TAH Historians

Senate Hearing on History

2005-07-05T11:03:00.000-07:00

I thought this might be of interest:

SENATE HEARING: "U.S. HISTORY: OUR WORST SUBJECT" On 30 June 2005,the Senate Subcommittee on Education and Early Childhood Development of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions conducted a hearing on "The American History Achievement Act," legislation (S. 860) introduced by senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA). The legislation seeks to authorize a 10-state pilot study to provide a state-by-state comparison of U.S. history and civics test data for 8th and 12 grades administered through the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP).

During the hearing that was chaired by Alexander, NAEP officials announced that beginning in 2006 the U.S. history NAEP test would begin to be administered every four years. Furthermore, in response to criticism from historian David McCullough about the impact of the president's "No Child Left Behind" initiative on the teaching of history, Senator Kennedy promised that when the "No Child Left Behind" legislation comes up for reauthorization, history will be added as a core element in the initiative's teaching mission.

Panelists who testified included historian David McCullough; Executive Director of the National Assessment Governing Board Charles Smith; Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies Director Stephanie Norby; and Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals Field Representative James Parisi.

In his thoughtful remarks, McCullough told the senators that one of the central problems in the teaching of history is that teachers who possess degrees in education rarely possess the needed subject matter expertise to teach specific subjects such as history. He stated that history
majors make the best history teachers because they are able to
communicate a love of history to students. He also called on colleges
and universities to place renewed emphasis on the importance of a
liberal arts education.

McCullough also stated that, with some notable exceptions, history texts are often written in a style far to boring to interest students; he called for a renewed effort to emphasize the "literature of history." McCullough then returned to a familiar theme that he often raises in his appearances before congressional committees -- that it is important for teachers to focus on narrative history to reach students. McCullough minced no words when he pointed out the detrimental impact that the "No Child Left Behind" initiative -- with its emphasis on math and English testing -- is having on the teaching of history. Finally, he called on the committee to explore ways that school teachers can benefit from the superb educational opportunities that exist at the historic sites and places administered by the National Park Service. The national historical parks, stated McCullough, needed to be better tapped "as educational resources especially as locations for summer institutes and workshops."

In his prepared remarks, Charles E. Smith of the National Assessment Governing Board reviewed the widely known NAEP assessment results relating to history testing at the 4th, 8th, and 12th grade levels. In what perhaps was the most important news item to emerge out of the hearing, Smith announced that during the 19-21 May 2005 meeting his board of governors a new history testing schedule was adopted. He said that beginning in 2006, the NAEP U.S. history exam would be conducted every four years -- in 2006, 2010, and 2014. Smith also stated that as embodied in the legislation under consideration by the committee, the objective of conducting history assessments in at least ten geographically diverse states was "a reasonable goal" provided "a sufficient and timely appropriation" was forthcoming.

Stephanie Norby focused her brief remarks on the work of the Smithsonian Institution in offering teaching workshops throughout the country. James Parisi looked at the legislation from a state perspective. He expressed the opinion that S. 860 was particularly important as "state departments of education have a limited capacity to develop and implement any more assessment programs....Clearly, if states are to develop high-quality assessments" said Parisi, "federal assistance will be needed."

For the written testimony of the witnesses, please visit http://help.senate.gov/calendars/all.html and tap into the appropriate hearing link.

Post pictures

2005-07-01T17:01:00.000-07:00

We can now post pictures easily in Blogger. There is an icon above the text entry box on the posting:create page (between the spelling icon and the eraser).

Ever-Expanding Boarders

2005-06-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

I have a question about our description for the Boarders theme:

Expansion of Borders and Influence
This theme addresses the role of geographical, political, and economic expansion in American history, from early colonization to modern globalization.

I think we should change this to read:
This theme addresses the role of geographical, political, and economic expansion in American history, from pre-Columbian times to modern globalization.

... or something similar.

The change is to recognize that the role of geographical, political, and economic expansion isn't limited to events after the arrival of Columbus. From what I've read, cultures such as the Sioux and the Iroquois were as expansionist as anyone.

What say you?

Theme Presentations

2005-06-08T13:57:00.000-07:00

We're gearing up planning for the summer institute and I need to get your preferences about presentations. As I think we've discussed on several occasions, the general plan is to devote one day at the institute to each of the themes. In the morning there'd be sessions where one of you (or a team) discuss-explain-declaim-lead activities and otherwise teach about what historical themes are in general, about the given theme specifically, and about how this theme illuminates topics, events, movements etc.. Later in the day there'd be activities where teachers look at primary and secondary sources and evaluate them via the theme, or some such. This material comprises the primary content knowledge about history being conveyed in the project.

Then question then is, who wants to do which theme? I suggested we arm wrestle, but was voted down. How about this, could each of you send me your top two preferences AND whichever, if any, of the themes you feel you couldn't address. If we're lucky, assignments will fall out easily.

Here are the descriptions of the five themes as adopted at the meeting on the 2nd with the RMC people where we discussed the evaluation component:

American Dreams
This theme refers to the desire and effort of individuals and groups to
improve their personal, political, and economic standing within American
society.

Growth of Democracy
This theme encompasses the struggle of individuals and groups to define,
exercise, and ensure civil rights and political freedom for all members of
American society.

