National Resource Guide to American Studies in the Secondary Schools

Sponsored by the ASA Secondary School Committee

Model 4 -- 11th Grade: Elgin, IL

Compare with: Tuscaloosa, AL, Montebello, CA, Miami, FL, Caledonia, MI, Lebanon, NH, Iowa City, IA

School District U-46 American Studies Program
School District U-46
355 E. Chicago Street
Elgin, Il 60120
Phone: 847-888-5032
Fax: 847-608-4162
E-Mail: deborahs@inil.com
Contact: Deb Schmalholz

Program Development & Organization

History of the Program

The American Studies course was in development district-wide during the 1989-90 school year. It was then piloted at Streamwood High School for one year (1990-91) and at both Streamwood and Elgin High Schools the following year (1991-92). The Board of Education, with a unanimous vote, formally adopted the curriculum for the district's three high schools in May 1992. In 1997, a fourth high school is teaching the course. The four high schools that teach American Studies in School District U-46 have 10,000 students, who range from the lowest to the highest socio-economic levels. The District is a mix of urban, suburban, and some rural students, predominantly Caucasian, but with a significant number of minorities, primarily Hispanic, African American, and Southeast Asian.

The American Studies program began with the serendipitous meeting of two teachers (one from each of the above schools) at a local American Studies education conference. Their desire to teach such an interdisciplinary course led them to explore the curricular design process in the district. Colleagues at both of their schools were also interested, but some of the faculty at the third district high school were not. However, their involvement was required so that if, in the future, others wanted to teach American Studies there, that third school would have had some input.

Two representatives (one English teacher and one social studies teacher) from each of three high schools comprised the writing team. Deb Schmalholz functioned as one of the representatives from Elgin High School as well as the director of the project; she also secured funding through a Chapter II mini-grant for release time (four days) during the school year for the team to create the curriculum. Without this funding, the project would never have come to fruition. The district, at that time, had no money for curriculum writing. During the writing sessions, building and district administrators would make appearances and offer input and feedback, but for the most part, the teachers freely functioned as curricular experts.

Philosophically, the team shared an overarching dedication to the interdisciplinary teaching of American culture, mainly because of the tremendous overlap of content and concept with U.S. history and U.S. literature, both taught as required courses during the junior year in the district. The teachers saw American Studies as the perfect meld of those two disciplines, as well as other disciplines where appropriate, such as art, music, and architecture. The team also held the belief that interdisciplinary exploration of themes (rather than a chronological presentation of content) promoted students' higher order thinking. Therefore, there was more similarity of philosophy than contrast.

Pedagogically, the teachers were more diverse, but they all envisioned a "do-able" mix of social studies, English, and interdisciplinary instruction in an American Studies course.

Number of Teachers/Teams

Each American Studies class, offered in the junior year as an elective, is a double-period, team-taught combination of two required courses: U.S. history and Junior English (American literature and language). The team of teachers consists of one social studies teacher and one English teacher, and the enrollment is the equivalent of each teacher's single class combined with the other's. For example, 25 U.S. history students combined with 27 Junior English students create an American Studies class of 52 students that meets for two consecutive periods with the same two teachers.

Teachers cannot be required to team teach this course, so if there is no voluntary team at that high school, then an American Studies course cannot be scheduled. In fact, this was the situation during the years of the pilot course; one of the three high schools did not have a complete team, so the course was not offered.

Generally, teachers do not have degrees in American Studies. More often, those who choose to teach it have a desire to present the study of American literature in its historical context (and vice-versa) because they see so many connections. These teachers share not only an educational philosophy that this holistic approach to American culture is beneficial to students' deeper understanding of the disciplinary content, but also a democratic philosophy that this approach reinforces students' sense of cultural identity as Americans.

