South Hadley Public School District Consortium presents
Making History: A Teaching American History Program
Making History: Workshops
Link to: Program Overview | Seminars for This Program | Workshops for This Program | Forms for This Program | Register for This Program
Workshops
Workshops are held at the Deerfield Teachers’ Center, 10 Memorial Street, Deerfield, Massachusetts, from 3:30 to 5:30 PM, unless otherwise noted. Workshops cost $40 per workshop, per person. Workshops are free to those enrolled in the Making History Teaching American History program (South Hadley School District Consortium)
Workshop registrations are accepted until the day of the workshop. Once the workshop is filled, a waiting list will be created. Those on the waiting list may be contacted as late as the day of the workshop if space becomes available. Once registered, participants are urged to notify the Teachers’ Center as soon as possible if unable to attend a workshop, even on the workshop day, in order to make space available for other waiting participants.
Sign Up for After-School Workshops!
Workshops cost $40 per workshop, per person. Participants will receive a
“Certificate of Attendance” after each two-hour workshop.
The Deerfield Teachers’ Center is a PDP provider in Massachusetts. For more information about receiving PDPs for your work at the Teachers’ Center, please contact Nathalie McCormick by phone at 413-774-2652, ext. 28, or by email at nmccormick@deerfield.history.museum.
Download a workshop registration form. Payment to by check payable to “PVMA” or a signed purchase order must accompany workshop registration forms.
Download a printable list (PDF) of workshop offerings. [update PDF at link]
Workshops for Participants of the
South Hadley Public School District Consortium
Making History: A Teaching American History Program
Making History Teaching American History program participants are
required to attend Deerfield Teachers' Center afternoon workshops as a part
of their professional development program. Full-Level participants must
attend a minimum of six workshops, and Half-Level participants must attend
a minimum of four workshops.
Download a workshop registration
form.
Download a printable list (PDF) of the South Hadley TAH Workshop
Offerings.
For more information, please contact Nathalie McCormick, Program Coordinator,
at nmccormick@deerfield.history.museum.
[link to email]
Workshops for the 2010 - 2011 Making History Program
September 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Teacher Lesson Instruction
Each Teaching American History participant creates a short lesson.
This lesson enables students to achieve a specific understanding about an
aspect of American history through classroom exploration of one or more
primary sources from the American Centuries website. In this workshop,
participants will practice merging historical understandings with primary
sources, primary source questions, and activities, in a lesson which supports
a specific learning goal. Participants will also learn how to navigate and
collect primary sources from the Digital Collection of the American
Centuries website for use in their required lesson. (Limit 20)
Thursday, September 23, 2010
As If Things Could GET Any Worse: Bad Weather, Hard Times
“The Great Earthquake”, “The Great Gale”, “The
Year Without a Summer”: Weather-related disasters are an important
part of the oral and written history of our region. Riveting for their dramatic
stories of survival and loss, these events also had far-reaching economic
and political effects. This workshop places weather disasters within their
historical contexts, focusing in particular on the hard-knock times Massachusetts
suffered during the Depression. As if the economic conditions of the Great
Depression were not enough of a burden, the economic effects of the Dustbowl
and other severe weather events deepened the difficulties of this “Worst
Hard Time” Grades K-12. (Minimum 8 / Maximum 20)
Monday, September 27, 2010
American Teacher, Public Servant
From images of Ichabod Crane or a school “marm” ringing the
bell to call her multi-age class to her one room school, the lineage of
American teachers moves forward to present day women and men, striving to
prepare their classes for standardized tests. In America more so than elsewhere,
education became a contested terrain of competing philosophies and policies
regarding how best to prepare students for American life as citizens and
productive members of society. We will work our way through the evolving
historical context of the teacher’s work, considering how teachers
at various points in time navigated their way through conflicting expectations
and realities. Grades K-12. (Minimum 8 / Maximum 20)
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Diaries, Dolls, and Day-books, Oh, My!: A Guided Visit to Memorial Hall
Museum and the Memorial Libraries
The first half of this workshop is a guided tour of Memorial Hall Museum,
with a focus on artifacts that are also part of the American Centuries
on-line exhibit. The museum is full of interesting and unique objects, with
a local history. Then tour the Memorial Libraries, see the resources available
about your town and county and learn how to access our extensive archives
of primary documents. Grades K-12. (Maximum 6)
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Teacher Lesson Instruction
Each Teaching American History participant creates a short lesson.