Expansion of Borders and Influence
This theme addresses the role of geographical, political, and economic
expansion in American history, from early colonization to modern
globalization.

Cultural Contact and Conflict
This theme refers to the dynamic interactions of people from diverse
cultures and how these interactions have shaped American society.

Industrial and Technological Change
This theme refers to the liberating and limiting effects of innovations and
inventions, and their impact on our nation’s social, economic, and
environmental condition.

What say you?

Summary of June 2nd Evaluation Meeting

2005-06-08T13:16:00.000-07:00

This summary of the Evaluation meeting held June 2nd. It was prepared by Chandra...

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your contributions at yesterdays Themes meeting and to summarize where we are and what we decided.

Kevin, Bea, and Mark Spence will write 3 scenarios, one for each combination of themes as described below. Each scenario should be no more than a half page in length. Please include with each of the 2 corresponding themes a list of key points that a respondent may address in his or her reaponse. In addition, please identify an appropriate 3rd theme for the third item in each scenario where we ask them to identify needed information. Please e-mail your work to me by June 15th.

Scenario 1—

Obvious Theme--Expansion of Borders and Influence
Less Obvious Theme--Cultural Contact and Conflict

Scenario 2—

Obvious Theme--American Dreams
Less Obvious Theme--Growth of Democracy

Scenario 3—

Obvious Theme--Cultural Contact and Conflict
Less Obvious Theme--Industrial and Technological Change

RMC Research will take these scenarios and the other work we did during the meeting and develop prototype assessment insstruments for your review. We will also begin development of an online system for assessment administration. The system will incoude reports for monitoring the submissions during administration.

We also decided that participating teachers will take the assessments twice. Once at the beginning of the institute and again in the spring of the following school year. RMC will develop 2 versions of the assessments, an A and B versions. Half of the participating teachers will take the A version first and the B versions second. The other half we take the B version first and the A version second. This will be managed automatically by the database system.

We also decided that development of the scoring rubrics, (no small task) can wait until fall 2005.

Thanks again for your help on this.

Theme Descriptions

2005-06-08T12:48:00.000-07:00

American Dreams
This theme refers to the desire and effort of individuals and groups to
improve their personal, political, and economic standing within American
society.

Growth of Democracy
This theme encompasses the struggle of individuals and groups to define,
exercise, and ensure civil rights and political freedom for all members of
American society.

Expansion of Borders and Influence
This theme addresses the role of geographical, political, and economic
expansion in American history, from early colonization to modern
globalization.

Cultural Contact and Conflict
This theme refers to the dynamic interactions of people from diverse
cultures and how these interactions have shaped American society.

Industrial and Technological Change
This theme refers to the liberating and limiting effects of innovations and
inventions, and their impact on our nation’s social, economic, and
environmental condition.

Status Report May 18th 2005

2005-05-18T13:14:00.000-07:00

This is an update of TAH activities up to the middle of May.

Cathy and Dawne at the DESD are busy recruiting teachers. Twenty have submitted applications and 20 more have expressed interest.

Chandra and Dave at RMC are set up to work on the evaluation instrument with Mark, Bea and Kevin on June 2nd.

And, everyone is busy working on creating cases for The Chart:

David has staked out the Industrial and Technological Change: #14 (Gilded Age) and #17 (1920s).

Mark Spence has chosen Early Republic/Expansion: Lewis and Clark Expedition and New Deal, WWII/Techno Change, River Development

Bea McKenzie wants the Bracero program and Mexican immigration in WWII, Seneca Falls, women and voting rights in the 1850s (Growth of Democracy 1815-1859), the Spanish American war and American Imperialism (Expanding Borders and Influence 1880-1914), and/or Immigration and Multiculturalism after the 1965 Immigration Act (American Dreams).

Finally Kevin has already written up the Oregon Donation Act, Indian Removal, and Early Oregon Settlement, Japanese Relocation & WWII, and Federal Indian Policy, Native Americans & the Allotment Era.

I'm hoping each of you will be able to forward these initial cases to me shortly. We're meeting with the teacher advisor group on Thursday the 19th in Roseburg to look at what's been done so far and to identify what parts of the chart are most important in write the remaining cases. We can then decide how to proceed.

It's also time to begin scheduling the Summer Institute, August 8th-19th. In general what we're expecting is that each of you will lead the activities on one day in relation to one of the themes, and be available for a second day to help out generally as teachers begin planning their projects. We'll need to work out who's available which days. Kevin and Bea have already indicated they need to come the second week because of scheduling conflicts with the UO Summer Session.

Cathy Chenail and I expect to begin work on the institute schedule in the next two weeks.

We'll keep you posted.

Test of Bloglet

2005-04-29T19:37:00.000-07:00

I just did some troubleshooting on Bloglet, to fix the problem of it not sending out notices of blog entries. It should be working now.
=Judith=

Status Report April 19th/Case Action Plan

2005-04-19T13:41:00.000-07:00

I have an update about the TAH Project for you and a plan of action.

