in which such opportunities decreased. What changed? Certainly not events themselves. Perhaps contrast between conditions for women in 1995 and in the 1960s made the 1960s seem backward by comparison. Perhaps the different authors interpreted the same cultural trends differently. Or perhaps authors drew upon different data to create the narratives.
3. With his great popularity and shrewd handling of Congress, Reagan soon got much of his economic program passed. The final bill included $39 billion in tax cuts and a 25 percent cut in income taxes. The results of Reaganomics, however, were not quite what the President had hoped. Spending cuts, together with high interest rates, brought inflation down, but at first the cure was painful.
This textbook excerpt on Ronald Reagan's presidency dates from:
b. 1999
This excerpt comes from Glencoe McGraw-Hill's American History: The Modern Era Since 1865, by Donald A Ritchie. Contrast this excerpt with the excerpt in Question 4. In 1999, a decade after Reagan's presidency ended, this textbook's author could look back over the whole of Reagan's term and draw conclusions about the success or failure of Reagan's policies.
4. [Reagan] promised economy in government and a balanced budget, and he committed himself to "supply-side" economics, or tax reductions to businesses to encourage capital investment. But while he planned to slash federal spending, Reagan also pledged to cut income taxes and boost the defense budget—a feat John Anderson said could only be done with mirrors.
This textbook excerpt on Ronald Reagan's presidency dates from:
b. 1982
This excerpt comes from Houghton Mifflin's A People and a Nation: A History of the United States, by Mary Beth Norton et al. Contrast this excerpt with the excerpt in Question 3. In 1982, Reagan's presidency was in its early years, and textbook writers could not yet address his term in office as a neat whole. While it needed to be described—as the inevitable conclusion of the textbook's historical narrative—the recent past resisted easy integration into the text.
(Illinois Congressman John Anderson ran against Ronald Reagan in the 1980 Republican primary.)
For more information
Interested in guiding your students in examination of their own textbooks? Explore teachinghistory.org's Beyond the Textbook feature. In this series of articles, historians look at what textbooks choose to leave out or miscontextualize when dealing with a number of subjects. Current articles address slavery, causes of the Civil War, and the industrial revolution.
Articles in our Teaching with Textbooks series also offer ideas and models for opening up textbooks to inquiry and analysis.
Sources
- Ward, Kyle. History in the Making: An Absorbing Look at How American History has Changed in the Telling over the Last 200 Years. New York: New, 2006.
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Presidential Academy for American History and Civics
Description
From the Ashbrook Center website:
"This Presidential Academy will lead teachers in a careful study of three turning points in American history: The American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Movement. Our study will be framed by the three famous documents that memorialize these American epochs: the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, and the "I Have a Dream" speech. Participants will spend five days in Philadelphia, six days in Gettysburg, and six days in Washington, DC.
The professors conducting the Academy are among the finest scholars of American history and government from across the country. They include a Pulitzer Prize winning author and many recipients of teaching awards at their respective colleges and universities."
Contact email
Registration Deadline
Sponsoring Organization
Ashbrook Center
Target Audience
Middle and high school
Start Date
Cost
Free; $1500 stipend
Course Credit
"Teachers may choose to receive four hours of Master's degree credit from Ashland University. This credit can be used toward the Master of American History and Government offered by Ashland University or may be transfered to another institution. The four credits are offered at a discounted cost of $880 ($220/semester credit hour)."
Duration
Nineteen days
End Date
William Robertson Coe Workshop in American History: Revolutions in American Life
Description
From the Stanford University Department of History website:
"The 2010 William Robertson Coe Summer Workshop in American History will be organized around the theme of 'Revolutions in American Life.' Participants will explore problems of historical change and continuity through a close examination of three watershed periods in American history: the American Revolution, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights era. Each period was marked by bitter conflict and momentous change, not only in the realm of politics but also in American social, cultural, and political life. Not surprisingly, each has generated intense debate among historians.
Participants in the Coe Workshop will examine these three periods, as well as the historiographical debates to which they have given rise. Salient themes include changing conceptions of citizenship and of the relationship between individuals and the state; struggles over the meaning of federalism; and the continuous struggles of women, African Americans, and other historically marginalized groups to claim their full portion as American citizens.
Instruction will include daily lectures by Stanford University historians, as well as group discussions of select primary and secondary sources. (Participants will receive a resource packet, including books, documents, and sample curricula, about one month before the workshop begins.) These lectures and discussions, convened daily from 9:00 am to 12:00 noon, will be supplemented by evening movie screenings, as well as by occasional field trips to local museums, archives, and historical sites. While the primary focus is on content enrichment, the workshop will also include dedicated pedagogy sessions, enabling participants to debate and exchange effective teaching strategies. In addition, each participant will create a lesson examining one of the three historical periods under consideration, which he or she will then share with other workshop members."
Registration Deadline
Sponsoring Organization
Stanford University
Target Audience
11-12
Start Date
Cost
Free; fellowship stipend provided
Course Credit
"Fellows who wish to receive credit for participation in the workshop may request a certificate of completion (an equivalent of 3 units of graduate credit, or 2 semester units)."
Duration
Twelve days
End Date
The Freedom Rights Movement in Alabama: From the 13th Amendment through the Voting Acts of 1935
Description
From Alabama Humanities:
This six-day, interdisciplinary teachers' institute will explore African Americans' attempts to achieve full equality in Alabama and neighboring Southern states. Resident scholars will assist participants in determining, assessing, and articulating the continued importance of past human and civil rights successes in Alabama—and elsewhere in the South.
Contact name
Thomas E. Bryant
Contact email
Sponsoring Organization
Alabama Humanities
Phone number
2055583997
Target Audience
4-12
Start Date
Course Credit
"45 contact hours"
Duration
Six days
End Date
Great American Texts: Frederick Douglass
Description
From the Ashbrook Center website:
"To reflect on the life of Frederick Douglass is to be reminded of the famous self-description attributed to his great contemporary, Mark Twain: 'I am not an American; I am the American.' A classic self-made man, Douglass, like his country, rose from a low beginning to a great height; he gained freedom by his own virtue and against great odds in a revolutionary struggle; and he matured into an internationally renowned apostle of universal liberty. In this course, we consider Douglass' telling of his own story, taking as primary texts his three autobiographies: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881; 1892). We will find in these texts not only the annals of an unforgettable life but also Douglass' reflections on enduring issues in American political thought such as the nature and specific evil of slavery, the nature and grounds of human rights and freedom, and the meaning and mission of the American Republic."
Contact email
Registration Deadline
Sponsoring Organization
Ashbrook Center
Phone number
8772895411
Target Audience
K-12
Start Date
Cost
Free; $500 stipend
Course Credit
"Teachers may choose to receive two hours of Master's degree credit from Ashland University. This credit can be used toward the Master of American History and Government offered by Ashland University or may be transferred to another institution. The two credits will cost $440."
Duration
Six days
End Date