This lesson enables students to achieve a specific understanding about an
aspect of American history through classroom exploration of one or more
primary sources from the American Centuries website. In this workshop,
participants will practice merging historical understandings with primary
sources, primary source questions, and activities, in a lesson which supports
a specific learning goal. Participants will also learn how to navigate and
collect primary sources from the Digital Collection of the American
Centuries website for use in their required lesson. (Limit 20)
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October 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Jackdaws! History Kits! Books! Oh, my! Exploration of the Deerfield Teachers’
Center
The Deerfield Teachers' Center has many resources for teachers to borrow
and use in their classrooms. There are over 1600 books (about 160 of them
picture books), many DVDs, music CDs, primary source packets, teacher lessons,
and historical photographs to use either in the classroom or for personal
enrichment. Traveling history kits on many historical topics also live in
the Center. These kits have historical reproductions and stand-alone lessons
that can be used for many different grade levels. Come spend time exploring
the collection and see what you might want to borrow. Grades K-12. (Maximum
6)
Monday, October 18, 2010
Book Group (Part 1 of 2) – Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir
of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High
This is a two-part workshop. Participants are expected to register for
and attend both sessions. The second session will be held on Monday, October
25, 2010.
In her memoir, Melba Pattillo Beals reflects upon the precarious position
held by Arkansas' black community during the 1950s. "I became increasingly
aware of how all of the adults around me behaved the same….I was feeling
more and more vulnerable as I watched them continually struggle to solve
the mystery of what white folks expected of them. They behaved as though
it were an awful sin to overlook even one of those unspoken rules and step
out of "their place," to cross some invisible line. And yet lots
of discussions in my household were about how to cross that line, when to
cross that line, and who could cross that line without getting hurt."
In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that, with regard to education, separate
schools for black children and white children were not, and could never
be, truly equal. The clash between the nation's tentative steps toward legal
civil rights for black Americans and a community's commitment to maintaining
the color line proved costly for Melba and the rest of the Little Rock Nine.
The year tested their characters and affirmed their individual commitments
to justice. Grades K-12. (Limit 12)
Thursday, October 21, 2010
It’s Greek To Me: Reflections on New England Architecture
Learning to look at our New England architecture can enrich students’
study of history, as changing lifeways, social organization, and values
are expressed in the styles of private dwellings and public buildings. Through
observation and sketching, we will go “through the doorways”
and consider distinctive 18th and 19 century architectural features as well
as the overall architectural landscape of our communities. Grades K-12.
(Minimum 8 / Maximum 20)
Monday, October 25, 2010
Book Group (Part 2 of 2) – Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir
of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High
Please see Monday, October 18, 2010, for details.
This is a two-part workshop. Participants are expected to register for and
attend both sessions.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
"A citty upon a hill": Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans
John Winthrop, Anne Hutchinson, John Cotton, Roger Williams, Anne Bradstreet
and others...their critics called them Puritans and considered them a "hotter
sort of protestant." Who were the Puritans really, and what lay behind
their momentous decision to leave their homeland to settle a New England?
Grades 3-12. (Minimum 8 / Maximum 20)
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Diaries, Dolls, and Day-books, Oh, My!: A Guided Visit to Memorial Hall
Museum and the Memorial Libraries
The first half of this workshop is a guided tour of Memorial Hall Museum,
with a focus on artifacts that are also part of the American Centuries on-line
exhibit. The museum is full of interesting and unique objects, with a local
history. Then tour the Memorial Libraries, see the resources available about
your town and county and learn how to access our extensive archives of primary
documents. Grades K-12. (Limit 6)
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November 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Teacher Lesson Instruction
Each Teaching American History participant creates a short lesson. This
lesson enables students to achieve a specific understanding about an aspect
of American history through classroom exploration of one or more primary
sources from the American Centuries website. In this workshop,
participants will practice merging historical understandings with primary
sources, primary source questions, and activities, in a lesson which supports
a specific learning goal. Participants will also learn how to navigate and
collect primary sources from the Digital Collection of the American
Centuries website for use in their required lesson. (Limit 20)
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Book Group (Part 1 of 2) – The Jamestown Project
This is a two-part workshop. Participants are expected to register for
and attend both sessions. The second session will be held on Thursday, November
18, 2010.
