The American Social History Project

Mott Middle/Early College has been a local outreach site for the New York based American Social History Project since 1993.  The American Social History Project (ASHP) is a multimedia of U.S. history materials developed by the City University of New York-Center for Media and Learning.  An award winning curriculum, the ASHP materials include:

Who Built America? Textbook

Working People and the Nation’s Economy, Politics, Culture and Society

Volume I to 1877

Volume II 1877 to the Present

Video Series

Viewer’s guides

CD-ROM series

ASHP/CUNY website 

History Matters website

Numerous significant supplemental resources

ASHP is a curriculum that looks at American history and literature through the eyes of the common citizen.  Based on the body of work developed at CUNY, ASHP is a history of the working class in America explored through investigation of facts, primary documents, visual images, myths and stereotypes.  It is a curriculum that provides a strong foundation for significant dialogue around the issues of race, class and gender in America.

Since 2000, the American Social History Project outreach effort has been generously supported with funds from The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. 

Training for ASHP Level I and Level II

Based on interest, innovative application processes for new participant's are provided in a Level I Training held within the school year and Level II Training in June of each year held on the campus of Mott Community College.  This training covers the American Social History Project video and viewers guide series listed below:

The Big H – History as Investigation

Tea Party Etiquette – A Boston Shoemaker and the Memory of the American Revolution

Daughters of Free Men – Life and Labor in the Lowell Textile Mills

Five Points- New York’s Irish Working Class in the 1850’s

Doing as They Can- Slave Life in the American South

Dr. Toer’s Amazing Magic Lantern Show – A Different View of Emancipation

1877-The Grand Army of Starvation

Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl – Immigrant Women in the Turn of Century City

Savage Acts – Wars, Fairs and Empire – 1898-1904

Up South – African American Migration in the Era of the Great War

If you are interested in this training contact:

Diane Kirvan
Mott Middle College H.S.
1401 East Court St.  MMB 1102
Flint, Michigan   48503
(810) 232-8531
(810) 232-8660   fax
dkrivan@geneseeisd.org

Teachers as Researchers

The Teachers as Researchers outreach effort continues to apply the award winning body of ASHP materials developed at City University of New York-Center for Media and Learning (CUNY-CML).  Teachers as Researchers represented both a new initiative for Mott Community College and Mott Middle/Early College High School and a logical extension of their long-term NEH New Media Classroom and Learning to Look collaborative efforts with the Center for Media and Learning (CML). 

Combined with the on-going field research experience, teachers created new curriculum around the Civil Rights Movement to supplement the existing ASHP resources.  The purpose is to sustain a social history approach to American history, American literature, and environmental studies (social history, the environment and decision making) and to assist teachers in the development of additional and supplementary materials.  These materials will provide students with the foundation to understand and interpret U.S. history and culture during this time period. 

These teachers have produced the following:

• A published lesson handbook/textbook and interactive CD entitled The Civil Rights Movement: Emerging Perspectives that will serve as a teaching tool to deepen the ASHP curriculum experience. 
  Sample Lessons
• Teacher researched materials for additional web site publication – teachers have completed lesson plans which are posted to this MOTT MIDDLE/EARLY COLLEGE website and will be submitted to the national ASHP CML website
• Documentation for the purpose of publishing articles on both the teacher researcher experience, the social history concept and American Social History Project curriculum advances – collaboration is on-going among participants

The Teachers as Researchers participants have worked diligently to create a curriculum framework, format and quite literally a textbook of lessons around the Civil Rights Movement. 

All trainers were trained under a Mott Foundation http://www.mott.org ASHP Outreach Grant to facilitate the workshops. 

Teachers as Researchers:

This local outreach effort was completed by teachers and faculty from:

Flint, Michigan:

                        Mott Middle College High School/Genesee Intermediate School District

                                    Leila Rivard – Local Outreach Coordinator

                                    Patrick McHugh

                                    Victoria Milne

                                    Eric Wood

                        Central High School/ Flint Community Schools

                                    Joe Eufinger (Retired)

                                    Margaret Fox

                                    Alex Lenear

                        Whittier Classical Academy/Flint Community Schools

                                    Jeff Bean

                        The Amistad Project – Career Alliance

                                    Ruthie Bowman

Boston, Massachusetts:

                        Bunker Hill Community College

                                    Professor Lloyd Sheldon Johnson

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

                        Plum Borough School District

                                    Jeff Noll