The update. In the past month we have been working on three fronts. First, as you all know, we have been futzing around with defining and describing themes and time perionds. These form the structure of the “Inquiry Resources Chart” which has been described in earlier postings. It’s purpose is to provide teachers with ideas and primary and secondary resources around people, events, issues, movements, etc., they can use in doing their own inquiries and later for developing instructional units. I’ve listed the themes and time periods on the attached files. One is an EXCEL spreadsheet, and the other is a screen shot of the same. There is still some work to do in defining both themes and periods, but I think we’re far enough along to move to the next stage, actually filling in the chart.

Towards that end, I met with Kevin Hatfield and we worked out a template for chart entries, which I’ve taken to calling “cases.” Each case has four parts:
1. An overview of the Case
2. The connection to a theme and period
3. A set of inquiry questions
4. A list of primary and secondary sources

Kevin was kind enough to create a prototype case. The Chart and the case can be downloaded from these links:

Inquiry Resource Chart
Hatfield Case

One the second front we have been working with the RMC Corporation which has contracted to do the project evaluation. We now have a plan for creating the needed materials, and Kevin, Bea, and Mark Spence have agreed to assist RMC.

Third, we have begun recruiting teachers. There are two information meetings next week on the 27th and 28th in Roseburg.

Are any of you able to attend one of these meetings?
--------------
The Action Plan: Generating Cases.
We now need to create cases. If the template, along with Kevin’s prototype, are clear, then I think you can each begin work. We’ll need a plan for who will tackle which cells. We need something in each row and column, some cells might merit more than one case, and we need to pay particular attention to cells matching up best with school district curriculum; I’m working with our teacher group on this last issue.

We also need to decide a target for the number of cases we can reasonably generate. Is five cases from each of you a reasonable number?

I suggest the following plan of action:
1. Each of you please respond to this posting with comments, suggestions, problems, improvements etc. regarding the Case Template & Kevin’s prototype. We need to get the case format settled ASAP.

2. Decide if you think we need a meeting to hash all this out, or if we can do it via email and blog. I’m hoping we can avoid a meeting. I’m quite willing to come visit with any or all of you individually if that would be helpful. Let me know.

3. Presuming that Items #1 and #2 are answered more or less, with “it’s OK” and “no,” would each of you create 2 cases following the template, or similar structure. Pick any two cells; pick cells that are easiest for you to work with. If you can, create one case that is more regional or national in focus, and one case more local to Douglas County. Let me know what cases you decide to undertake.

Try to have your cases, in at least some draft form, to me by May 15th.

4. With 10 cases in hand, we can stop and evaluate the template, consult with the teachers, decide what other cells to address, evaluate the work load, and make a plan for completing the remaining cases, etc.

What do you think? Can we proceed on this basis.

Status Report: March 29th

2005-03-29T15:24:00.000-08:00

This is an update on where we stand on the Teaching American History project. At the moment our planning is proceeding on two fronts:

First, as perhaps you recall, one of the requirements of this project is for us to make a formal evaluation of our impact on what teachers learn about American History as a result of participating in this project. Generally speaking we want them to be able examine historical cases in the light of specific themes. To help us evaluate how well they learn to do this, we're drawing upon the expertise of RMC Corp., which is a research group operating out of Portland. They are developing a test that will be given to the teachers at several points in the project. Kevin Hatfield, Mark Spence and Bea McKenzie have agreed to assist RMC with this. We are currently considering options in how to structure this evaluation and the next meeting for those involved will be in late April or early May.

(If you haven't heard, Bea is a graduate student here at UO and is replacing Lizzie Reis who has had to drop out of the project)

Second, now that the themes have been more or less decided, is our work on the "Chart." As we have discussed, this chart will be a matrix of ideas and resources for teachers to use in conducting their personal inquiries, and for developing curriculum to use with their students. Each cell on the chart will hold several "cases" or topics. Each case revolves around a particular event, or idea, or person, or movement, or artifact, or document, or some such, that relates to a particular theme and a particular time period. In my thinking at the moment a case consists of the following:

1. A short overview of the event, or person or..... etc.
2. A short explanation of how this case relates to the theme and the time period
3. A small set of ideas or sample questions related to the case that teachers and students could investigate.
4. A set of resources (books, papers, artifacts, websites, etc.) teachers and students could use to investigate the questions.

Given that he was close at hand, I have discussed this with Kevin Hatfield and he has agreed to develop an example of one of these cases. Once he's done that, I'd like to meet with each of you, either individually or as a group, to discuss the structure of these cases, and to decide who will work on which themes and periods.

Do please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

Teacher Inquiry

2005-02-21T17:13:00.000-08:00

As you will recall, each of the teachers participating in the project are required to conduct an historical inquiry of their own. We expect this to happen next fall. We need to establish some parameters for the scope of this task, and eventually guidelines and directions for how they should proceed.

As a first step, can we discuss about how much time teachers might expect to put into such an inquiry? For instance, could the Average teacher, working on a question of Average complexity, expect to conduct a Reasonable inquiry, in about 25 hours of work? Fifty hours? Ten hours?

TAH Evaluation

2005-02-21T16:59:00.000-08:00

We met with Dave Weaver of RMC, the external evaluator. We discussed at length different ideas for the "test" participating teachers will take. Dave came up with a very interesting idea, which is described below.

