Book Discussion and Workshop Series: Hartford and Chester

Media Literacy and the Role of the Press in a Digital Age

Throughout our history, we have valued the role of a free press as a vital component to a democratic society. At the same time, this has often created a challenge for government leaders who wish to shape political messages and opinion. In this 4-part workshop/discussion series we will explore the role of the press, the relationships between presidents and the press, and how we can support students to become more critical consumers of media.

Session 1: What Does Freedom of Speech Really Mean?
Workshop and discussion

Session 2: Evaluating Sources in a Post-Truth World
Workshop on Civic Online Reasoning, Identifying Point of View in the Media

Session 3: Book Discussion: Newsgathering in an Authoritarian State
Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship by Anjan Sundaram A firsthand look at the rise of dictatorship and the fall of free speech.  Book supplied by Flow of History

Session 4:  The President and the Press
Film Discussion, All the President's Men, and Primary Source Inquiry

Registration Fee: $200 (Bad News supplied by Flow of History)

Workshop Location: Hartford Middle School, Hartford, VT
Dates: November 14, November 28, December 12, January 9
Times: 4:00 - 6:00 pm


Workshop Location: Green Mountain Union High School, Chester, VT
Dates: November 13, November 27, December 11, January 8
Times: 4:00 - 6:00 pm

Register Online Here

New Media Literacy Course

Preparing our Students to be Informed Citizens: 
Making Sense of the News Today

Join Flow of History for after-school workshops on improving your students’ media literacy and understanding of civic responsibility, followed by an evening talk that further illuminates the topic. Choose from three different dates and locations. These workshops are aligned with First Wednesday programs sponsored by the Vermont Humanities Council on the theme “Democracy and the Informed Citizen,” and sponsored by the Vermont Alliance for the Social Studies. Each  workshop will include a reading and discussion component, as well as a hands-on classroom activity about civic online reasoning. A light dinner will be provided, with the evening speakers invited to join workshop participants as available.

See below for the list of dates and locations with the associated reading and evening presentation. Graduate credit (1) will be available from Castleton University for those who also attend the Vermont Alliance for the Social Studies conference on December 7 at The Equinox in Manchester, Vermont, where the keynote program will also address the “Democracy and the Informed Citizen” theme and feature national journalist and Vermont native Garrett Graff.

Books will be mailed to participants after you register. Please bring a computer or tablet to the workshop for the civic online reasoning activity.

November 7:  Montpelier, VT

Teacher Workshop Time: 4:00 - 6:30
Workshop Location: Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main Street
Book: Nadine Strossen, Hate: Why We Should Resist it with Free Speech, Not Censorship, a cogent argument that serves as an excellent primer on the First Amendment.
First Wednesday Talk: News, “Fake News,” and Democracy in America, Former Senior Fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, Mark Potok
First Wednesday Location: Unitarian Church, 130 Main Street, Montpelier, 7:00 p.m.


December 5:  Rutland, VT

Teacher Workshop Time: 4:00 - 6:30
Workshop Location: Rutland Free Library, 10 Court Street
Book: David Sanger, The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age, the story of America's move to using cyber as a key part of its arsenal in the broader context of its impact on both defense strategy and civil liberties.
First Wednesday Talk: Objectivity in the Fake News Era, Jane Lindholm, host of Vermont Public Radio’s “Vermont Edition”
First Wednesday Location: Rutland Free Library, 10 Court Street, Rutland, 7:00 p.m.


February 6:  St. Johnsbury, VT

Teacher Workshop Time: 4:00 - 6:30
Workshop Location: St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, 1171 Main St. [to be confirmed]
Book: Anjan Sundaram, Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship, a firsthand account of press repression in contemporary Rwanda.
First Wednesday Talk: The News about the News, David Shribman (executive editor at the Pittsburg Post-Gazette and Cynthia Skrzycki (journalist and professor of English at the  University of Pittsburg.
First Wednesday Location: St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, 1171 Main Street, St. Johnsbury, 7:00 p.m.



Registration Fee:
$20 for single workshop (First Wednesday talks are free)
$330 for workshop with graduate credit (including registration for the VASS conference)
        Syllabus

Register online here

This program is supported in part by the Vermont Humanities Council, Thank you!

