Grants for Teaching and Learning Resources and Curriculum Development

Curriculum Development

A small college in the Midwest sought to integrate the study of major art works and an understanding of art history into required core courses in its great books curriculum. Rather than creating a single art history course, the college collaborated with a local art museum and invited scholars to train non-specialists to teach art. Ten faculty members and the dean of the college participated in the grant activities. The project integrated faculty development with its curriculum development objectives, beginning with three two-week working sessions led by visiting scholars. In session one, "Art History, Canon, and the Core Curriculum: Methods in Art History for Non Specialists," a faculty member from the art museum led faculty in a exploration of traditional approaches to art history, along with more contemporary methodologies. In the second session, faculty worked with a noted professor of art history from another institution to establish "a foundation of literacy in art history in the core curriculum," with reference to which art works would complement the content of specific courses. In the third session, another visiting scholar assisted faculty members in choosing art works to correlate with written texts in literature, philosophy, and theology in other core courses. Visiting scholars were involved in the final curriculum discussions, which were scheduled to allow time for reflection after the sessions. The college disseminated all materials resulting from their efforts--from the proposal to the curriculum units developed--on the college's website to serve as a model for other institutions wishing to integrate more art history into their programs of study.

A graduate program in religion on the West coast developed three core courses in the comparative study of religion. The applicant designed three core courses for its graduate program on the topic of comparative religious study and disseminated the curriculum through a website, publications, and presentations at academic conferences. The project began with a series of five seminars, each led by a visiting scholar with a respondent from the graduate program. The first seminar dealt with "Complexities of Comparison" and explored the phenomenon of members of many faiths living in international settings, such as Hindus in Moscow and Sikhs in London. The second seminar, "Bilateral Comparison," was led by a noted scholar of Judaism and Hinduism. The third seminar considered the topic of "Intra-Cultural Comparison," exploring court cases where religious traditions "encounter each other and the legal system." The fourth seminar, "The Insider/Outsider Distinction in Comparison," focused on two recent studies of Jewish-Christian dialogue. A fifth session addressed challenges of teaching a comparative approach to religion. Curriculum development activities occurred the following summer, when this yearlong process of common reading and discussion could be distilled into appropriate syllabi. The curriculum was evaluated by those using it and posted, along with related essays and materials, on the project website.

A liberal arts college in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, received a grant to develop a secondary school curriculum focusing on the lives of five African Americans whose stories link this rural community's history to events and themes of national significance. Recognizing the power of individual stories to illuminate important historical themes, a team of visiting scholars and K-12 teachers focused on local biography as a key to understanding the American experience. The five individuals chosen for study were: Agrippa Hull, a patriot who served in the Colonial Army during the American Revolution; Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman, a slave who successfully sued for her freedom, thus providing a basis for the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1783; Reverend Samuel Harrison, a political leader and the chaplain of the all-black, 54th Massachusetts Civil War regiment; James Van Der Zee, a photographer who chronicled the people of Harlem and luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance; and W. E. B. Du Bois, a ground-breaking writer and thinker and the founder of NAACP. The college collaborated with an existing network of community and local history organizations supporting a variety of educational activities. The co-directors, a historian at the host institution and a professor of English at a neighboring community college, aided by a number of visiting scholars from other colleges and universities, conducted an intensive workshop for teachers from three regional public school districts and two private schools. In this workshop, the participants studied relevant texts, visited local archives and sites, and worked on individual projects, which formed the basis for the development of curricular units featuring primary documents, contextual material for teachers and students, and lesson plans for different grade levels. The result of their work was showcased in a national dissemination conference featuring a prominent scholar of the African American experience. The project team constructed a website, maintained by the host institution, to provide a significant curricular model for teachers in other parts of the country who wish to make connections between local and national history across different periods of time and different disciplines.

