Grantee Name:

Trenton School District, Trenton, NJ

Project Name:

Walt Whitman Historical Literacy Fellowship

Project Director:

Rick Weiss
Teacher-leader
Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Academy
Trenton Central High School
400 Chambers Street
Trenton, NJ 08609
Tel. 609-278-7260, ext. 7533
RWEISS@trenton.k12.nj.us

Funding:

$999,762

# of Teachers:

120

# of Districts:

3

# of Students:

33,326

Grade Levels:

K-8

Partners:

• The American Institute for Historians and History Educators (AIHHE)
• University of North Carolina at Greensboro
• American Institute for History Education (AIHE)
• Core Knowledge Foundation
• The Bill of Rights Institute
• The Civil War Society
• Civil War Institute
• The Raab Collection
• The International Spy Museum

Topics:

Year One: the Building of an English America
Year Two: the Empire vs. the Colonies
Year Three: the Agrarian South and the Industrial North
Year Four: Liberal Democracy vs. Totalitarianism
Year Five: Modern America

Methods:

Colloquia, summer seminars, travel study

Abstract:

The partner school districts represent a consortium of three urban districts with high minority populations and a poverty rate of 65%. Both Trenton and Plainfield are state-designated Abbott Districts. In addition, the majority of district teachers have insufficient history content and pedagogical training and very little or no professional development in American history. To address these deficiencies, the project will provide a sustained, intensive professional development program that will improve teachers' content knowledge as well as provide resources in best teaching practices. All activities will focus on historical thinking skills. Additionally, to serve the needs of the teachers' younger students, the project will include the explicit teaching of literacy skills to incorporate effective reading instruction into the American history content. Each year, the Fellows will participate in colloquia, a summer institute, and a field study. Teachers will connect the historical content learned with classroom teaching through the preparation of a content-based portfolio and journal. The historical topics of early America will include common law and natural law, English antecedent documents, American Indian history, and African slavery. For the second year, teachers will study the French and Indian War, the Revolution, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers. In Year 3, planned topics are the antebellum period, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Each year of the project includes a field experience related to the historical era studied, including trips to Waterloo Lenape Indian Village in New Jersey, the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, and the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg.