Lincoln at the library

I don’t know how I missed this one until now.  Opening this week at the Multnomah County Library in downtown Portland and running December 1-23:

Abraham Lincoln: A Man of His Time, A Man for All Times

About the exhibit

More books have been written about Abraham Lincoln than any other American, yet our knowledge of our most famous president is dominated by a series of iconic images: the son of an illiterate frontier farmer who taught himself to read, the bearded man in the stovepipe hat, the savior of the Union, the Great Emancipator, the martyred leader. This exhibit invites visitors to look beyond the myth. Through Lincoln’s own words in speeches, letters and proclamations, explore and understand the 16th president’s life, accomplishments and legacy.

Related events

Opening Reception

 

Wednesday, December 2, 6–7:30 p.m.
Central Library, Collins Gallery
Join us for refreshments and a Lincoln trivia contest conducted by Michael Burton, Oregon Lincoln Bicentennial Commission chair. “Illinois” Doug Tracy will perform songs and music from the Lincoln era, and actor Steve Holgate will make a brief presentation as Abraham Lincoln.

Oregon Lincoln Bicentennial Town Hall

Thursday, December 3, 7 p.m.
Portland Community College, Cascade Campus, Moriarty Building Auditorium, 705 N. Killingsworth St.

Local Lincoln scholars Richard Etulain and Elliott Trommald will lead a community discussion around topics and issues that Lincoln faced in his own time and which are still relevant today such as race, leadership and power. The topics are intended to invoke a public discourse about Lincoln, his times and the impact he had and still has on America.\

Update:  Apparently the 12/3 program has been canceled due to football.  It will likely be rescheduled for February 2010.

Writing Abraham Lincoln

Saturday, December 12, 2–4 p.m.
Central Library, U.S. Bank Room

A reading and discussion with professor Tony Wolk and his students from a recent Portland State University course entitled “Lincoln and Literature.” In addition to reading from their stories — which feature an imagined Lincoln — they will briefly discuss our obsessive fascination with Lincoln, especially in this the year of his 200th birthday. Wolk is the author of three novels featuring Lincoln: Abraham Lincoln: A Novel Life, Good Friday and Lincoln’s Daughter.

Abraham Lincoln: A Man of His Time, A Man for All Times is a national traveling exhibition organized by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. The traveling exhibition has been made possible in part through a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, dedicated to expanding American understanding of human experience and cultural heritage.

History Pub – Women and WWI

Even though I can rarely attend, I love knowing that History Pub is happening and that I live in a city committed to historical inquiry and beer.  This month’s – November 30 at 7:00 -  looks especially intriguing:

American physician and suffragette Esther Pohl Lovejoy (1869–1967)

The First World War was a watershed in women’s history. Tens of thousands of women served in the military and with voluntary organizations at home and abroad. Others opposed the conflict and worked to end it. The war also came as women in many Western states had achieved the vote (Oregon in 1912) and as the campaign for a federal suffrage amendment was in its final stage. Because of this many women saw the conflict as an opportunity to expand their participation as full citizens. This presentation will provide an overview of the significant activities and work of women in the conflict. It will also highlight the story of women physicians, including their campaign for officer status and equality in the military medical corps, the formation of all-female medical units to provide medical care and address violence against women in the war zone, and the work of Oregon physician Esther Pohl Lovejoy in France and with the medical relief organization the American Women’s Hospitals. Speaker Kimberly Jensen teaches history and gender studies at Western Oregon University. History Pub takes place the last Monday of the month at the Kennedy School, located at 5736 NE 33rd Avenue in Portland.

Summer School

If you’re a teacher who is looking to deepen your approach to teaching US history this summer, your starting point is to attend our summer institute August 2-6 at ESD 112.  If you’re looking to go further, I encourage you to consider applying for one of the Gilder Lehrman or NEH offerings.  These sessions, lasting between 1 and 5 weeks, are rich offerings that have minimal – or no – impact on your pocketbook.  Some of the offerings are familiar to ESD 112 TAH participants:  You can study the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham Alabama or The Constitution with Will Harris in Montpelier or Los Angeles.  Just reading the titles of the many other offerings spurs curiosity and excitement.  Check it out!

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History Summer Seminars

NEH Summer Institutes and Seminars for School Teachers

NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops for School Teachers

Updated 11/25:  There is also this offering for international work: “The Educational Seminars program offers Department of State funded grants for U.S. school teachers and administrators. Exchanges are short term, taking place during the summer, and focus on sharing of best practices and professional development.”

