JAMES E. DAVIS
H. MICHAEL HARTOONIAN
RICHARD VAN SCOTTER
WILLIAM E. WHITE

     There is no owner’s manual for a republic. There is no place for a new generation of Americans to find the secrets for addressing issues relevant to the contemporary United States. Experience is the only guide, and the stories of that experience are contained in national history. These are stories of how Americans have shaped their times and influenced their future. At times, Americans have demonstrated absolute brilliance; at other times, the

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     The United States has been described in many ways: a land of opportunity, liberal, democratic, republican, capitalistic, multicultural, pluralistic, imperialistic, and materialistic. However, history students must understand that, foremost, the United States is an idea that is sustained through debate. The health and existence of American democracy depend on the quality of that debate. This is what Abraham Lincoln meant in the Gettysburg Address by “government of the people, by the people, for the

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Assessment should focus, guide, and support instruction. Teachers should make observations about students’ strengths and weaknesses, analyze performance with respect to specific goals and criteria, and constantly assemble information from a variety of sources. Assessment must be used to identify goals and strategies, monitor progress, evaluate results, and improve performance.

Types of Assessment
Assessment takes a variety of formats. Traditional assessments focus on tests or written work such as essays. Performance assessments show learning in active and nontraditional formats. Alternative assessments range from metacognitive activities, such as

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JAMES E. DAVIS
H. MICHAEL HARTOONIAN
RICHARD VAN SCOTTER
WILLIAM E. WHITE

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To many students and adults, history is, as Henry Ford said, “one event after another.” Even after many years as a centerpiece of the curriculum, U.S. history often is seen as a trivia contest of facts, events, battles, and personalities arranged chronologically. Around this history hub, social science courses are often offered as electives that counselors use to fill gaps in student schedules. Few connections and almost

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JAMES E. DAVIS
H. MICHAEL HARTOONIAN
RICHARD VAN SCOTTER
WILLIAM E. WHITE

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     The future of the American experiment, and the life of the democratic republic that is the United States, is at risk. American citizens have endangered the republic by failing to educate new generations of citizens about civic responsibility. Elders have told new generations that they have rights and freedoms but have done little to help them understand what is required to protect those liberties, both for themselves and for

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JAMES E. DAVIS
H. MICHAEL HARTOONIAN
RICHARD VAN SCOTTER
WILLIAM E. WHITE

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     The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has reexamined and revitalized its educational mission. The United States’ largest living history museum has focused its mission on the civic health of the nation. Recent generations of Americans have focused their attention on the issues of individual rights with little attention to the civic responsibility required to maintain the republic that protects those rights. Colonial Williamsburg’s new educational theme, “Education for Citizenship,” aspires

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All of us learn better and retain information longer when we experience connections between our own lives and what is being learned. Children in elementary grades need to see personal relevance in what is being learned, because that is how they make essential neurological/social connections. I call this process of making connections “personalizing learning.” Recent research on brain-based learning shows such connections are necessary before optimal learning can occur.

Social studies presents

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Teaching social studies is as much about teaching new ideas and skills as it is about teaching language—new vocabulary, new terms, and new text structures abound in each year of social studies learning. Yet more teachers than ever before are working with students whose first language is not English. Students enter today’s classrooms from diverse backgrounds, and educators are sometimes overwhelmed by

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Michael Hartoonian, Richard Van Scotter, and William E. White

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Our citizenship is based on an idea we call America. America evolved out of the principles of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, suggesting that individuals could govern themselves and that people were “endowed” with “unalienable rights” such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these principles, Americans would continue to work on forming a more perfect Union, by establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility,

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