Connecting Literature to the Social Studies Classroom

The History Behind the Story

In this day-long session, teachers will investigate primary sources connected to picture books on Abenaki and early settlement history of the region. Brush up on your early settlement era knowledge, learn strategies for helping students investigate primary sources, and develop writing tasks directly connected to the Common Core. Teachers will leave with primary source packets connected to each picture book. The day will focus on three topics:

The Abenaki
In Malian's Song, by Marge Bruchac, a young Abenaki girl recounts the 1759 English attack on her village. This session will use maps and early documents to explore the relationships between the Abenaki and English settlers.

Early Settlement
Giants in the Land, by Diana Applebaum, tells the story of the giant pines used for masts for the Royal Navy in the days of early settlement. Tricking the Tallyman, by Jacqueline Davies, is set in 1790 and tells the story of the dilemmas of the tallyman who must deliver a count of the citizens of Tunbridge, Vermont. In this session we will look at town charters, maps, and the first United States Census to understand settlement issues in Vermont and New Hampshire.

Early Farming and Industrialization
Bobbin Girl, by Emily McCully, is the tale of a mill girl in 1830s Lowell, Massachusetts. Donald Hall's The Ox-Cart Man reveals the rhythms of the agricultural year and economy. This session will explore the lives of New Hampshire and Vermont children and their experiences on the farm and in the mills through letters, photographs, farmer's almanacs and other sources.

Cost: $150

Time: 8:30 am - 3:00 pm

Dates and Locations:

January 24, 2017: The Learning Collaborative, Dummerston, VT
January 30, 2017: Sugar River Development Center, Claremont, NH

REGISTER HERE

2016 - 2017 Civic Conversations Program

Winter 2017
Civic Conversations and a Social Welfare Case Study

Offered in two locations, this workshop will begin with an overview of Project-Based Learning and how to integrate it into the history or social studies classroom through an investigation of issues our communities prioritized and grappled with at Town Meeting in the past. We will think about how those issues connect to our communities today. Examples include civic duty, separation of church and state, and going to war. If possible, primary sources will be drawn from the communities of teachers who register.

The second part of the day will explore a social welfare case study to learn more about poor farms and social welfare in our region's past. We will analyze primary sources such as poor farm records, the census, and other town sources to find the history behind the story of Jip, by Katherine Paterson. We will discuss how one teacher is developing a project-based learning investigation using these materials. There will be time to brainstorm project ideas for your own students.

Cost: $150

Time: 8:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Dates and Locations:

February 7, 2017: Windsor Welcome Center, Windsor, VT

REGISTER HERE

Fall 2016
Immigration in History: Flash Points and Local Connections

Immigration has become a hot-button issue in the 2016 presidential contest. What public policy options make the most sense? Do we want to place restrictions on immigration? What should be done about the millions of people who now live in the US illegally, without documentation? Who should get to decide? Join us for two after-school sessions in Hartford:






November 9, 2016
Immigration Flash Points in US History
Hartford Middle School, Hartford, VT, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

This session will focus on significant episodes in American history when immigration was especially controversial. We will analyze political cartoons and learn how to find them at the Library of Congress.

November 30, 2016
Immigration in this Region
Hartford Middle School, Hartford, VT, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Learn how to use the census, historical newspapers, and other primary sources to investigate immigration and ethnic history of the Upper Valley region. Who came here and where did they come from? How were they received? Did they persist in the community? What institutions did they build? What did they contribute and do we benefit from those contributions today?

Cost: $100 for this two-session after-school series.

REGISTER HERE

Spring 2016 Programs

Historical Maps 2.0: Using GIS in the Classroom to Promote Historical Thinking
Sugar River Professional Development Center
Claremont, NH

• March 3    8:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

This workshop will provide an overview of online sources of historical maps and how to create and use maps to develop end enhance historical thinking skills. Compare before and after scenarios, mark change over time in a series of maps, give a tour of places/features with shared characteristics, explore a particular problem in depth. This workshop will explore the basics of building story maps and the different ways to display your information using publicly accessible Story Maps.

Nature’s Fury
Southeast Vermont Learning Collaborative, 

Dummerston, VT

• March 29   8:30 - 3:00

Large-scale current events are rooted in historical patterns of human adaptability. After a presentation about human response to major weather events in the past, participants will explore relevant primary sources and learn how to find primary sources at the Library of Congress website, using climate change as an example. They will have work time to explore the LOC and begin developing a classroom activity on a grade-appropriate topic.

