The Mississippi Valley in the Nineteenth Century: A Materials Development Project

FAIN: EE-50479-07

Northern Illinois University (DeKalb, IL 60115-2828)
Drew VandeCreek (Project Director: October 2006 to June 2010)

The creation of ten online lesson plans and accompanying materials exploring the society and culture of the nineteenth-century Mississippi River Valley.

This project will prepare ten lesson plans exploring society and culture in the 19th century Mississippi Valley using primary source materials collected in the Mark Twain's Mississippi Project online digital library. The project will arrange small groups of rich textual, image, sound, video and statistical materials from the Mark Twain's Mississippi Project databases into lesson plans shedding light on significant dynamics in the period's history, including the development of race relations, the processes of frontier settlement and technological and economic development, and the debate over the United States' high and vernacular cultures. A project handbook will provide teachers with a discussion of the project's online curriculum, and ideas for using additional materials from the Mark Twain's Mississippi Project Web site in class. These materials can provide teachers and students with an opportunity to practice "active learning" as prescribed in state and national learning standards.