Dave believes RMC needs support from all of you in creating this assessment instrument. He wants to set up a Task Force for this and is willing to pay for this assistance, over and above what is currently earmarked for each of you for your other participation in the project.

The details of time and compensation are yet to be decided.

Are you interested?
------------------------------------
Themes in American History Assessment Task Force
RMC Research is seeking 3 qualified American History historians to collaborate on the development of a series of contextual assessments of teachers' American History content knowledge around the 5 themes identified to be the focus of the project. The themes are:

◦ American Dreams
◦ Growth of Democracy
◦ Expanding Borders and Influence
◦ Cultural Contact and Conflict
◦ Industrial and Technological Change

Contextual assessments examine the depth of a teachers understanding of American History by how they respond to samples of student work. A contextual assessment would give the teacher a student's response to a task. The teacher would then write a narrative about what the student does and does not understand about American history based on the student's response. The assessments would also include a scoring guide for rating the teacher's assessment of the student's response. Teachers participating in the Themes in American History project will complete a contextual history assessment 3 times over the duration of the project. Therefore, the taskforce would need to develop at least 3 items and a rubric (scoring guide) for each of the 5 themes addressed in the project. Participation will involve approximately 3 days in this development effort and should have access to samples of student work at the K-12 level.

Time Periods

2005-02-21T15:53:00.000-08:00

Time periods as identified by our teacher advisors:

Pre-Columbian pre-history-1492
Explorers 1492-1520
Colonial 1520-1765
American Revolution 1765-1783
Early Repbulic 1781-1815
Jacksonian 1789-1816
1816-1850
Civil War 1860-1865
Reconstruction 1865-1880
Industrialization 1880-1910
WWI 1910-1920
Depression 1920-1939
WWII 1939-1945
Coldwar 1945-1990
Post-Cold War 1990-2005

We did this quickly at the end of the meeting and I don't think the teachers had any special issues with the periods themselves; they can be adjusted up, down or around, and expanded or contracted as you might see fit.

There was some concern about the NAMES of the periods. It was pointed out that some names might have an "East Coast Bias" we'd want to avoid.

What do you think? Will these serve? How might they be adjusted?

Themes

2005-02-21T15:49:00.000-08:00

Here is a list of themes, along with related topics as generated by the teacher advisors

American Dreams:
Religious Freedom, Immigration, Manifest Destiny, Economics / Desire for better life, Political Representation, Equiality, Women's movement, Many movements, Racial Equality, Alexix DeToccville, Reform momovements, development of american culture, melting pot)

Growth of Democracy:
enlightenment, progressive movement, freedoms, consumer, worker, women, political participation, Roots of democracy, native american influence, English infuence

Expansion of borders & influence:
new frontiers, expanding borders & influence, political values, exploration, global power/player, growth, globalization

Cultural contact and conflict
Europeans & native tribes, civil rights, slavery, unions, gender, immigration, asian, irish, latin american, european, eastern european, religious struggles, development of american culture, melting pot

Industrial & technological change:
transportation, railroads, space, flight, automobiles, canels, steam, information, communication, inventions

These aren't all that different from themes put forward already, but there are some wording changes the teachers thought important. They're looking forward to how these will play out in their communities. For instance, it was thought important in the theme on Cultures to include both the idea of contact and not just conflict.

What do you think? Can you work with these? The list of topics can of course be greatly expanded, but will the themes themselves serve broadly across American History?

Could you each please post a comment on the blog (or send it as email and I'll post it), giving us a yes or a no or a maybe and what modifications you might think critical?

TAH Project identity design

2005-02-10T15:53:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

I need your feedback on something very important to the Themes in American History Project.

We have begun using a graphic for identifying the project in the website and in publications such as the flyer announcing the project. You may have noticed it if you have seen the flyer (http://cateweb.uoregon.edu/tah/docs/flyer-4.pdf) or if you have visited the website (http://cateweb.uoregon.edu/tah/).

Would you mind looking at it again and telling me what you think of it? If enough of you like it, it will be used on all of our other communications too.

Thank you for your time,
-
Judith

Instant Messaging and Video Chat

2005-02-07T13:04:00.000-08:00

If you're interested in getting started with Instant Messaging and Video Chat, see how to do it on my TAH Tech blog.
=Judith=

The Chart

2005-01-24T16:41:00.000-08:00

This is my attempt to describe the "The Chart" as we discussed it at our 14 January meeting. I think this construct can be very powerful in guiding our planning over the coming months.

The idea of the chart is to set up a matrix something like this:

The horizonal axis would contain themes, more or less like we have already been considering, broadly applicable for interpreting American history.

The vertical axis would contain time periods, or topics, or Common Curriculum Goals, or textbook chapters, or any other mechanism whereby teachers organize their instruction. Perhaps we could call these "curriculum markers." Our new teacher advisory board is charged with identifying these.

The contents of each cell in the matrix is one or more topics, together with supporting resources, illustrative of the given curriculum markter and theme. Teachers use the chart by scanning down the rows until they come to a curriculum marker for an upcoming unit, and then picking from a number of themes from which to approach that issue, each with its own set of topics, ideas, and resources. Alternatively, they can identify a particular theme, and see from the chart where it might fit into their curriculum.

