National Resource Guide to American Studies in the Secondary Schools

Sponsored by the ASA Secondary School Committee

Model 3 -- 11th Grade: Miami, FL

Compare with: Tuscaloosa, AL, Montebello,CA, Elgin, IL, Caledonia, MI, Lebanon, NH, Iowa City, IA

Pan-American Studies
Miami Country Day School
PO Box 38-0608
Miami, FL 33238-0608
Phone: 305-759-2843, ext. 264
Fax: 305-759-4871(FAX)
E-Mail: donnelyj@mcds.pvt.k12.fl.us
Contact: Jeff Donnelly

Program Development & Organization

History of the Program

The American Studies Program began at Miami Country Day School in the 1987-1988 school year. In 1993, responding to the nature of our community, Miami Country Day School began a school-wide initiative known as Miami Across the Curriculum (MAC). The MAC objective is to make what is taught and learned at Miami Country Day School uniquely reflective of Miami. At first informally, but then more formally, the American Studies Program transformed into the Pan-American Studies Program (PAMS). To tell the story of the program requires a brief review of Miami Country Day School as an institution, a description of the early American Studies Program, and finally, a summary of the transformation of the traditional program into Pan-American Studies.

Miami Country Day School began life in 1938 as a proprietary private boarding school through the eighth grade. After World War II, day students began to predominate. In 1977 Miami Shores Presbyterian Church purchased the school and the program was extended through the 12th grade in 1980. Today, Miami Country Day School is a church-related, co-educational college preparatory school for grades JK- 12 which promotes the Judeo-Christian ethic in a learning environment that values and respects each individual member of the school community. Admission is open to all regardless of race, color or creed, and Upper School students now number more than three hundred, double the enrollment ten years ago.

The school is located about one mile north of the boundaries of the City of Miami itself in northeast Dade County. An inclusive admissions policy in Greater Miami necessarily results in a highly diverse student body, born or with recent origins in dozens of countries in Europe, Asia, Africa or the Americas. Using the standard racial ethnic categories to identify Country Day students would mean that "minorities" are in the majority, even in this selective private school.

In 1987, several factors, including the interest of the director of the Upper School and the hiring of a faculty member with a graduate degree in American Civilization, combined to make the introduction of a new American Studies program (AMS) possible. Like many schools in the area, Country Day had offered its U.S. History and American literature requirements in the 11th grade, and the AMS program was designed to involve all students in the 11th grade, then numbering about forty. The program's objective was to be interdisciplinary, team taught, and responsive to the materials surfaced through the "New Social History."

By 1992-93, weekly American Studies topics included: The Encounter; Nationalism and Community; Expatriation, Dissent, and the Rebel; Red, White and Black; Revolutionary America in Music and Art; Language and Culture, Privilege and Influence; The First New Nation and Architecture; The Frontier and Republican Ideology; Race and Gender: Slavery and the Family; Environment and Romanticism; Jacksonian Democracy; Civil War Soldiers and "The Red Badge of Courage"; The City and Migration; The Lost Generation; the Cold War and "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers."

In 1993-94, as an experiment, faculty responding to the MAC initiative tried topics such as "Responding to Change: The Transition to the Modern in Pan-America," a comparative study of Tammany Hall in New York and the PRI in Mexico. For the 1994-1995 school year, the name of the program changed to Pan-American Studies and a faculty member joined the team who gave additional access to Latin American sources. Texts read in the literature classes have included both The Longman Anthology of American Poetry and The Borzoi Anthology of Latin American Writers. Among the more interesting conjunctions of subject matter and topics have been:

In 1996-1997, PAMS provided focus and resources for the regular 11th grade U.S. History and American literature classes. From the beginning of the program, most class time has been spent in the individual history and literature sections. In 1996-1997, all sections met together for PAMS presentations about four times each quarter. The PAMS large group presentations would typically be the responsibility of two faculty; the other members of the team provided logistical support (getting last minute copies made!) and made contributions to the discussions. Faculty would then use PAMS presentations as resource material for their instruction in their respective sections.

One traditional and popular presentation has had the faculty and students depict by role play the "Lost Generation" - with faculty and students taking the parts of Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, and Gertrude Stein. The PAMS perspective in recent years has added Diego Rivera and Rubin Dario to the traditional North Americans in Paris.

Perhaps the best way to envision the PAMS program is to see the presentations as a resource "text," providing context for the more traditional texts used in the 11th grade history and literature classes which must prepare students for nationally normed examinations such as advanced placement and the SATII.

Number of Teachers/Teams

Four teachers were involved at the start of the program in 1987, one pair assigned to two history sections and the other pair to two english sections. This required all 11th grade history and English classes to be scheduled in "flip" fashion, e.g., history sections one and two and English sections three and four meet first period; history sections three and four and English sections one and two meet second period. From the beginning, one of the history sections was an advanced placement class.