By their own example of team work, as well as through instruction that quite often involves cooperative learning, teachers of American Studies reinforce the democratic nature of American society. Some pedagogy specific to the individual disciplines remain in place, due mainly to teacher preferences, to required content, and to standardized testing. However, each team (to its own comfort level as well as the students) employs cross-disciplinary methodology such as jointly grading assignments, planning units and delivering instruction.

As previously mentioned, American Studies is an elective course. The program was designed with the general (grade-level) student in mind; however, students of any ability level may choose to enroll. Since the district offered honors/gifted as well as remedial programs, the American Studies enrollments mostly reflected the general ability students, but there was always representation from all "levels." The district is now moving to "de-track" courses (except for gifted), but American Studies has always been positioned to welcome and to serve all juniors. In fact, many facets of this interdisciplinary course such as use of primary materials, emphasis on student research and reporting, integration of many disciplines, focus on synthesis are characteristic of many "gifted" curricula.

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

At first, the writing team had the support of most administrators and colleagues. But as the work progressed and team members sought feedback from their departments, oppositions surfaced. Some teachers were fearful that American Studies, although clearly targeted as an elective for the "general" student, would drain the regular English and history classes of "talented" and even "honors" students. Such preconceived notions were answered with assurances that students would choose American Studies as an alternative learning experience, and that it would not be represented as an "upper level" course. [Note: In practice, ever since its first pilot year, this "brain drain" has never happened. Also, as previously mentioned, tracking is being phased out in the district.]

One social studies department chairperson, who was originally 100% in favor of the project, became disappointed in the direction [read: not his] that the curriculum was taking; he even went so far as to call it "un-American." However, when called upon to defend his opinion in front of the Instructional Council, he declined to comment. Despite interventions by the building principal and district curriculum coordinators, this administrator continued to openly oppose the project and to intimidate his department into following his lead. This situation became so uncomfortable for the social studies teacher on the writing team that she resigned from the effort and from ever teaching the class. A teacher new to the department took her place, but he had a continuing battle until that chairperson retired.

The greatest frustrations with this program have been both administrative and student-oriented. The administration in each high school must be reminded every year to schedule the teams of teachers with common planning periods and lunches, even supervisory periods, to give the team as much in-school planning time as possible together. Also, the guidance counselors must be continually reminded as to what American Studies is and what students are best served by this course so that appropriate enrollments are maintained. These are burdens that the teachers of American Studies should not have to bear.

Students, too, often pose problems before they even start the class. Very often, American Studies is the only interdisciplinary course students have taken in their years of schooling up to the 11th grade. And, many of them have not had any (or little) experience with cooperative learning, with primary research, with disciplinary synthesis, etc., so these skills must become part of the curriculum. Some students initially resist efforts to employ these other learning strategies because they are so unfamiliar, but after several units, the students become more comfortable with group research, reporting, self-directed learning, and higher-order tasks.

As much as the students are sometimes part of the frustrations in American Studies, they are, by far, the greatest source of the successes. To see them progress from low-level learners (content and rote skills) to high-level thinkers (evaluators, synthesizers, performers) is the reason many American Studies teachers are so devoted to this discipline.

And in case anyone is wondering, American Studies students perform as well as or better than students in single discipline English and history on standardized tests. In fact, one of the district's American Studies students, on his own, took the Advanced Placement U.S. History exam and scored very well. It was pure coincidence that the questions happened to be nearly identical to the Frontier Unit work and exam!

Our advice to those just starting American Studies programs:

Summary of Program

American Studies Course Design

The District U-46 approach to teaching American Studies is probably distinguished by its thematic nature. Many other programs are built wholly or in part on some chronological order to material, but the district curriculum is entirely theme-based. Now, very often, each unit's work will be organized with a chronological base for the coverage of content. For example, in the Rural/Urban/Suburban Unit, the study of this nation's economy shows the historical movement from its base in agriculture to industry to information. In another unit, such as The Frontier, we follow the historic westward expansion of settlement. Therefore, chronology takes on a supportive function of theme, and the historic timeline is reinforced a number of times in various units. So the students, while perhaps being a bit confused at first, come to a quick understanding of historical eras as well as the idea of multiple historic developments during those eras. Then there are some units that do not lend themselves to a chronology, such as The Individual, so timelines take on less emphasis.

