Current Special Projects

Scholars Online brings university scholars into high school classrooms. Each video features a top scholar answering a specific question in his or her field of expertise. Brief and informative, these multimedia videos are designed to supplement Choices printed curricula and conveniently organized to align with student readings or enrich lesson plans. Scholars Online videos is tailored to fit a range of learning styles and abilities. More than 500 videos drawn from almost fifty scholar interviews are now available.

 
The Capitol Forum on America's Future is an experiential civic education initiative that gives high school students a voice in public consideration of current international issues. The program is run on a statewide basis in participating states and involves students both within the social studies classroom and beyond the classroom at their state capitol. New models take place on a classroom, school, district, or regional basis and allow for any content topics that fit the curriculum and inform the ultimate question of the role of the United States in the world.  
Critical Turning Points in the History of American Foreign Policy engages teachers at the secondary level in professional development designed to strengthen secondary level instruction in U.S. history and to increase the international content in the core U.S. history curriculum. Choices works as a service provider to districts working with Teaching American History grants. In this capacity, Choices provides professional development and resources to a range of districts nationwide.  
Choices has partnered with the Center for Teaching History with Technology to provide Choices' Teaching with the News resources through the Center's Best of History Web Sites. The Choices Program's Teaching with the News resources appear as History Today.  

The Choices Program has developed the Teacher's Guide for Secrecy. Directed and produced by Peter Galison and Robb Moss, this new documentary film explores the vast, invisible world of government secrecy. By focusing on classified secrets—the government’s ability to put information out of sight if it would harm national security—Secrecy explores the tensions between our safety as a nation, and our ability to function as a democracy.

Visit the Secrecy website for more information on screenings and DVD sales.

 

  

The Choices Program has developed the study guide for Torturing Democracy, a 90-minute documentary that investigates U.S. detention and interrogation practices in the “war on terror.” The film, written by Sherry Jones and produced by Washington Media Associates in association with the National Security Archive, has appeared on PBS stations throughout the United States. The film's website, www.torturingdemocracy.org, features the entire film available for streaming, a timeline of key events, extended interviews, and the memos, legal opinions and other documents featured in the film. Choices' study guide is available from the Torturing Democracy web site.

 

Choices' partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting integrates Pulitzer’s on-the-ground reporting with Choices’ print and digital curricular resources. Choices is developing online lesson plans to accompany Pulitzer’s Global Gateway resources for students. (See Choices lesson plans for Water Wars and India: Conflicts Within, posted on Pulitzer's Teacher Corner for each topic. (See Water Waters and Conflicts Within.) Pulitzer is providing video, audio, and print reporting resources to Choices. These will be integrated into Choices’ teaching resources, introducing frontline reporting into classrooms across the country. (See Choices Teaching with the News lesson on Darfur.)

 
Teacher's Guide for The Fog of War

The Choices Program worked with the Watson Institute's Critical Oral History Project to develop lesson plans to accompany Errol Morris' Academy Award winning feature-length documentary, The Fog of War. The Teacher's Guide is available from the Choices Program and online resources are available free on the Choices web site. In December 2003, the Teacher's Guide was distributed at no charge by Sony Picture Classics to teachers throughout the country. The guide continues to be available from the Choices Program and online resources are available free on the Choices web site.

  
The Slave Trade and Slavery in New England

The Choices Program developed A Forgotten History: The Slave Trade and Slavery in New England in collaboration with Brown University's Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. Teacher workshops on this subject began with a one-week institute in June 2005. Choices continues to offer a variety of workshops and institutes to introduce this subject to teachers in New England and around the country. See a sample agenda here. See Choices Program Conducts Nationwide Outreach on Slavery in the North on the Watson Institute web site.

 

International Education Internship This full-time internship enables one recent college graduate each year to spend a year working as part of a team focused on strengthening international content and civic learning within the core curriculum at the secondary level in the United States.

See Special Projects Archive for previous programs.