Our collaborating historians then have two tasks. First to identify a set of themes useful in interpreting American History, and broadly applicable across many curriculum markers. Second, they fill matrix cells with specific topics & resources. Given that it's unlikely they have time to address every cell, we'll need to prioritize. For instance, we know that the first TAH derrived units will likely be taught in the spring of 2006. So, we want to be sure to address curriculum markers likely to be taught at that time of the school year.

The Chart then gives guidance to how the historians work over the next weeks and months: Once teachers have identified the curriculum markers, the historians can select the themes. Next, the teachers and historians together prioritize the order in which markers and themes shoudl be addressed, and with that, the historians can identify topics & resources for specific cells.

The Chart also guides what happens at the summer institute. We might devote a day to each theme. Mornings could be spent with historians giving an overview of a theme, describing how that theme is useful in viewing American History. The afternoon could then be given over to small inquiry activities within that theme and across different curriculum markers.

Later in the project, as teachers develop their units, these can be added to the chart.

The Chart will end up far to large to be an actual printed artifact. We'll access it via a searchable online database.

Social Science Analysis Documents Available

2005-01-24T16:13:00.000-08:00

The documents listed below are available from the TAH website: Social Science Scoring Documents. I gathered them from the Oregon State Department of ED. They give information about the standards and benchmarks related to the Social Science Analysis work samples described in the "newspaper" on page 21A. These will be helpful if you attend the video conference on 25 January.

2004–2005 Social Science Analysis Scoring Guide: CIM (pdf)
2004– 2005 Social Science Analysis Scoring Guide: Benchmark 3 (pdf)
Social Science Analysis Work Sample Implementation Schedule (pdf)
5th Grade Social Science Analysis: Ways to Embed in Daily Instruction (pdf)
SOCIAL SCIENCES ANALYSIS INITIAL ANCHOR PAPER SCORING (pdf)

Judith got these online for us.

Douglas County Fair vs. TAH Institute

2005-01-24T15:40:00.000-08:00

Our first Summer Institute is currently scheduled for August 8th-19th 2005. The Douglas County Fair is August 9th-12th. Cathy, Dawne, and Marsha are of the opinion that many Douglas County teachers participate in the Fair and that this scheduling conflict will negatively impact recruitment.

Some options:
1. Keep to the current schedule; we can't please everyone.

2. Move to August 15th- 26th; this likely bumps into district planning and inservice days.

3. Move to July 25th-August 5th; possible conflicts with teacher vacations & university teaching schedules.

4. Move to other weeks in July; conflicts as before.

5. Move to weeks in June, perhaps June 13th-24th; teacher exhaustion & possible conflicts with university summer session schedules and the NECC Conference (June 26-29).

6. Split the Institute into two separate weeks, perhaps Aug 1-5 and Aug 15-19.

7. Limit the Institute to 5-8 days, focused more on the exploration of themes by the historians, and add more workshops later in the year to handle other topics; budget issues?

14 January Meeting Minutes

2005-01-24T15:36:00.000-08:00

Minutes for TAH meeting held 14 January 2005 at CATE.
Present: Mark Horney, Lynne Anderson-Inman, Dawne Huckaby, Cathy Chenail, Marsha Santos, David del Mar, Kevin Hatfield, Mark Spence & Lizzie Reis

We discussed three topics at this meeting. First, Cathy Chenail led a discussion about the Oregon state standards and how they will impact the project. We examined the history standards and noted the distinction between those related to particular historical events, and those more processed oriented. Cathy pointed out the importance for incorporating Language Arts standards in our plans. This is especially important for elementary teachers since so much of their curriculum is dedicated to reading and writing. Cathy argued that elementary teachers would be hard pressed to join the project if the focus is exclusively on the History standards.

These points were reinforced by Marsha Santos, a middle school social studies teacher from Glide, joining us for the first time. It was decided that Cathy will recruit a team of teachers such as Marsha, from across Douglas County to assist with planning the project. This group will meet for the first time with the rest of the project staff on 1 February at the ESD at 9am for an all day work session.

Dawne pointed out a new set of Oregon standards that will be coming into use in the next year. These are the standards for "Social Science Analysis." These standards require students to submit work samples demonstrating their skills in Framing, Researching, Examining, and Drawing Conclusions about issues arising from social science. If we can use incorporate these standards as central to TAH, teachers will have a strong motivation to participate in the project. There will be video conference on this topic on 25 January. There is information about accessing the video feed online in a previous posting.

The second part if the meeting was given over to discussing the lists of themes that have emerged from the Historians. In this discussion Mark Spence ask about how teachers describe the different strands that make up a year's curriculum. In thinking about this we decided to adopt a new strategy for using historical themes in the project and for guiding the work of the historians in gathering historical resources. This involves creating a chart crossing the time periods, topics, and Common Curricular goals used by teachers on the one hand or organize their classes from week to week, and historical themes on the other. The contents of each cell in the chart will be particular topics and resources that fall within the given time period and which illustrate the given theme. The TAH Teacher Advisory group has been charged to generate the time periods, et al. generally used to organized their curriculum. Once this is available, the historians will generate themes that are generally applicable across most of each curriculum item. More about this in later posts.

