Online Workshops from the National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center

Online Resource Workshops
for High School Teachers of
U.S. History and American Literature
Spring 2009


Want to learn more about teaching primary documents in U.S. history classes?

Want to explore thematic connections between American literature and U.S. history?

Want to bring art into your history or literature lessons?

Sign up for a live, online resource workshop from the National Humanities Center.

The Center's online resource workshops give high school teachers of U.S. history and American literature a deeper understanding of their subject matter. They introduce teachers to fresh texts and critical perspectives and help teachers integrate them into their lessons. Led by distinguished scholars and running sixty to ninety minutes, they are conducted through lecture and discussion using conferencing software.

A resource workshop identifies central themes within a topic and explores ways to teach them through the close analysis of primary texts, including works of art, and the use of discussion questions. Texts are drawn from anthologies in the Center's Toolbox Library. To participate, all you need is a computer with an internet connection, a speaker, and a microphone.

Enrollment in each workshop is limited to eighteen participants.

Ten to thirty-five pages of reading
$35 registration fee (The registration fee may be paid by a school, district, professional development consortium, Teaching American History project, or other organization.)

The National Humanities Center will supply documentation for certificate renewal credit (including technology CEUs).

For information about group participation, contact Richard R. Schramm, Vice President for Education Programs, National Humanities Center, at rschramm@nationalhumanitiescenter.org.


SCHEDULE

Jacob Riis and Progressive Reform

In what ways is Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives a document of progressive reform?
What does How the Other Half Lives tell us about urbanization and immigration?
How does Riis use photography in How the Other Half Lives?

Leader:
Joy Kasson
National Humanities Center Fellow
Professor of American Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Date and Time: January 8, 2009; 6 p.m. (EST)

Registration Deadline: December 12, 2008 » Register now


Industrialization and Progressivism

What constituted progress during the Progressive era?
How did Americans define the "old" and "new," "backward" and "progressive" during this period?
How did economic and industrial ideas and methods influence other areas of American life during the Progressive era?

Leader:
Henry Binford
National Humanities Center Fellow
Associate Professor of History, Northwestern University

Date and Time: January 22, 2009; 6 p.m. (EST)

Registration Deadline: January 5, 2009 » Register now


Community in African American Culture: 1917-1968

How was African American community constructed during this period?
Under what circumstances was it created?
How did evolving concepts of community affect and reflect notions of African American identity?

Leader:
Stephanie Shaw
National Humanities Center Fellow
Professor of History, Ohio State University

Date and Time: February 12, 2009; 6 p.m. (EST)

Registration Deadline: January 16, 2009 » Register now


What It Meant to Be Enslaved

What did it mean to be enslaved in the United States?
How did the enslaved respond to bondage?
How did labor shape their daily lives?
In what ways did the enslaved resist bondage?
How did the enslaved maintain their identities?

Leader:
Daina Berry
National Humanities Center Fellow
Professor of History, Michigan State University

Date and Time: February 19, 2009; 6 p.m. (EST)

Registration Deadline: January 23, 2009 » Register now


Teaching African American History with WPA Slave Narratives

What do recollections of formerly enslaved people, gathered by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, tell us about slavery in America?
What interpretative challenges do the WPA slave narratives pose?
How can the WPA slave narratives be used with students?

Leader:
Marianne Wason
Assistant Director, Education Programs
National Humanities Center

Date and Time: February 26, 2009; 6 p.m. (EST)

Registration Deadline: February 6, 2009 » Register now


Civil War Home Fronts

How did the total mobilizations of the Civil War affect the northern and southern home fronts?
What was life like for women on the northern and southern home fronts?
What was life like for African Americans on the northern and southern home fronts?

Leader:
W. Fitzhugh Brundage
National Humanities Center Fellow
Umstead Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Date and Time: March 12, 2009; 6 p.m. (EST)

Registration Deadline: February 20, 2009 » Register now


Life on an Antebellum Plantation

How did the self-contained environment of a plantation--its layout, buildings, isolation, and use of the land--influence the lives and self-image of the enslaved?
What made a plantation "home?" What made a plantation "hell"?
How did a slave reconcile "home" and "hell"?
What can plantation photographs tell us about plantation life?

Leader:
John Vlach
Professor of American Studies, George Washington University

Date and Time: March 26, 2009; 6 p.m. (EST)

Registration Deadline: March 6, 2009 » Register now


Native American and European Power Rivalries in North America: 1690-1763

By 1690 what factors and issues dominated European-Native American relationships throughout North America?
How had these relationships changed by the end of the British imperial wars in 1763?
How did these changes influence British America on the eve of the Revolution?
How did these changes influence Native American culture and politics?

Leader:
Alan Taylor
National Humanities Center Fellow
Professor of History, University of California, Davis

Date and Time: April 7, 2009; 6 p.m. (EST)

Registration Deadline: March 20, 2009 » Register now


Art and American Identity: 1690-1789

In 1690, to what extent were the arts and material culture of the British Atlantic colonies "American"? To what extent were they "American" by 1789?
What major factors defined the evolution in American arts and material culture in this period?
To what extent did this evolution reflect the changing self-image of Americans?
Leader:
Maurie McInnis
Professor of Art History, University of Virginia

Date and Time: April 23, 2009; 6 p.m. (EST)

Registration Deadline: April 3, 2009 Register now