American Democracy in Word and Deed Mount Diablo Teaching American
History Project 2009 - 2014
A Professional development partnership
between the Mt. Diablo Unified School District and the
University of California, Berkeley, History-Social Science Project
October 19-20, 2012 History Grant Teachers are excited to present lessons embedded with grant reading and writing strategies at grades 4, 5, 8, and 11 at the California Council for History Education (CCHE) Conference at San Jose State University October 19-20, 2012.
GRADE 4 Lesson: What the Spanish Introduced to the California Indians MS Word (7.2 mb)
March 23, 2012 National Council for History Education's is hosting its annual conference in Kansas City from March 22-24, 2012 with the theme "Reading the Past: Literature and Literacy in History Conference" which pares perfectly with the TAH grant's approach to incorporating English-based reading and writing skills into the history classroom
We are excited to present 2 grant lessons (see info & links to the lessons below) We will also be supporting a third presentation on the Civil War Blueprint Curriculum, of which a grant teacher helped co-create.
An 11th grade team comprised of Bryan Shaw and Lauren Weaver will present "Deconstructing Primary and Secondary Sources to Support Student Learning in History." The featured lesson includes political cartoons and a secondary source reading as students work to understand the economic effects of the railroads.
5th Grade Colonial Participation in Town Meetings lesson will be presented by Jennifer Brouhard and Lauren Weaver during their presentation titled: "Promoting Reading and Writing Skills in Elementary History Lessons"
March 3, 2012 California Council for the Social Studies Conference, Garden Grove, California
Kimberly Leyden and Lauren Weaver will present the 4th grade Railroads grant lesson at the upcoming California Council for the Social Studies conference on March 3, 2012 in Garden Grove, Ca.
The session, titled "Promoting Historical Thinking, Reading, & Writing Skills in History," will introduce participants to an engaging model to gather evidence and analyze a political cartoon and textbook readings to answer the lesson's focus question: How did railroads affect California's economy in the late 1800s?
Complete lesson materials and student samples can be downloaded here.
October 14 and 15, 2011 California Council for History Education Conference, California State University, Long Beach
Presenters: Jenna Rentz, MDUSD 11th grade teacher; Lauren Weaver, Teaching American History Grant Coordinator
Title of session: Engaging Literacy Strategies to Interrogate Sources and Answer Historical Questions
Abstract: In this interactive lesson, students use multiple reading and historical thinking strategies to analyze political cartoons, an excerpted speech, and textbook passages to weigh whether Roosevelt’s actions in Panama were justified. Student samples of the scaffolded essay and complete materials will be provided from this Teaching American History Grant lesson
GUEST SPEAKER January 2012 ”Constructing Gender and Culture in the Gold Rush”
Historian Heather McCarty focuses on California during the gold rush - a diverse multicultural frontier where varied and divergent ideas about gender, race, and class collided.
GUEST SPEAKER January 2012 ”Iconography of America: The Armadillo Queen, the Maiden and the Moose Deer”
Guest speaker Hannah Farber explores the images of America that circulated in Europe between contact and the late eighteenth century. Part one of two lectures.
"Liberty in the Form of Goddess of Youth
giving Support to the Bald Eagle"
by Edward Savage, 1796
GUEST SPEAKER January 2012 “Iconography of the United States: Lady Liberty, the Eagle, and the Great Seal"
In part two of her talk on American iconography, Hannah Farber describes the early development of the iconography of the United States, placing it in the context of the era’s existing commercial and imperial iconography.
Historian David A. Hollinger
featured speaker at MDUSD TAH
in-service day,
October 27, 2011
GUEST SPEAKER October 27, 2011 ”The Accommodation of Protestant Christianity with the Enlightenment: The Core of American Religious History”
Professor Hollinger gives an overview of American religious history - in particular, the Protestant character of the population for much of American history, the embedding of Enlightenment traditions in American life through the secular character of the Constitution and ...(more) >>>
more information
Historian Thomas Laqueur
introduces the theme of this year's
TAH grant - cultural history.
GUEST SPEAKER October 4, 2011 ”What is Cultural History”
Professor Thomas Laqueur gives numerous examples of how cultural history (in combination with other historical approaches) is part of a collective historical enterprise.
Guest speaker Professor Mark Peterson
discussed the development of
the trans-Atlantic trade
GUEST SPEAKER August 2011
”Money, Goods and Trade in Colonial America”
Professor Mark Peterson examines the role of trade in solving the economic difficulties of the early American colonies. In addition, he explains the "money problem" in Colonial America.
Sharecropper plowing his field in Alabama - Library of Congress's American Memory featuring 78 photographs of Alabama
sharecroppers. Click on image
to see more photographs.
GUEST SPEAKER May 2011 "Reorganization of the Southern Economy after the Civil War"
Professor Clarence Walker discusses the transformation of the southern economy (1865-1900) from a "share wage" system to sharecropping. Other topics include: importation of foreign labor, use of convict labor and the transformation from an agricultural to a manufacturing economy.
Map of the USA in 1824
from speaker's slides
at the March 23, 2011 in service day
GUEST SPEAKER March 2011 "Westward Expansion as Settler Colonialism"
Professor Brian DeLay argues that the history of US westward expansion was neither inevitable (rather a manifestation of a much older process unfolding around the world) nor exceptional (on the contrary, it was contingent upon many other factors coming together).
LESSON PLAN UPDATE August 2011
Teaching American History
Grant Lesson Plans Online
New and updated lesson plans for grade 4, s 5, 8 and 11 developed by staff and participants from the 2011 MDUSD Teaching American History Grant summer institute.