The third topic of the meeting is a problem with the scheduling of the summer institute. It turns out that the Douglas County Fair falls during the week of 8 August, which is the first week of the institute as now scheduled. This conflict will likely cause severe problems for participating teachers. We didn't come to any decision about what to do about this.
-------
If anyone has corrections or additions to these minutes, please email them to me at mhorney@darkwing.uoregon.edu

Civil Rights Talk at Tapped In

2005-01-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

Tapped In is an online professional development organization for teachers. It's main goal is to foster collaboration. Memberships are free at http://ti2.sri.com.

TI holds discussions nearly every day: Calendar. Last night the speaker was from the Library of Congress who pointed out resources at the library about Civil Rights. These events operate via a chat fucntion. Transcripts are archived and emailed to participants: Civil Rights Transcript. The session started with some chatter about the inaguration as people gathered; the speaker, LeniD, then gives a series of URLs into LOC materials. These links are clickable and participants can go off to explore. There were rather fewer questions and interaction in this session, often there is more discussion. I took screen shots of some of the websites: ScreenShots. These images also include a couple profiles from participants, see #31 for instance.

In addition to documents and images, the LOC also has audio files of interviews, such as this one done in the 30's with Fountain Hughes. These are opened in RealPlayer. Others: 3974a-1.ram, 3992a.ram, 4777a.ram, 5091a.ram.

You might find this exchange interesting. "ChantaraP" was participating from Thailand:

ChantaratP: Sorry for me the terms Civil Right is new indeed, it is suport be difference diffinition, is it ?

MichaelH: Chantara, we basically would describe this as a fight for equal opportunity and equal standing in society

DavidWe: If I can add to Michael's comment...at a time when there were laws that required different people to use different public facilities

MichaelH: traditionally, this would be seen as a fight for african americans, but, today we would also look at women, those who are hispanic, native American, homosexual, and so on...

ChantaratP: can it be compare with Gender dispartity, as UNESCO declaration in Dakka ?

DavidWe: Yes, I think we can, Chantarat

ChantaratP: so that I used to work with UNESCO , BKK , and to implement this concept to school in thailand, but there is some mis understand and practice and i mention earier

I think we might be able to use Tapped In as an environment for fostering collaboration among our teachers.

Oregon Dept of Educ Training on Social Science Analysis Tasks and Scoring

2005-01-19T11:22:00.000-08:00

The first link in this email would allow you to view the training the Oregon Department of Education is providing on Tuesday, January 25 from 3:30 to 5:00 from the comfort of your own computer--no video conferencing equipment necessary! You will need a high speed connection for it to be effective. http://www.ode.state.or.us/initiatives/elearning/k12educators/streaming.aspx

Also, there are materials/handouts available for download at
http://www.ode.state.or.us/search/results/?id=24

All Best!

Spence Themes are available to download

2004-12-30T14:08:00.000-08:00

I have made Mark Spence's themes outline available on the TAH Website, or get them here in Word or PDF (to download, right-click or command click and choose "Save Link As").
--Judith--

Spence Themes Resurfaced

2004-12-17T13:21:00.000-08:00

Mark Spence made an important posting regarding themes for the project, but it was a bit buried down in a comment. I have copied it here so it comes to the top of the blog. --mark horney
-----------------

Dear Colleagues,

Below are my thoughts on basic themes and sub-themes for the project. I do not mean to go back a step, so please don't take this as an effort to bluntly redefine our 5 basic themes. Because I'm having a hard time figuring out what the current 5 might mean to me, I have gone ahead and thought up 5 different thematic categories, then worked up sub elements for each one. Any or none of these could be slotted into the existing framework, but this outline proved the best way for me to cook up these various suggestions. Whether my themes are accepted or rejected whole hog --or partially --is beside the point.

You will notice that as I started to fill in the details I quickly became overwhelmed. The first topic in the first theme includes possible issues from national subject matter and regional/local subject matter. That was not an exercise that I could repeat for the other topics, but I kept it in to give a sense of how I thought each topic and sub topic does have a compelling regional/local tie-in.

At any rate, here are my ideas in outline form:
(Please note: despite two efforts to format this, I don't think it is working. Please use the different numberings and letterings to try and sort through the various levels. I'll see if I can't attach the word doc somewhere as well.)
Download as Word doc or Download as PDF (right-click on PC or control-click on Mac and "Save Link as.")

Theme 1: American Dreams
a. Millennial tendencies in Colonial and National History
i. General Textbook examples:
1. Puritan’s City on a Hill
2. Revolutionary Visions and Rhetoric
3. Jeffersonian’s Expanding, Agrarian Empire of Liberty
4. Lincoln’s conception of “last best hope”
5. Progressive Era’s triumvirate of Imperialism, Reform and Conservation
6. U.S. entrance into WWII and Cold War
a. Freedom’s Army
7. Reagan to Clinton to Bush
8. America as progenitor of Global Deliverance

ii. Oregon/Douglas County Examples:
1. Oregon as Promised Land
a. mid 19th century
2. Progressivism
3. Regional Development during New Deal
4. Ecotopia

b. Reasons for Immigration
c. Struggles to Expand Freedoms and Redress past Wrongs
d. Utopianism
e. Religion in America
f. Communities
i. Persistence of community based politics and associations

