PAST WORKSHOPS - 2008
A Thousand Words: Images and Literacy in U.S. History
A Thousand Words was a one day workshop for K-12 instructors that explored images and literacy in the study of United States history. The Workshop for K-12 instructors was held Saturday, November 1, 2008 from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
It took a multidisciplinary approach to using historic American images in the disciplines of English language arts, history and art. This program's aim was to directly benefit the following instructors:
- History and social science teachers - to gain a greater understanding of how to examine and evaluate images as historic primary sources.
- Art instructors - to find much useful information on the production and consumption of images in the past and how to tie the fine arts into the core curricula subjects of English and history.
- English language arts instructors - to discover useful strategies for encouraging students to examine think and write about images.
The day was composed of three distinct sessions.
Rebecca More, director, the Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning at Brown University delivered the keynote address focusing on how people cognitively process imagery and offering practical case studies of how to integrate images into various curricula.
For further information on Professor More and the Sheridan Center please see their website: http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Sheridan_Center
AAS curatorial and educational staff led a hands-on workshop in "reading" historic images from the collections of the American Antiquarian Society. These images illustrate various significant events and or movements in American history including: the American Revolution, Westward Expansion, Antebellum Reform, Immigration and the Civil War. Teachers were also able to access these images for use in their classrooms from the Society's free website for teachers www.teachushistory.org.
Teresa Vilardi, director, the Bard Institute for Writing and Thinking led a second workshop on writing about these images. Please follow this link http://www.bard.edu/iwt for further information on Professor Vilardi and the Bard Institute for Writing and Thinking.
For questions or additional information please contact, Amy Sopcak-Joseph at asopcak[at]mwa.org.
All events took place on the campus of the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Workshop Sponsor
This workshop was sponsored by the Center for Historic American Visual Culture (CHAVIC) at the American Antiquarian Society.
CHAVIC seeks to provide opportunities for educators to learn about American visual culture and resources, to promote awareness of AAS collections, and to stimulate research and intellectual inquiry into American visual materials.