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E. Claiborne Robins, Jr. Teachers Institute

Description

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.

Contact name

Legros, Caroline

Contact email

clegros@vahistorical.org

Registration Deadline

Thu, 05/14/2009 - 20:00

Sponsoring Organization

Virginia Historical Society

Phone number

804-342-9652

Target Audience

K-12

Start Date

Sun, 07/12/2009 - 20:00

Cost

Free; $250 stipend

Contact Title

School Program Coordinator

Duration

Five days

End Date

Thu, 07/16/2009 - 20:00

Website

http://www.vahistorical.org/education/education_teachers_institute.htm

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Massive Resistance through Political Cartoons

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This website features 4th graders analyzing two political cartoons from the Richmond Times-Dispatch about Virginia's reaction to the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. This standards-based lesson guides students in exploring the Virginia state policy of massive resistance to school desegregation. This video provides examples of two promising practices:

Modeling careful analysis of a primary source while practicing historical thinking with young students;
Using scaffolding and concrete instructional strategies to guide students in shaping meaning out of multiple primary sources.

The Lesson in Action

Video of the lesson shows the teacher modeling primary source analysis with the first cartoon and students working in pairs to interpret a second on their own. Both cartoons—one published in 1954 and the other in 1958—are drawn by Fred O. Siebel. They use similar imagery and symbolism, helping students analyze the second cartoon and compare the two. Through effective scaffolding and modeling of historical thinking skills, the teacher engages students in thinking about complex historical questions of equality, fairness, and the power of federal and state governments. The lesson concludes with a class discussion of each group's findings and what their analysis means in relation to Virginia and public school desegregation.

Through effective scaffolding and modeling of historical thinking skills, the teacher engages students in thinking about complex historical questions of equality, fairness, and the power of federal and state governments.

This lesson comes at the end of a unit on civil rights, segregation, desegregation, and massive resistance in Virginia. Students at this point have an understanding of segregation, Jim Crow laws, and the individuals Thurgood Marshal and former Virginia Governor Harry F. Bird, Sr. The teacher uses primary sources in this lesson to assess and review students' understandings of school desegregation and Byrd's Massive Resistance response to the Supreme Court order to integrate schools. At the same time, she engages students in thinking about historical questions of fairness, equality, and reactions to change. You can find a comprehensive lesson plan, complete with primary sources, background information, and classroom worksheets, on the website.

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Nineteenth-Century American Children and What They Read

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This site is devoted to the examination of 19th-century children in America: what they read, what was written about them, and what was written for them. "Children" includes letters, adoption advertisements, paper rewards for obedient children, 24 contemporary articles for and about children, and 14 photographs, as well as scrapbooks and exercise books. "Magazines" features illustrations, articles, editorials, and letters from 12 different children's magazines, with cover and masthead images from 173 different volumes. "Books" includes 22 articles on children and reading (including one warning children to avoid mental gluttony by not reading too much), and the full text of 29 books, including the American Spelling Book and grammar primers. Although the site is not searchable, the documents are indexed and arranged by subject. The site includes eight analytical essays written by modern scholars, a timeline covering the years 1789 to 1873 (with entries covering subjects like magazines, books, historical events, and people), and eight separate bibliographies. A "puzzle drawer" includes word games played by 19th-century children.

Literary Sources

Newspapers and Periodicals

Expansion & Reform, 1801-1861

Civil War & Reconstruction, 1850-1877

Devel. of the Industrial US, 1870-1900

Popular Culture, Leisure

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Sunday School Books: Shaping the Values of Youth in 19th-Century America

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These full-text transcriptions and page images of 163 "Sunday school books" address religious instruction for youth published in the U.S. between 1815 and 1865. Materials include texts used by Methodists, Baptists, Mormons, and other denominations and are searchable by subject, author, title, and keyword.

Books are categorized according to nine types: "Advice Books, Moral Tales"; "Animals, Natural History"; "Child Labor, Orphans, Poverty"; "Death, Dying, Illness"; "Holidays"; "Immigrants"; "Slavery, African Americans, Native Americans"; "Temperance, Tobacco"; and "Travel, Missionaries." There are 67 author biographies and an essay on Sunday school books. This collection offers valuable materials for studying antebellum culture, American religious history, print culture, and education.

Religious Texts