Theme 2: The United States in a Global Context
a. Imperial contests for North America
b. Native Peoples and Markets –18c-19c
c. All Wars
i. Mexican-American
ii. Spanish-American
iii. WWI
iv. WWII
v. Korea
vi. Vietnam
vii. Iraq I & 2
d. Foreign Policy
e. Foreign Trade
f. Immigration --factors bringing people into USA
g. Ongoing process of “Ecological Imperialism”
i. i.e., exotic species, export of resources, and much more

Theme 3: People, Politics and Power
a. Populist and Oligarchic tendencies in U.S. politics
b. Political and Social Reform Movements (Tight link to “American Dreams” theme.
i. Suffrage
1. Dunaway
c. Concentrations of Wealth and Power
i. Railroads
ii. Gilded Age Corporations
iii. Corporate Property rights and land usage
1. salmon
2. forests
d. Labor Movements
i. Wobblies (IWW)
e. Changing Nature of Gender Structures
i. Suffrage
a. Dunaway

Theme 4:Defining and Dividing America
a. Persistent Darkside of American Dream
i. Race
ii. Native Dispossession
iii. Immigration/Americanization
iv. Japanese/Chinese Exclusion
v. Disenfranchisement
1. Property
2. Race
3. Gender
4. Nationality
b. America as Dynamic, Contested Process
i. Economic Shifts
1. nation of production becomes nation of consumption
ii. Cultural Shifts
iii. Regional differences
iv. Cultural, Generational divides
v. Ongoing Vibrancy of Diversity

Theme 5: Expansion and Conquest (Obvious Echoes from American Dreams and Global Context Themes)
a. Obvious Echoes from American Dreams and Global Context Themes
b. Frontier Processes and Legacies
i. Native Dispossession
ii. Ongoing issues over treaty rights
c. Overseas Imperial and Economic Expansion
i. Oregon viewed as uniquely poised to exploit both in early 20c
d. Mythic images of American West as National and Regional Symbol
i. Fun Methodologies for this one
1. Cultural studies
2. Art history
3. films
4. Advertisements
e. The Industrial West
i. Western resources as foundation of American power
f. The Federal West
i. Public Lands and the growth of federal authority from post Civil War to present

Anyway, here it is in basic outline form.

A note about formatting

2004-12-17T13:04:00.000-08:00

At the end of his posting on themes Mark Spence noted difficulties with formatting blog postings; you can see the problems he was having with outlines.

Generally speaking blog posting should be treated like email messages, i.e. wherein little or no formatting is possible. If you have something that needs formatting to be comprehensible, I suggest the following procedure. Send the formatted copy to Judith (jablair@darkwing.uoregon.edu), asking her to put it as a downloadable document on the project website. Then put a posting in the blog with a short description and a link.

Of course, anything with any time sensitivty can just be emailed to everyone.

It is possible to format postings, but you must do it by inserting HTML tags into the post. If you like I can put together a description of how to do this.

the link to the site

2004-12-14T13:55:00.000-08:00

If you click on the title to my last post, it'll take you to the website, but here it is as well:

http://www.historynow.org/12_2004/issue.html

lesson plans and web site about slavery

2004-12-14T13:51:00.000-08:00

Dear everyone,
The Gilder-Lehrman Center in NY has great resources, including lesson plans for middle school and high school students. Here is a link to one of their online journals that has activities, etc. that satisfy the History Standards.

Are these lesson plans the kind of thing we're supposed to come up with when we do our presentations? I don't want to reinvent the wheel if the resources are out there already. Best, Lizzie

Developing the Themes

2004-12-08T14:11:00.000-08:00

Lynne and I discussed ideas for how to proceed with finalizing themes for the project and moving forward into assembling resources. We came up with this sequence of activities:

1. Generate a list of big ideas that together characterize each theme.

2. For each big idea, find examples of how that idea plays out in local and national events and issues, provide specific examples of each idea, and situate these ideas in relation to state standards. It's our notion that these ideas, more than the themes themselves that will provide the starting points for teachers as they conduct their their personal inqiries and later the design and implementation of their instructional units.

3. Once we have the big ideas and supporting examples identified, we can decide what materials to gather to support and inform the teachers.

Could everyone add a comment to this posting with your ideas about this process and any suggestions for modifications, extensions or alternatives?

I am also creating a separate posting for each of the 5 themes to anchor comments about the themes themselves and/or ideas the big ideas and supporting examples described above.

Theme 1: New Frontiers

2004-12-08T14:07:00.000-08:00

Encounters with New Frontiers: Expanding the Borders

Theme 2: Immigration

2004-12-08T14:06:00.000-08:00

Immigration and Cross Cultural Contact

Theme 3: American Dream

2004-12-08T14:05:00.000-08:00

The American Dream: Fact or Fiction?

Theme 4: Democracy

2004-12-08T14:04:00.000-08:00

Democracy at Work: Politics, Religion and Civic Engagement

Theme 5: Conflict

2004-12-08T14:01:00.000-08:00

Conflict: Violent and Nonviolent.

