Turning Points in American History
Third Year Highlights
- The Turning Points Project is completing its third year. The year's activities began last summer with a 3-day colloquium presented by the National Council for History Education led by historian Fritz Fischer. Teachers looked at the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. Smithsonian staff led by Candra Flanagan then presented a two day workshop showing teachers how to use documents and online resources to enhane their lessons.
- The group enjoyed two seminars by historian Dr. Matt Jacobs of the University of Florida, one in November on the Impact of Technology and one in March on The Civil Rights Movement. Those seminars generated many ideas for DBQ’s and lesson plans on the project website. Four evening mini seminars provided the opportunity to work on these projects and to discuss the books selected by Dr. Jacobs related to the seminar topics.
- Marisa Finotti presented her historical fiction book "The Treasure of Amelia Island" at a mini seminar and shared a writing activity using old photographs to develop characterizations and to put those characters in their historical setting.
- In March the project director and ten teachers were fortunate to be able to attend the National Council for History Education conference in Boston where they attended content seminars, gathered new ideas, networked with colleagues from across the nation, and visited exciting historical locations. Rozy Scott, Pat McLarty, and Deanna Jaroszeski presented a well-attended session about the use of Document-based Questions with all students.
- Over 300 students entered 162 entries in the Polk COunty History Fair in February. Many of those students went on to compete successfully at the Florida History Fair in Tallahassee. Robert Lockard from Summerlin Acedemy and Annika Mulaney from Lawton Chiles placed second in the senior and junior web pages respectively. Jini Curry from McKeel was 3rd in Sr. Performance while Kavi Saxena and Walker May were 3rd in junior web pages.
- In June 2009, 24 teachers will travel to Washing, DC for the 2009 summer institute. There they will meet with Congressman Adam Putnam and tour the Capital and the Library of Congress, work with the Smithsonian education staff for a day, and participate in a two day NCHE colloquium focusing on using historic locations in the nation's capital to review the twelve turning points of the project.
Future Activities
- Turning Points has applied for a one-year extension to continue theDBQ efforts in the district, to provide quality professional development to teachers outside the cohort, and to continue to support and develop the History Fair program.