Jamestown was settled in 1607, making it the first permanent English settlement
in North America. Why is it, then, that Americans telling their national
story so often look not to Jamestown, Virginia, but to the landing of the
Pilgrims at Cape Cod in 1620 for the "true" beginnings of America?
Karen Kupperman's The Jamestown Project addresses this and many
other fascinating questions, placing the often horrifying but never dull
early history of Jamestown and its early inhabitants in their 17th century
context. Grades K-12. (Limit 12)
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Book Group (Part 2 of 2) – The Jamestown Project
Please see Thursday, November 4, 2010, for details.
This is a two-part workshop. Participants are expected to register for and
attend both sessions.
Monday, November 29, 2010
The Progressive Impulse, 1890-1920 (Part 1 of 2)
This is a two-part workshop. It is recommended but not required that
participants register for and attend both sessions. The second session is
offered on Monday, December 6, 2010.
Progressive Era Americans looked to government reform, education, science
and technology to solve the problems a newly industrialized United States
had developed during the Gilded Age. This workshop will explore some of
those problems at the turn of the century and the progressive impulse to
“make it all better”. Grades 3-12. (Minimum 8 / Maximum 20)
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Jackdaws! History Kits! Books! Oh, my! Exploration of the Deerfield Teachers’
Center
The Deerfield Teachers' Center has many resources for teachers to borrow
and use in their classrooms. There are over 1600 books (about 160 of them
picture books), many DVDs, music CDs, primary source packets, teacher lessons,
and historical photographs to use either in the classroom or for personal
enrichment. Traveling history kits on many historical topics also live in
the Center. These kits have historical reproductions and stand-alone lessons
that can be used for many different grade levels. Come spend time exploring
the collection and see what you might want to borrow. Grades K-12. (Limit
6)
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December 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
The Progressive Impulse, 1930-1940 (Part 2 of 2)
This is a two-part workshop. It is recommended but not required that
participants register for and attend both sessions. The first session is
offered on Monday, November 30, 2010.
The efforts of Progressive Era Americans (1890-1900) had a decided influence
on those who designed New Deal legislation during the 1930s. Leaders in
the 'healing' of America during these turbulent years had their baptism
of fire in that earlier era. This workshop will explore the progressive
impulse's rebirth during the Great Depression. Grades 3-12. (Minimum 8 /
Maximum 20)
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
You Can’t Take It With You!: Probate Inventories – A Key to
People’s Lives
A yoke of red pied steer, a greatcoat, a trundle bed and bolster –
the real “stuff” of real people – give teachers and their
students useful clues to the personal, cultural, social, and economic themes
in a historical period. Participants will work with probate inventories
that list real estate and personal property at the time of a person’s
death. Useful materials to bring back to the classroom. Grades 3-12. (Minimum
8 / Maximum 20)
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January 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Hold On!: Nonviolent Communication in the Civil Rights Movement
Who trained young demonstrators of the Civil Rights movement in practical
methods of nonviolent resistance? What were these methods? When and where
were they effective? We will read accounts and reflections by veterans of
the Civil Rights movement, and participate in a mock training. Grades K-12.
(Minimum 8 / Maximum 20)
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
After Peace, Then What?
After comparing 2 Thomas Nast images that illustrate his view of the political
situation at the Civil War’s end, participants will create a 3rd image
in the same spirit depicting the political landscape one year later. They
will understand that these are political cartoons that were successful because
they incorporated symbols and conventions that were very well-understood
by Nast’s audience. Grades 6-12. (Minimum 8 / Maximum 20)
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
The Federal Experiment: States' Rights and the Union
Where does state authority end and federal authority begin? From the debates
of the founders as our Constitution was being written, to conflicts over
tariffs and slavery during the nineteenth century and struggles over Civil
Rights in the 20th, Americans have wrestled with the problem of divided
sovereignty, or imperium in imperio. This workshop will
explore the origin and reemergence of the states' rights argument across
time. Grades 5-12. (Please note: This workshop is geared to teachers
of grades 5-12, but teachers of lower grades are welcome to attend.)