Meeting Minutes from 11 Nov

2004-12-08T13:42:00.000-08:00

Summary of Meeting 11 November 2004
The complete minutes are posted on the TAH website at http://cateweb.uoregon.edu/TAH/Docs/TAH%20Meeting%2011-11-04.doc

Present: Mark Spence, Steve Beckham, Kevin Hatfield, David Del Mar, Liz Reis, Lynne Anderson, Mark Horney, Judith Blair.

Topics discussed:
1. The overall project timeline and the various teacher activities within it.

2. Deadlines for when resource materials should be submitted to CATE. These materials should start arriving at CATE sometime in February and should be complete by June 1st.

3. The schedule for the Summer Institute.

4. Possible field-trips for teachers during the Institute.

5. Use of the Blog.

6. The next meeting is scheduled for Jan 14th 10-12am

Meeting Minutes from 14 Oct

2004-12-08T13:39:00.000-08:00

Summary of Meeting 14 October 2004
The complete minutes are posted on the TAH website at http://cateweb.uoregon.edu/TAH/Docs/Minutes%20for%20TAH%2010-14-04.doc

Present: Mark Spence, Steve Beckham, Kevin Hatfield, David Del Mar, Liz Reis, Lynne Anderson, Mark Horney, Judith Blair, Dawn Huckaby

Topics discussed:
1. General introductions

2. The Project goals, overall activities, and the role the participating historians will play: Identify themes in concert; Develop materials; Deliver training at summer institute; Ongoing mentoring role via distance technologies; Empower and support teachers working at implementation.

3. Identified possible themes:
a. Exploring new frontiers
b. Immigration/emigration
c. Literary legacy
d. Reform efforts nationally
e. Concerns regarding antiquarianism
f. Women’s and gender history
g. Daily life/
h. Representations of Oregon
i. Beyond borders/globalization
j. Encounters
k. Founding principles across time
l. Democracy at work
m. Cross cultural contacts
n. Conflict and resolution

4. Honoraria & expenses

5. Communication channels

Signing On

2004-11-22T10:33:00.000-08:00

This is my test "post" to the TAH Historians blog.

Kevin.

Humanist Discussion Group

2004-11-19T09:06:00.000-08:00

At our last meeting I mentioned a discussion group/listserve. This group is called the Humanist Discussion Group; There is a website at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/ where you can sign up for the listserve and look at the archive. The listsever generates about 3 messages per day. Associated with this is the Association for Computers and the Humanities (http://www.ach.org/)

Here is a sample message I thought interesting:

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 18, No. 365.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
www.princeton.edu/humanist/
Submit to: humanist@princeton.edu
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 08:31:01 +0000
From: "Charles Baldwin"
Subject: plaintext project and list

Plaintext Tools
"Our writing tools write our thoughts" - Nietzsche
"Access to tools." - The Whole Earth Catalog

The Plaintext project is concerned with the agency and programming of writing technologies. Plaintext Tools is a listserv and portal for writers, artists, and thinkers, with the goal of creating and publishing original research, providing resources, and fostering community around the tools and methods of writing technologies. A full description of the project, as well as info on subscribing to the list, is here:http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/projects/plaintext .

Why Plaintext Tools? There is an emerging discourse and contested canon of digital media writing, art, and theory. There are conferences, special issues, exhibits, and archives of this work. Yet access and knowledge about tools is limited...

trying this out

2004-11-17T14:52:00.000-08:00

I'm entirely sorry Lizzie. I've corrected this error. I must now confess that I'm a non-speller and am entirely unreliable after the first letter.

afterwards..

Getting Connected

2004-11-17T13:52:00.000-08:00

The TAH Historians blog can be viewed at: http://tahhistorians.blogspot.com/

However, to make postings to the blog, each of us first have an account "Blogger.com" and then become a "member" of the blog. Set up your account, go to http://www.blogger.com/start

Following the orange arrow will lead you through establishing an account. You'll need to decided on a user name, a pass word, etc. You can also go through the process of setting up your own blog, but this isn't required.

To become a member, you simply wait until an email message arrives at whatever address you gave Blogger. It will contain an invitation to join TAH Historians. In the message will be a link sending back your acceptance. After that, when you log onto blogger.com you will see TAH Historians listed among "Your Blogs" and you'll be able to view the blog, make new postings, and add comments to existing postings, etc.

One thing to keep in mind is that when working with the blog is that you'll be interacting with two different objects. One is the blog itself. The other is the "Dashboard," which is where you manipulate the blog. When you log on to Blogger.com, you're taken to the Dashboard, from there you can View the Blog.

No doubt it will take us a bit to work out all the kinks in using this blog as a communications channel. Please don't hesitate to contact Judith Blair or myself if you have questions.

Collaborating Historians

2004-11-17T13:30:00.000-08:00

The historians collaborating with theThemes from American History Project are: Mark Spence, Steve Beckham, Kevin Hatfield, David Del Mar, and Elizabeth Reis.

Other members of the project staff will participate in this discussion as well: Dawne Huckaby & Cathy Chenail from Douglas County Educational Service District, and Lynne Anderson-Inman, Mark Horney, and Judith Blair from the Center for Advanced Technology at the University of Oregon.