ASHP/CML is participating in a conference to celebrate the completion of Investigating U.S. History, a new media project involving 23 faculty members from twelve CUNY campuses to create and test interactive multimedia “lab” modules for use in the introductory college U.S. history survey. The project’s premise is to let students “do history” using the growing amount of online archival materials and to direct their use of primary sources through sophisticated inquiry-based activities developed by faculty. The modules utilize a rich array of resources including presidential audio excerpts from John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson, photographs and folk music of the 1930s, and religious tracts from the nineteenth century.

The public launch of Investigating U.S. History offers college and secondary school faculty (and potential faculty) the opportunity to discuss the state of teaching U.S. history in the age of multimedia. This half-day academic conference features a keynote address by Stanford University’s Sam Wineburg, author of the groundbreaking study on how historians know what they know, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts (2001). Faculty participants also will present and discuss the modules they developed, and the conference will conclude with breakout sessions on approaches to teaching specific U.S. historical periods and themes.

Join us on Friday, November 17th, from 1:00-5:00 pm in The Graduate Center’s Recital Hall. To RSVP or for additional information contact David Jaffee, History, CCNY, 212-650-7468.