Past Institutes

Using Primary Sources to Teach Major Topics in U.S. History in their Constitutional Context (Summer 2025 Webinar Series)

From July 7–9, Humanities Texas held a webinar series that provided social studies teachers with resources and tools to teach about milestone topics in U.S. history in their constitutional context.

Curriculum

Content was aligned with the TEKS. The webinar series introduced teachers to resources and techniques to improve student achievement through hands-on learning. Each day’s three-hour session included a mix of content and pedagogy and hands-on work with primary sources. Links to online primary sources and lesson materials were provided for each session.

• July 7: Equality: Ideals and Realities in Constitutional Development. This session examined the idea of equality as articulated in the Gettysburg Address, looked back to the presence of the concept in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and explored how the issue of constitutional equality was addressed in the decades after Lincoln’s death. The session presented a variety of primary sources (e.g., the Gettysburg Address, Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and 14th Amendment) and classroom resources for engaging students in hands-on learning about them.
• July 8: Internationalism: Debates and Changes in U.S. Foreign Policy, 1898–1919. This session drew on period news media, with a focus on political cartoons, to discuss teaching the issues and events that fueled the debate over expanding the United States's engagement in global affairs from the War with Spain to the Treaty of Versailles. The webinar featured resources and techniques for improving learning by using visual primary sources and underscored the importance of identifying point of view, bias, and propaganda in primary sources. Constitutionally, the session addressed the power to make war and the power to make treaties.
• July 9: The Cold War: Threats and Responses that Shaped American History, 1949–1972. This study of the era from the Truman Doctrine to the SALT Treaty and President Richard M. Nixon’s visit to China examined the mid-century debate over the United States’s global role and obligations. Participants explored techniques for teaching with political cartoons and primary sources and considered methods for identifying point of view, bias, and propaganda in visual and textual primary sources. This session presented resources for teaching about the issues of domestic loyalty, the containment policy, and the domino theory. Constitutionally, the webinar highlighted the ongoing debate about the balance of war power between Congress and the Executive Branch.

Like all Humanities Texas teacher programs, the webinar series was content-based and teacher-centered, with an emphasis on teaching with primary sources and developing effective pedagogical strategies.

Faculty

Charles Flanagan (educational consultant) led the webinar series.

Schedule

The series took place over Zoom from 9:30 a.m.– 12:30 p.m. on July 7–9. The webinar schedule can be viewed here.

Sponsors

The webinars were made possible with major funding from the State of Texas with ongoing support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.