The Planning Committee has chosen two topics for this final year of our Teaching American Project. Detailed information on each topic is provided below
- Colonization, Constitutionalism and Conquest
- America in the World - 1890-2007
 2007 marks the 400+ Anniversary of the Settlement of the English Colony at Jamestown, Virginia. To help you and your students benefit from the special programs offered during the Quadricentennial Celebration, this fall, we will study the colonial experience from the perspectives of two peoples (Indians and Europeans) in two places (Jamestown & Plimoth Plantations). Later in the year, we will look at Constitutionalism as an outgrowth of the colonial experience, and finally turn to a study of James K. Polk, Manifest Destiny, and the Mexican War of 1846-1848.
Essential Questions:
What is the meaning of freedom? How has it changed over time?
Who is entitled to freedom, and on what basis?
What is the cost of freedom? Who pays for it?
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Moving in and Facing off: Indians and Puritans in Early New England
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Essential Questions: Why do people move? How do people react to strangers?
How important was “freedom” to 17th century Americans? Why did Europeans and Native Americans form alliances and what broke them apart?
Text: Nathaniel Philbrick, “Mayflower, A Story of Courage Community and War”
Speaker: Walter Woodward: What’s a Pilgrim Anyway? / Changes in the Land
Website: “You are the Historian” |
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Jamestown Begins: Facing Off in Early America |
Essential Questions: Is freedom always desirable? Can it lead to failure?
What is the relationship between freedom and opportunity? What circumstances create successful Colonies?
Text: Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Indians and English
Speaker: Karen Ordahl Kupperman, New York University – Invited – unconfirmed
Workshop: Walter Woodward & Alan Marcus Pocahontas and the New World” – History vs. Myth |
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(snow date – February 1, 2007) |
James Polk, Manifest Destiny and the Mexican War |
Essential Questions: Was America destined to rule the continent? To provide freedom, can one country impose its values on another? How was Manifest Destiny connected to Freedom? Was James Polk one of America’s great Presidents?
Text: Sam W. Haynes, James K. Polk and the Expansionist Stephan Anders: Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right
Speaker: Sam W. Haynes, University of Texas, Arlington – Invited, unconfirmed
Workshop: Geography and the Mexican American War |
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(snow date – March 15th) |
Constituting Freedom: Constitutions and the Confirmation of Rights |
Essential Questions: How have our Constitutions shaped the meaning of freedom? Which is more important: Constitutional Rights or protections?
Are constitutions living documents?
Text: Robert A. Dahl, How Democratic is the American Constitution (2nd Edition)
Linda R. Monk, the Words We Live By: Annotated Guide to the Constitution
Speaker: Walter Woodward, Connecticut’s Constitutions and Why They Matter |
Field Trips
Friday, October 20, 2006 |
Plimoth Plantation |
Site Tour and Workshop |
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March
(date to be determined) |
Old State House Museum |
“History Is All Around Us” |
Essential Questions:
What are the meanings of freedom?
How have they changed over time?
In what ways has American engagement with the world?
been shaped by changing conceptions of freedom?
What are the costs of freedom? Who pays those costs?
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American ideas of freedom on the world stage, 1890-1920
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Essential Questions: In what ways did ideas about freedom shape America’s rise to world power? Why did Americans hold strongly ambivalent attitudes about the use of power in the name of freedom? How did ideas of freedom influence the tension between imperialism and isolationism?
Speaker: Edmund Morris or John Milton Cooper (unconfirmed)
Reading: Morris, Theodore Rex or Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest |
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Freedom and World War II |
Essential Questions: How did ideas about freedom influence the conduct of World War II? Why did the United States willingly assume leadership of the democratic world? To what extent were Americans ambivalent about that leadership?
Speaker: David Kennedy (unconfirmed)
Reading: Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in World War II |
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The Cold War |
Essential Questions: In what ways did American conceptions of freedom influence the conduct of foreign policy during the Cold War?
In what ways did the conduct of the Cold War affect Americans’ conceptions of freedom at home?
Speaker: John Lewis Gaddis (unconfirmed)
Reading: Gaddis, The Cold War |
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The United States and the Middle East |
Essential Questions: In what ways have conflicting ideas about freedom shaped the conduct of American foreign policy in the Middle East? Have U.S. policies in the Middle East promoted or hindered freedom?
Speaker: Sherman Teichman, The Institute for Global Leadership, Tufts University
Reading: TBA |
Field Trips
December 9, 2006 |
Sagamore Hills, Long Island |
tentative |
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Spring |
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum |
date to be determine |
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