Teaching American History

A History of America's Changing Relationship to the World

The Choices Program worked with the Omaha Public Schools to provide summer teaching institutes for secondary level teachers in 2006 and 2007. This initiative brought scholars and scholarship to secondary level teachers and their classrooms using a methodology that has been shown to engage all students in consideration of the ambiguities of history and the lessons for the future.

  

Two 6-day summer institutes took place at Brown University. These summer institutes will explored two time periods of American history, investigating several themes: tensions between isolationism and engagement; conflicting tendencies toward realism and idealism; continental and regional expansion; the emerging identity of the United States and the belief in American exceptionalism and other ideologies; the role of economic interests in shaping foreign policy; the domestic social and political roots and consequences of U.S. foreign policy; and the growth of the United States as a military power.

Each summer institute approached these themes through a discussion of specific events, episodes, turning points, and debates in U.S. foreign relations. Each institute used a combination of primary source material, American history texts and scholarship, lectures by experts in American foreign policy and diplomatic history, and teaching resources designed to bring history alive for students.

 

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The Choices Program has developed a U.S. History Series that focuses on turning points in the history of American foreign policy. These resources are provided to participating teachers.
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Read about the 2006 summer institute for teachers from the Omaha Public Schools focussed on the early period in American foreign policy. Read about the scholars who participated. Read what participating teachers learned from the institute and its impact on their teaching. Read what a teacher working on a new unit with Choices has to say about the difficult task of identifying a historical turning point. Newsletters from other TAH summer institutes are also available.

"A History of America's Changing Relationship to the World" is a collaboration between the Choices Program at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies and the Omaha Public Schools.

Choices Program Collaborations with Teaching American History Programs This page provides a summary of the Choices Program's work with Teaching American History grants. Districts interested in collaborating with the Choices Program should contact us at choices@brown.edu or 401-863-3155.