(Minimum 8 / Maximum 20)
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Febuary 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
“Virginia Dynasty”: The First Five Presidents
Between 1789 and 1825, four Virginians held the presidency of the United
States: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe.
Together, these four men held the office of the president for thirty-two
of the first thirty-six years. This workshop will focus on the lives and
presidencies of these four men from Virginia, and explore the circumstances
that put them into office. Grades 3-12. (Minimum 8 / Maximum 20)
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Location, Location, Location
In the 18th century, each American colony was like a foreign country with
diverse climates, natural resources, and cultural communities. In this workshop,
small groups will be assigned a different colony and attempt to lure two
weary travelers to settle in their colony. Grades K-12. (Minimum 8 / Maximum
20)
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March 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Choosing Sides: Native Americans and the American Revolution
What were First Nations people’s concerns about the Revolutionary
War? What governed their decisions either to support a side or to remain
neutral? After reviewing materials to learn about various Native viewpoints,
participants will take on the roles of First Nation's peoples and debate
the stand their group should take on the war. Grades 3-12. (Minimum 8 /
Maximum 20)
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Looking at History: Ten Images that Define a Nation
America has been thought of as a mosaic of people and cultures. What are
the
ideas, values, struggles, accomplishments that define who we are? In this
workshop, we will learn about images that reflect the history of our nation
and work together to decide which illustrate our most defining moments.
Grades K-12. (Minimum 8 / Maximum 20)
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Book Group (Part 1 of 2) – White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson
and Thomas Wentworth Higginson by Brenda Wineapple
This is a two-part workshop. Participants are expected to register for
and attend both sessions. The second session will be held on Wednesday,
April 6, 2011.
Thomas Wentworth Higginson was a well-known, highly-respected writer and
literary critic. He was also a Unitarian minister famous for his activism,
especially in the cause of abolition. In 1862 Higginson was appointed Colonel
of the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first Union army regiment comprised
of African American soldiers. In that same year, Higginson received four
poems from Emily Dickinson, who hoped in her accompanying letter that Higginson
was not “too deeply occupied to say whether my verse is alive?”
Although they would meet face to face only twice, the two corresponded for
the next twenty-five years. This dual biography of the reclusive poet and
the tireless activist illuminates not only their unusual relationship but
the life and times of two remarkable individuals. Grades K-12. (Limit 12)
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
“Mr. Madison’s War”: The War of 1812
In the decades following the American Revolution, the new nation and its
leaders struggled to survive in a confusing and often hostile international
landscape. The War of 1812 exposed deep, irreconcilable differences among
Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans. It also reasserted America's independence,
made citizens aware of the need for a navy, and prompted Americans look
to domestic manufacturing and markets instead of imports from the old world.
Grades 5-12. (Minimum 8 / Maximum 20)
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Fighting for Independence: The American Revolution
In July 1776, the Continental Congress declared “That these United
States are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.”
Two months later, the fledgling American army would suffer a disastrous
defeat at Long Island, New York at the hands of the best-trained and best-equipped
army in the world. By December of that year, defeats, disease, and desertion
had reduced the Continental Army to barely 3,000 men. General George Washington
confided in a personal letter that unless a new army was enlisted, “I
think the game will be pretty well up.” Despite these dire circumstances,
the army the British derisively called a “rabble in arms” would
survive and fight for seven more years to secure the independence so boldly
claimed by Congress in 1776. This workshop will focus on key events, individuals,
and battles of one of the longest wars in American history, paying particular
attention to the perspective and experiences of the common soldier. Grades
3-12. (Minimum 8 / Maximum 20)
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April 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Book Group (Part 2 of 2) – White Heat
Please see Wednesday, March 23, 2011 for details.