Summer Institutes: Save the Date

Registration opens in January for these institutes 

Telling Stories: Investigating Community History 
June 28 - July 1 
Grafton, VT 

Join Flow of History and Vermont author Natalie Kinsey-Warnock for four days of historical investigations that culminate in a day of storytelling. The institute will follow a C3 Inquiry Framework with workshops on developing historical questions, making thinking visible, investigating primary sources, and sharing new understandings through story. The week will culminate in a Moth Storytelling event.

with support from the Windham Foundation 

Watershed Forensics: Using Place to Teach Social Studies and Science
July 6 - 8, 2016 with follow-ups in the fall 
Windsor, VT 

We will investigate the natural and cultural environment of the Mill Brook watershed in Windsor, VT, using scholar presentations and sources such as architecture, bridges, maps, photographs and the river itself. We will learn how rivers behave, how to collect river flow data and analyze it, and how rivers respond in large weather events. The institute will include workshops on tying curriculum to community service and citizen science projects so students are empowered to take action.

with support from the High Meadows Fund and in partnership with Valley Quest

2015 Spring 1-Day Workshop

Spring 2015 Workshops

Using Historical Maps in the Classroom

Windsor, VT: March 17, 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Dummerston, VT: March 31, 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Registration Fee: $150

Registration Portal:  https://sites.google.com/site/flowofhistory20142015/

8:00 – 8:30    Welcome and Introductions

8:30 – 9:30  Maps and Historical Thinking

9:30 – 9:45  Break

9:45 – 10:15  Online Sources for Historical Maps

10:15 – 11:00 New Technologies for Working with Maps

11:00 – 12:00  Google Earth and Historical Maps

Lunch

12:30 – 2:30    Independent Work Time

Choice A:  Locate a historical map(s) that connects to your curriculum, identify appropriate historical thinking skills, and design an activity for students.

Choice B:  Locate a historical map(s) that connects to your curriculum, identify a learning goal, and experiment with new technologies that will help your students achieve the goal.

2:30  Wrap-Up

2014 - 2015 Chester Teacher Study Group

Building Social Studies Skills to Meet the Common Core

Chester: Chester/Andover Elementary School

Times: 3:30 - 5:30 p.m. Monthly Meeting

Fall: 10/23, 11/20, 12/11

Spring: 1/29, 2/26, 3/26

Registration: Free to teachers in Two Rivers Supervisory Union

Registration Portal: https://sites.google.com/site/flowofhistorystudygroup/home/

How do we develop literacy-rich tasks and design instruction to help students complete Social Studies tasks?  How do historical thinking skills connect to Common Core ELA standards?  This monthly study group will examine these questions and engage in hands-on activities that model connecting historical thinking to the Common Core. 

Session 1—October 23

Teaching Historical Significance

Session 2—November 20

Teaching the Use of Evidence

Session 3—December 11

Teaching Chronology and Sequencing

Session 4—January 29

Teaching Multiple Perspectives

Session 5—February 26

Teaching History through authentic Research

Session 6—March 26

Sharing Knowledge

2014 Fall 1- Day Workshops

Fall 2014

1-Day Workshops

The Nature of Freedom in Early America

Windsor, VT:  October 30, Windsor Welcome Center, 8:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Dummerston, VT: November 6, Southeast Vermont Learning Collborative, 8:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Registration Fee: $150
Graduate Credit (through Castleton State): $150
Registration Portal: https://sites.google.com/site/flowofhistory20142015/

Have you wondered about how our founding documents connect to issues of freedom in our region? Did you know there were enslaved people in the Connecticut River Valley? Have you wondered how to create a rich inquiry-based lesson for your students that embraces the Common Core? Join the Flow of History for a day-long workshop exploring our founding documents, interpreting related local primary sources, and designing an inquiry lesson. Choose between sessions in Windsor and Dummerston. Schedule for the day: 8:00 – 8:30    Welcome and Introductions 8:30 – 9:30  Gaining Background Knowledge: What do our founding documents say about freedom and slavery? 9:30 – 9:45  Break 9:45 – 10:45  Race and Slavery in Vermont and New Hampshire: Developing teaching tasks geared toward building students’ analytical skills.               11:00 – 12:00   Primary Source Preview –The Story of Dinah, Windsor, VT, and The Case of Eleazar Wheelock, Hanover, NH Lunch 12:30 – 2:30    Developing an Inquiry Lesson: The Story of Dinah, Windsor, VT or The Case of Eleazor Wheelock, Hanover, NH Participants choose one set of primary sources and develop a document-based case study that scaffolds students to be able to write a claim, supported by background knowledge and evidence. 2:30  Wrap-Up

