| About the NHP Newberry Library Programs for Teachers Dr. Wm. M. Scholl Center for Family & Community History  |
In the spring of 2001, the National Center for Education in the Disciplines brought together a group of historians and posed a novel challenge: create a model of professional development for history teachers based on the highly successful model of the National Writing Project. Following discussions with teachers, scholars, and history educators we settled on the concept that "doing history" involves not only content knowledge and memorization, but also learning how to ask the right questions, working with historical sources in archives and libraries, and sharing interpretations with fellow researchers, students, and others.
The Summer Institute
During the summer of 2002, teachers and scholars in Chicago and Bloomington, Illinois, and Cleveland, Ohio, participated in summer institutes based on the National History Project principles. This Web site provides details about the Newberry Library institute, titled "Doing History in the Classroom: Rethinking the Introductory U.S. History Course." At our month-long institute participants met with scholars, discussed historical topics ranging over the entire chronology of the U.S. History Survey, conducted research in the Newberry Library, and wrote up research reports to communicate what they found.
Participants included middle and high school teachers from the greater Chicago area, college teachers, and research scholars.
Seminar sessions focused on a common reading assignment on topics that included European-Native American interactions, the American Revolution, slavery, immigration, the New Deal, and several others.
Workshops and Group Meetings focused on developing and carrying out research projects.
The Historian's Chair is a concept adapted from the National Writing Project’s writer’s chair. As in the writing project, the Historians Chair places each participant in front of the group to present a coherent piece of work—lesson plan, interpretation, or primary source analysis.
Research Projects. Each participant carried out a research and writing project that explored an historical topic in some depth. The written portion is not a traditional "research paper," rather it is a report on a participant's intellectual encounter with the past.