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Did early attempts to abolish and contain slavery help to realize the ideals of the Declaration of Independence?

Background
toc The [|U.S. Department of Education] began awarding grants in 2001 to educational organizations intended to increase the understanding and efficacy of American history. Our group is part of the award received by the [|Battle Creek Schools Consortium] working in coordination with Michigan State University. According to the [|Dept. of Education website]: > // "The program is designed to raise student achievement by improving teachers' knowledge and understanding of and appreciation for traditional U.S. history. Grant awards will assist LEAs, in partnership with entities that have content expertise, to develop, document, evaluate, and disseminate innovative and cohesive models of professional development. By helping teachers to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of U.S. history as a separate subject matter within the core curriculum, these programs will improve instruction and raise student achievement." //

About Our Group
We began in March 2008 and spent a week together in June focusing on the questions and problems related to Southern Secession. Prior to our first summer institute, we read //Men of Secession// by James Abrahamson. Upon the close of the institute each member of our professional learning group committed to reading a biography of a character directly related to the secession crisis. We have since discussed the role of the individuals as a collective biography to more deeply understand the time period that we have chosen as our turning point.

Our current position is the product of identifying a grade level content expectation ([|GLCE]) that envelops our turning point. We have turned that [|GLCE] into a question that demands inquiry in our quest to create a unit that combines all the elements we have been using — biography, collective biography, and primary document- and inquiry-based learning. Take a look at Our Turning Point page to see our work as we struggle through our goals.

About this Space
There are many obstacles that teachers face when planning for instruction in education today. With the major push toward technology in schools, teachers find themselves stuck because the district can fund neither useful tools nor support to provide the 21st century education that everyone is talking about.

During one of our first meetings, it was suggested that doing history is a public and collaborative act. Even though historical under-standing is in part a journey of discovery of self, the only good reason to do history is to improve the world we live in. The methods and materials of the historian and the history teacher stem from the collective acts of countless unknown individuals in the past, and their analysis is part of a process of collective debate and discussion. (Master Assignment Sheet for June Institute)

This wiki site reinforces that assumption regarding our work through the grant. It is our hope that this wiki becomes a repository of resources of all kinds that can be used by all users in the classroom. As a collaborative cohort, the group wiki serves to act as a means and an end to provide continued support throughout the grant and beyond.