Civic Reflections: Picturing America and the Changing Face of Democracy

FAIN: AP-50065-11

Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association (Deerfield, MA 01342-5004)
Darlene Marshall (Project Director: October 2010 to June 2016)

A three-day conference in summer 2011 for fifty K-12 educators from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Vermont to explore civic identity, voting rights, and democracy through Picturing America artworks.

Civic Reflections: The Changing Face of American Democracy will use the Picturing America gallery to deepen understanding of the intrinsic, historical relationship between American civic identity and political participation, i.e., voting. By studying Picturing America art in conjunction with regional works, participants will learn that the civic borders of American political participation have expanded and contracted over time and that these changes are manifested in the ways in which Americans have interpreted, claimed and contested access to this most basic rite of citizenship. We will provide 50 teachers with a two-day conference, one day of Museum field work and in-class programs and lesson writing support. These activities will culminate in creating and teaching of lessons in core US History, English Language Arts, and Civics curriculum using Picturing America images. These lessons will be shared in our nationally recognized, www.americancenturies.mass.edu education website.