Red and Blue: America’s Two Party System
Why does the United States have two major political parties when many other democracies have far more? In this interactive workshop, students will explore the history and structure of the U.S. two-party system, from the development of the Democratic and Republican parties to the political landscape of today. Students will examine how each party contains a wide range of political beliefs and will explore disagreements both between and within the parties. They will also learn how elections, political institutions, and informal political practices have helped maintain the dominance of the two major parties.
Students will apply what they learn through an interactive activity connecting contemporary political issues and statements to U.S. political parties and individual politicians. The workshop will also invite students to consider similarities and differences between the U.S. political system and Norway’s multiparty parliamentary system.
Core curriculum connection: Democracy and participation; students compare democratic systems and consider how political institutions influence participation and representation.
Group Size: Maximum of 60 Students
Language Level: VG 1-3
Amount of Time: 1 1/2 hours
Seeing Inequality: Wealth, Poverty, and the American Experience
What can numbers tell us about inequality—and what can photographs show us that numbers cannot? In this workshop, students will explore wealth and income inequality in the United States through a combination of data, documentary photography, and discussion. They will examine statistics about wealth and income and compare them with photographs that document different experiences of economic life in the United States.
Students will consider how images and statistics shape our understanding of inequality, what stories each form of evidence can tell, and what they may leave out. The workshop encourages students to think critically about representation, perspective, and the relationship between economic inequality and everyday life.
Core curriculum connection: This workshop connects to the Norwegian core curriculum standard “Critical thinking and ethical awareness.”
Group Size: Up to 30 Students
Language Level: VG 2-3 (students have a relatively solid English proficiency)
Amount of Time: 1 1/2 hours
Native American Boarding Schools: History, Identity, and Resilience
For more than a century, Native American children were sent—often forcibly—to boarding schools designed to assimilate them into dominant U.S. society. In this workshop, students will explore the history of these schools and consider their effects on children, families, languages, and Native communities.
Students will examine historical sources and personal accounts to consider questions of identity, cultural loss, resistance, and resilience. The workshop concludes by exploring contemporary efforts by Native communities to preserve and revitalize languages, traditions, and cultural practices.
Core curriculum connection: This workshop connects to the Norwegian core curriculum standard “Identity and cultural diversity.”
Group Size: Up to 30 Students
Language Level: VG 1-3
Amount of Time: 1 1/2 hours
Making Small Talk: The Art of American Conversation
Is small talk a meaningful social skill—or just unnecessary conversation? In the United States, casual conversation is an important part of everyday social interaction, from meeting someone new to talking with a stranger in an elevator. In this highly interactive workshop, students will explore why Americans engage in small talk and how it can help people build connections and social relationships.
Students will watch short video examples, identify common strategies for starting and sustaining conversations, and practice asking and answering questions with their classmates. Along the way, students will consider how conversational expectations differ between the United States and Norway.
Core curriculum connection: This workshop connects to the the Norwegian core curriculum standard “The joy of creating, engagement and the urge to explore.”
Group Size: Up to 30 Students
Language Level: VG 1-3
Amount of Time: 1 1/2 hours
“In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World”: Thoreau, Nature, and the American Outdoors
What does it mean to live close to nature? Henry David Thoreau is known for his celebration of nature and wilderness. His most famous work, Walden, is an American touchstone. influencing ideas about nature, wilderness, conservation, and outdoor life.
In this workshop, students will read selected passages from Thoreau and explore how he uses language to communicate his ideas about nature and society. They will consider how Thoreau’s ideas have influenced American attitudes toward the outdoors and conservation, while also considering comparisons to Norwegian culture and social life.
The workshop provides students with strategies for approaching challenging literary and academic texts in English.
Core curriculum connection: This workshop connects to the Norwegian core curriculum standard “Respect for nation and environmental awareness.”
This workshop is intended for VG 2 – 3 students or VG 1 students with strong English proficiency. The goal is to prepare students to engage with more challenging texts.
Group Size: Up to 30 Students
1 ½ hours
You Teach Me: A Student-Led Workshop:
What would you teach an American who wanted to understand your educational track, school, community, or culture? In this student-led workshop, Norwegian students take on the role of teacher and introduce the Roving Scholar to a topic that matters to them. Topics might include their educational program, school, town, local traditions, Norwegian culture, or an issue they think people outside Norway should understand.
Students will prepare a short presentation or activity and then engage the Roving Scholar in conversation and questions. The goal is to give students an authentic reason to use English, develop discipline-specific vocabulary, practice presenting to an outside audience, and reflect on how they explain their own culture to someone from another country.
There will also be time for students to ask questions of the Roving Scholar.
Core curriculum connection: This workshop connects to the Norwegian core curriculum standard “The joy of creating, engagement and the urge to explore.”
This workshop is intended for VG 1 – 3 students
Group Size: 15 Students
1 ½ hours
Dreams: Langston Hughes, Poetry, and the Harlem Renaissance
What does it mean to have a dream—and what happens when a dream is denied? Langston Hughes was one of the most influential writers of the Harlem Renaissance, a period of extraordinary artistic and cultural creativity in Black America during the 1920s and 1930s.
After a brief introduction to the Harlem Renaissance and Hughes’s life and work, students will read and discuss selected poems by Hughes, exploring imagery, metaphor, repetition, rhythm, and other elements of his distinctive poetic style. The poems invite students to consider both personal dreams and the larger struggle for freedom, equality, and opportunity.
Core curriculum connection: Identity and cultural diversity; students explore how literature can express identity, historical experience, cultural belonging, and aspirations for social change.
Group Size: Up to 30 Students
Language Level: VG 2-3 (students have a relatively solid English proficiency)
Amount of Time: 1 1/2 hours
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Kristin’s Workshops for Videregående Teachers and Teachers-in-Training