Session I: US History 

Teachers in this workshop will be able to design new or revise syllabi for courses in U.S. history, with emphasis on meeting the needs of talented students through active-learning strategies and challenging reading and writing assignments. The concept of the “multi-skill-level” classroom will also be addressed. The use of primary sources and student preparation for the AP will receive intense attention. Participants will be exposed to a variety of lesson styles and technology aids, and be involved in creating lessons for the next school year, including lessons on reading and writing strategies. The session will be devoted to the new course introduced in the Fall of 2014. The major emphasis of this workshop will be to provide a wealth of material, activities, and approaches to the teaching of American History that work. We will share these since we will all have “boots on the ground” in US History classrooms. 

Instructor: John Struck has taught high school for 32 years—29 of those years teaching AP US History—and has been working at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, VA, for 22 years. Mr. Struck has been leading workshops across the Southern Region since 2002 and has led 33 summer institute workshops over the past 10 years in the Southern and Midwest Regions. Along with teaching and leading workshops, Mr. Struck has been a Reader for the AP US history exam since 1999 and now serves as a Table Leader. He piloted a field test for the redesigned exam format and has written US history curriculum on the local, state, and national levels. Mr. Struck is a member of the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic and the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation. In 2014, Mr. Struck was named Gilder-Lehrman U.S. history Teacher of the Year for the state of Virginia and also recognized in 2015 by the University of Chicago as an “Outstanding Educator.”