Monologists, Rappers, and Framers

Saturday night I took my daughter to see Ben Franklin Unplugged, Josh Kornbluth’s monologue at the Ellen Bye Studio (in the Armory Building in Portland.)  While Olive was a little lost by all the references to Communism (which had us walking back to the car talking about Marx (no, not one of the Brothers), Mao, Stalin, McCarthy and idealism – good thing we didn’t park right next to the theater), I was left thinking about how Kornbluth’s work connected to mine (a reading which I think Kornbluth would say is the only way we read anything.)  In the piece, Kornbluth ends up spending the night in the Franklin archives at Yale, realizing that historian’s published work can’t substitute for reading the letters.  An inspiring message, I think, speaking to the vitality of engaging people with the source material.  His next step seemed a little broad:  If I understood the piece (and I must admit, when it comes to theater I can be a little daft), he seemed to be saying that anybody who reads those documents will be applying their own lens and will leave with personal interpretations that are equally valid.  While this seems at once both true and a bit of an overreach, the way it spoke to the vitality and creative experience of engaging with primary docs was dead on.  The program is at the end of it’s run:  it closes November 22.  When I went, there were $20 rush tickets available.  More info here.

Another engaging creative work dealing with a “Founding Father” is Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Alexander Hamilton rap.  Delivered at a White House soiree (why don’t I get invited to those?), his is more accessible for sharing with students (short, streamed, and dramatic.)  Link to it here; I found out about it on Larry Cebula’s NW History blog.

Half-Time Report

This entry serves to update participants in this year’s TAH project.  It may be of interest to others, I suppose…

With just two more demonstration lessons to go, we’re in wrap-up mode for the first half of the Causes of Conflict year.  I wanted to drop you a line reminding you of where we’ve been, where we’re going, and what we’re hoping you’re thinking about during this brief intermission in our activities.

Last summer, we began our journey investigating American history and our students’ learning needs.  We identified targeted skills and content – drawn from the GLEs and CBAs – on which to focus our efforts.  Most recently, we tested our strategies to meet those targets though demonstration lessons.  I know that most of you will be employing revised versions of those lessons in your classrooms – and that your teammates are eagerly awaiting hearing about the results of those tweaks.

As a group, our activities resume in 2010.  These activities include:

• Thursday, February 4, Paul Finkelman will return for a talk at the ESD on the Lincoln-Douglas Debates and the 1860 Election.  The program will run 5:00-8:30 pm; if you’re coming from a distance and would prefer to use the K-20 network to avoid the slog through the weather, please let me know at your earliest opportunity.
• Saturday, March 6, the Center for Columbia River History will host a program linking the national story to the regional one with “Neither North Nor South:  The Pacific Northwest in the Civil War,” 9:00 am – 4:00 pm at the Red Cross Building on the Fort Vancouver National Historic Reserve.
• Tuesday, March 16, 9:00 am – 3:30 pm, we’ll host a program with two legs I’m equally excited about.  First, Steve Schwartz from the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History – our partner for the Gettysburg trip – will guide us in investigating primary documents related to the trip and considering how we might use them in the classroom.  During the second half of the day, we’ll explore the evidence of student learning you’re collecting in your classroom (more on that below.)
• March 28 – April 3 (or April 2, for the handful of folks who will be leaving Friday) is our History on Location in Gettysburg.  I hope that you’ve either begun or are looking forward to beginning the preparatory reading for that trip, Gary Gallagher’s Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten and Matt Pinsker’s Lincoln’s Sanctuary.  Drs. Gallagher and Pinsker thought that those two books would build strong foundations for the work we’ll be doing together that week.
• Finally, we make use of all those experiences during our spring lesson study cycle.  We’ll meet two evenings in April (the 14^th and 21^st for the Vancouver area contingent; the 15^th and 22^nd for the Longview area folks) and have another round of demonstration lessons shortly thereafter.

Regarding the collection of evidence referred to above:  Please remember that, for all students from one of your classes, we’re asking you to set aside student work related to the program targets.  Even more important than the critical role this plays in our program’s evaluation, we hope this will serve as a tool to strengthening your teaching through investigating student learning.  These folders can play an important role in monitoring what skills you explicitly teach your students and how they’re responding to those efforts.  If you do student led conferences or ask students to reflect on their learning, these collections will be key source material; they may also prove valuable in discussing student work with parents.

Please use the assignment log to track assignments you are giving that focus on one or more of the project targets.  Shoot for including at least one assignment a month.  Probably the first entry you’ve included was the document set you gave your students that we went over as a group:  this is the rare assignment that targets just about every skill on the list and, therefore, serves as a baseline to keep returning to as you consider growth.  Most of you will also include student work related to the demonstration lesson, given that those also explicitly targeted program goals and objectives.  Keep building from there:  The more entries you have that share some common goals and objectives, the easier it is to confidently monitor growth.

Keep in mind that, even during this brief lull in activities, I remain eager to support your efforts.  If I can ever be of help, don’t hesitate to contact me with your questions, concerns, or requests.

All the best,

Matt