Only one of the teachers had training or courses in an American Studies format; the others were graduates of history and literature programs. The teacher with the American studies background remains with the program. Over the years, nine teachers in addition to the founding four have spent from one to seven years with the program. The common characteristic in the beginning was the willingness to go forward with an experiment. Those teachers whose background and interests were most interdisciplinary have been most comfortable participating in the program. Since the large group presentations, with only a few exceptions, such as a "Lost Generation" role play, are the responsibility of at most two teachers at a time, the teamwork challenges have been mostly those common to any joint faculty enterprise. From time to time, the two English teachers or the two history teachers bring their classes together for joint presentations outside the program format.

From 1987-1996, twice each week, all 11th grade students met with all four teachers in a lecture presentation format; the other three days in each week were given over to class meetings by history and English sections. After drafting an initial syllabus and class schedule, the four team members met irregularly, but the small size of the school made this staff organization effective. Individual or pairs of faculty have taken responsibility for the large group presentations and activities. By 1992, the planning format remained basically the same: an extensive pre-service planning session, supplemented as needed by ad-hoc team meetings. The pre-service planning session set themes for each quarter and assigned responsibility for preparing the "lecture," which now involved more multimedia presentations. Changes made after the pre-service were mostly reactive to events and the demands of schedule changes. In 1996, the weekly schedule changed. There are still four sections which meet separately as English and history classes. One of the English classes is also now an advanced placement class. There are four joint meetings of all sections each quarter, meeting on a fixed day of the six-day cycle in the new modified "block" schedule.

This allows a presentation time of two and a half hours. Each quarter has a "theme": Community and Race in the Americas, Individual and Class in Society, Modernity and Gender, and Post-Modern Miami: Communities, Individuals and Change.

While both history and English programs are ability grouped (AP, Honors, Regular), one of the most important benefits of the program is the joint meeting of all 11th-grade students for presentations and group projects. Since the school class sizes are relatively small, another benefit, especially in the beginning, was to provide a "lecture" style experience for our students in preparation for the university experience. Over time, this "lecture" experience has become more varied, from multimedia presentations to various forms of student-led and student response activities.

Challenges, Frustrations, and Successes: Advice to Those Starting Up

Given administrative support for the basic ideas of team-teaching and interdisciplinary study in the Humanities, the most important factor in the success of the program is the readiness, willingness and ability of the faculty to function both as a team and in an interdisciplinary mode. Training in an American Studies program is helpful, but not at all necessary. The interdisciplinary focus is more a way of thinking and teaching than a product of training.

The most significant frustration, assuming willingness on the part of all assigned faculty, has been to find the time and attention to give to planning, re-planning, and evaluation. Two of the current teams have been with the program since 1989 and provide the "institutional memory" of the program. Still, much of what is done, after the initial plans for the year are made, has been reactive, meeting particular situations and improvising solutions to scheduling and other problems.

The program has had several notable successes. While no formal survey evaluation has been done, alumni report two benefits of the program. Especially in the beginning, the American Studies Program was the only large-group experience our students had before attending university. Alumni report that this high-school experience helped them adjust to the university level. More significantly, the consistent themes of the program, from the traditional "City Upon a Hill" to the more multicultural experience of reading a poem by Ruben Dario on Theodore Roosevelt have prepared our students and sent them to college with a context for much of what they learn in the Humanities later. Beginning in 1989, the AMS school year has closed with a series of student presentations. At first, students created a "Roots" project, linking their ancestry with events in the American story, including the most recent migrations. More recently, the program has concentrated on projects allowing students to make presentations on some aspect of life and culture in Miami. Again, alumni report that these experiences have helped them not only to come to a better awareness of their own place in society but of the place of their community in the larger world of Pan-America.

The following factors are critical in order to start a team-taught program in American Studies:

Summary of Program

Pan-American Studies Course Design

In 1996-1997, the Pan-American Studies Program used the following description.

The schedule above was flexible. Films, for example, Bernice Bobs Her Hair, and outside speakers, such as veterans of the Civil Rights Movement in Miami, might take more or less time than allotted for presentations. The team made very effort to conclude each presentation with the "twenty-minute write," graded by individual faculty who might or might not be the student's "regular" teacher.

Student Performance and Learning Assessment

Most student assessment is carried out in the history and literature sections. Both history and literature classes, where the students meet most of the time, use the PAMS presentations as an additional "text" or "reader," upon which students are expected to draw for their historical and literary commentary and responses. The PAMS presentations are linked with the history and literature curricula. On several occasions, advanced placement essay questions in history or literature have been drawn from topics covered primarily in the interdisciplinary sessions.

The two principal methods of student assessment we have used within the PAMS large group meetings have been student presentations and the twenty-minute write exercise, during which students respond in class to a topic announced during or at the end of the presentation.

The principal student contribution and material for assessment has been an end of the year project, involving an in-class presentation. For each presentation, students have to write a brief individual paper, collaborate on an audio-visual presentation, and find a topic-appropriate poem or compose one. These student presentations are graded by all faculty, and each history and literature teacher uses these grades as part of their fourth quarter assessment. An example of a recent large group presentation is "Criollismo: The Pan-American Creation of Red, White, and Black."

Go to Miami Course Units