Two major themes of the course are "What is an American?" and "What is the American Dream?" All of the thematic units relate in one or more ways to these questions, and semester finals are generally constructed for students to answer these questions using a synthesis of semester work. The thematic approach encourages students to see disciplinary connections more clearly. Connections between their history and their world today are also emphasized as they examine the historical, cultural and personal manifestations of concepts. American Studies very often becomes "personal studies."

While the bulk of the curriculum is history and literature-based (after all, these are the required courses American Studies fulfills), a number of other disciplines are incorporated. Art, architecture, music, film, drama, dance, and photography are part of every unit, some more than others where appropriate. The curriculum introduces students to these important aspects of their culture, and since American Studies is, by definition, interdisciplinary, there is an "easy" incorporation of other disciplines beyond literature and history. District U-46 is less than an hours drive to metropolitan Chicago, so many opportunities for cultural enrichment exist. In fact, the Elgin area itself has a rich and varied cultural history, as well as its own cultural institutions, so students have ready access to these resources.

Since American Studies may be taken in fulfillment of the U.S. History and junior English required courses, the same textbooks are used in both (a survey and an anthology, respectively). However, these texts are used mainly as reference materials. A broad spectrum of other resources are employed, such as other (classroom sets of) texts, paperbacks, magazines, newspapers, art and artifacts, audio-visual materials, and technology. By far, the most often-used resource is the library. American Studies students are frequent visitors, often during class time, using the information available to them there, especially access to the Internet. The American Memory project from the Library of Congress, as well as communicating with other American Studies students and scholars on the information highway, are exciting resource possibilities.

The beauty of American Studies is the infinite options it presents teachers and students with regard to resources. Anything and everything can be used, depending on the available materials, the curriculum, the interests of the students, the expertise of the teachers, the make-up of the surrounding community. One text, however, is highly recommended: American Studies Album published by Scott Foresman. It is a slim, hard-cover volume that serves as an excellent introduction to the idea of American Studies, rather than an all-inclusive text. It incorporates theme and chronology in a multidisciplinary way, and if teachers are looking for a book for their students to carry that actually says "American Studies," this should be it.

Region, race, ethnicity, class, and gender are incorporated, consciously, into every unit in the district program. The state of Illinois requires the teaching of a "unit" on black history and one on women's history during the U. S. history course; however, "unit" is not defined. Therefore, history teachers are able to construct such curricula as they see fit. In the American Studies program, women and African Americans (among other ethnic and class groups) are an integral part of the "content" on a daily basis. And so, while American Studies students discuss certain groups of people (ethnic, racial, gender) for the sake of historic/cultural accuracy, they also see these groups and individuals as part of mainstream American culture.

Student Performance and Learning Assessment

American Studies, because of its interdisciplinary nature, does not lend itself well to traditional measurements of student achievement, such as multiple choice tests. The district's teachers employ a number of various assessments with an intent to match curriculum objectives with student performance. Since American Studies is the combination of two required courses, the teachers do measure student achievement in the single disciplines at various times.

However, essays, oral reports (group and individual), creative presentations (videos, multi-media, role-play), collages, artifact collection/ display, dramatization, and research papers are used as content and/or process-specific assessments of student achievement. The students, sensing the inherent need for curriculum-fair assessments, have readily accepted these non-traditional measures of their learning.

In fact, the students earn one grade in American Studies that is reported twice on their transcripts, which reinforces American Studies as its own discipline as well as the holistic study of American culture. It may be noted that teachers of American Studies at the high school level have long anticipated the current trend toward multiple intelligence-fair assessments, cooperative group learning, and performance assessments.

Go to Elgin Course Units