Materials Development

A university in the Midwest created a digital archive documenting the Picpus Cemetery and the adjacent Rothschild Hospital in Paris. This teaching tool is intended for use in high school and college courses on American history, European history, Jewish studies, French language and culture, and other fields in the humanities. The sites have high significance for understanding over two hundred years of history and culture. Picpus Cemetery, located on the grounds of a convent in Paris, is the site of a mass grave for those who died at the guillotine during France's Reign of Terror. In 1803, twelve noble families, including General Lafayette's, established Picpus as a private cemetery and, in 1834, Lafayette was buried there. American citizens gather at the site on the Fourth of July to commemorate Lafayette's contribution to American independence, continuing a tradition established by General Pershing in 1914. An American flag has flown over his grave since then, even through the days of the Nazi occupation of Paris during World War II. Adjacent to the cemetery lies the Rothschild Hospital, founded by the Rothschild family to care for the Jewish poor but used during the Nazi occupation as a prison-hospital for Jews about to be deported to concentration camps. Hospital personnel engaged in rescue efforts, in some instances issuing false death certificates and enlisting the help of the Picpus nuns to hide Jews. The Picpus Cemetery digital archive provides materials pertinent to the history of both America and Europe. The website is intended to stimulate interdisciplinary examination of events and issues that France and America share, beginning with their respective revolutions. The Picpus Cemetery archive is also structured to encourage classroom consideration of broader humanities themes such as loss and memory, sites of memory and commemoration, and the shaping of a national consciousness. The archive collects visual, textual, and auditory documents, and provides historical maps and interactive timelines as access points. The sources encompass materials relevant to the site in history, art, and literature ranging from depictions in Victor Hugo's nineteenth-century novel Les Misérables and modern plays and operas, such as Dialogue of the Carmelites, to historical documents relating to World War II and the Holocaust. These documents include digitized photographs, newsreels from 1918 and 1945, and World War II radio broadcasts. The archive also provides testimonies and personal documents from individuals who own family plots in the cemetery. Subtitles, translations, or summaries in English were created for all the source materials in French, extending the use of the archive to a broad range of teachers and students.

A state university in the Southwest is the repository for the photographs of John Collier, Jr. Collier's career in photography was shaped by documentary projects undertaken during the New Deal era and by his father's work as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. These photographs provide a rich documentary of American life, inviting an investigation of the historical and political context for such photographs and a critical interpretation of the aesthetics of photography. Designed for high school and college undergraduate students, the materials are accessible to an online audience. The extensive documentation provided by the collection permits users to explore themes in American history and culture of the period, connecting images with other historical documents, with contemporary commentary, and with the interpretations of scholars. Interactive tools allow the images to be manipulated for closer studies. Users would develop an awareness of how images are used to persuade and how documentary photographers not only select but may also modify the visual image. The completed materials and related learning resources will be made freely available.

Faculty at a community college near Salem, Massachusetts, collaborated with other two-year and four-year college teachers, high school teachers, visiting Hawthorne specialists, and museum educators at the House of Seven Gables, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Salem Maritime National Historic Site, to develop and test an interactive website for teaching about Nathaniel Hawthorne's life and work. The website includes documents, art work, photographs, and artifacts to support the study of Hawthorne in literature, history, and American studies courses in high school and college. Textual materials on The Scarlet Letter, The House of Seven Gables, Young Goodman Brown, and other works chosen by faculty participants are linked to artifacts representing six common themes with multiple paths to guide students through the site. Themes include the influence of the persecution of Quakers and persons accused of witchcraft on Hawthorne and his fiction, the alienation of the artist and how Hawthorne's attitudes toward Salem shape this theme, and Hawthorne's depiction of women and of Native Americans in his fiction. Underlying all the materials is the question of how to use museum artifacts with literature to improve students' understanding and appreciation of Hawthorne's works. Participating faculty teams designed the paths linking artifacts with texts and bibliography. Early in the project, leading Hawthorne scholars joined project faculty to explore central texts and topics such as the use of material culture in teaching Hawthorne. In the first year, faculty teams selected materials and created digital paths for various topics assigned to their team in collaboration with the project director, advisory board, and consulting scholars. Media and support staff from the applicant community college scanned documents, recorded audio captions, took photographs, and entered data while a programmer wrote the code for the website. In the spring and the summer, participants evaluated and adjusted website materials. In the second year, project faculty tested the website. Finally, in the third year, the website was opened for use. The project evaluation assessed whether student understanding of Hawthorne improved as a result of using these materials, whether their motivation increased, and whether they had become more active learners. To view the product of this grant, go to hawthorneinsalem.org.