This is a two-part workshop. Participants are expected to register for and
attend both sessions.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Book Group (Part 1 of 2) – Walden
This is a two-part workshop. Participants are expected to register for and
attend both sessions. The second session will be held on Thursday, April
28, 2011.
For twenty-six months in 1845-1847, Henry David Thoreau experimented with
living alone on property in Concord owned by his friend and patron Ralph
Waldo Emerson. At the time of Thoreau’s retreat, change in America
was accelerating: the new railway was suddenly present and even skirted
Emerson’s property on Walden Pond. Walden, or Life in
the Woods, Thoreau’s account of his experiment and a landmark
in American literature, continues to captivate generations of readers. Why
would that be? Join us for discussion, whether Walden is your favorite
book or you have never read it and now is the time. Grades K-12. (Limit
12)
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
A World at War, Part One: The Pacific (Part 1 of 2)
This is a two-part workshop. Participants are expected to register for
and attend both sessions. The second session will be held on Tuesday, May
3, 2011.
World War II began and ended in the Far East. The war in the Pacific spanned
thousands of miles and cost millions of lives. In the year following the
attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Asiatic Fleet was annihilated. The Imperial
Japanese Fleet seemed unstoppable and the agile Zero easily out-flew obsolete
American aircraft. Turning the tide exacted a bitter toll on both sides;
savage fighting at sea and on land introduced to a generation of Americans
remote islands like Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Peleliu. The Pacific theater
also produced one of the most iconic images of the war: the raising of the
U.S. flag on Iwo Jima. This workshop will introduce to participants events
that preceded the attack on Pearl Harbor, such as the Japanese invasion
of Manchuria and the Japanese vision of a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere, as well as major battles, events, and turning points in the Pacific
theater after the U.S. entered the war. Grades 7-12. (Please note: This
workshop is geared to teachers of grades 7-12, but teachers of lower grades
are welcome to attend.) (Minimum 8 / Maximum 20)
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Book Group (Part 2 of 2) – Walden
Please see Thursday, April 14, 2011 for details.
This is a two-part workshop. Participants are expected to register for and
attend both sessions.
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May 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
A World at War, Part Two: Europe, North Africa, and Russia (Part 2 of 2)
This is a two-part workshop. Participants are expected to register for
and attend both sessions. The second session will be held on Tuesday, April
26, 2011.
The largest and most violent armed conflict in the history of mankind was
fought on land, sea, and in the air. By the time the United States officially
entered World War II in 1941, its European allies already had been at war
since 1939. Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg,
and France had fallen. Italy had invaded Africa and Greece, and Germany
was deploying 3.5 million troops in a massive offensive against Russia.
Americans anxiously followed the war as England’s Prime Minister exhorted
fellow Britons in the wake of the Blitz to stand firm in “their finest
hour”. This workshop introduces participants to the European theater
of World War II before and after the United States entered the war, including
the Battle of the Atlantic, the North Africa campaign, the allied invasion
of Italy, the Normandy invasion, and the fateful final months of the war
in Europe. Grades 7-12. (Please note: This workshop is geared to teachers
of grades 7-12, but teachers of lower grades are welcome to attend.)
(Minimum 8 / Maximum 20)
Tuesday, May 10, 2010
Witnessing Transformation
Participants will tour and investigate the exhibit, "Changes on the
Horizon", in Memorial Hall Museum. The artwork in this exhibit reflects
industrial and transportation changes to the rural landscape of the Pioneer
Valley from 1850 to 1950. Grades 3-12. (Minimum 8 / Maximum 20)
Thursday, May 12, 2011
“Wake Up and Fix It”: 19th Century Social Reform
The religious fervor and optimism of the Second Great Awakening in the early
19th Century was mirrored in an explosion of organizations dedicated to
fixing the ills of society. Powerful movements like abolition and temperance
had their roots in that religious zeal, and many Utopian communities formed
as a way to withdraw from what was perceived as un-reformable society. We
will explore the crucial people and organizations that helped shape events
of the 19th and even 20th centuries. Grades 5-12. (Minimum 8 / Maximum 20)
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