2014 - 2015 Hanover Teacher Study Group

Connecting Local Primary Sources to the Social Studies Curricula
Hanover: Hanover High School
Times: 3:30 - 5:30 p.m. Monthly Meeting
Fall: 10/14, 10/28, 12/2, 12/16
Spring: 1/27 (9:00 - 2:00 at Rauner Library), 2/24
Registration: Free to Dresden District Teachers
Registration Portal: https://sites.google.com/site/20142015dresdenprogram/home

At the first session we’ll spend some time looking at historical thinking skills and see which skills are being taught at which grade, and how. We’ll pick up on the historical thinking skills throughout the fall. Each fall session will include an activity that connects the Essential Question and major topic to one or two local primary sources. As a group we will discuss how the Essential Question and topic are taught at the two different levels.

At the December session, we will also prepare for our day at Rauner Library.  January will be a full day at Rauner where participants can collect primary sources for use in their classroom. This day will be open to any teacher in the departments, even if they haven’t participated in the fall. In February we’ll have a follow-up session about the Rauner day.

One World: Book Groups and Workshops for 2013 - 2014

One World: Globalization Then and Now

During the last decade the concept of “transnational history” has become popular. This year’s Flow of History program adopts this perspective to examine “America on the World Stage.” Our purpose will be to understand the global dimensions of U.S. history from the beginning to the present day. Within the broad framework of studying America’s relationships with other countries and our evolving role in the world, we will reexamine some familiar episodes from a different vantage point as we consider themes of national values and identity, trade, imperialism, war, and globalization. The program is designed to address topics of interest to teachers at all grade levels—the first half of the year will take us through the mid-19th century and has some emphasis on food, while the second half focuses on the 20th century with an emphasis on Asia.

Common Core priorities will inform our pedagogical approach. Throughout the year we will practice strategies like close reading, scaffolded primary source analysis, and pairing literary, nonfiction, and visual texts for building historical knowledge and critical thinking.

DATES AND LOCATIONS:

Springfield: Tuesdays, 4:15 pm-6:15 pm, Dean Center, Room B-214

Fall: September 24, October 22, November 19, December 17
Spring: January 14, February 11, March 18, April 22, May 20

Facilitator: Alan Berolzheimer, Flow of History
Registration: Free, books and digitized primary sources provided.

Hartford: Tuesdays, 4 pm-6 pm, HartfordMiddle School

Fall: September 24, October 22, November 19, December 17
Spring: January 14, February 11, March 18, April 22, May 20

Facilitator: Walt Garner, Tunbridge Central School

Registration: Free, books and digitized primary sources provided.

Dummerston [WSESU Group]: Wednesdays, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m., Learning Collaborative
Note: This is the WSESU Teacher Group and WSESU may choose to register for Fall, Spring, or Year

Fall: September 25, October 23, November 20, December 18

Spring: January 15, February 12, March 19, April 23, May 21

Facilitators: Alan Berolzheimer and Sarah Rooker, Flow of History
Registration: Free, books and digitized primary sources provided.

Dummerston: Tuesdays this fall, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m., Learning Collaborative
Fall: October 15, November 5, November 19, December 17
Facilitators: Julie Peterson and Laurel Powell

Registration: $50, books and digitized primary sources provided.

1. New World, New Foods: The Columbian Exchange

2. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Tea: The American Revolution in Global Context

3. How Sugar Changed the World, Part 1

4. How Sugar Changed the World, Part 2

5. The “Splendid Little War” and the “White Man’s Burden”

6. The Cold War… and Asia

7. Why Were We in Vietnam?

8. Seeds of Change: Globalization Today

REGISTRATION: 
Participants will receive 8 or 18 hours of recertification credit depending on the course.

To Register, go to: http://www.learningcollaborative.org/course_registration

Under course name, type: Flow of History, One World

Under location, enter WSESU (fall, spring, or year), Tuesday Dummerston, Springfield, or Hartford

For more information about our Norwich offering on Village Life, click here!