No One ‘America’ – Understanding America Through Geographical and Cultural Difference
Do Californians have the same values as those in Maine? What is the difference between Delaware, the first state, and Hawaii, the most recent? This workshop explores the histories of different parts of the United States and explores how regional histories produced different, sometimes wildly divergent identities. Despite these different experiences, is there still unity? Furthermore, America has always been a diverse nation, composed of many different cultures, populations, and experiences. Students will understand the unique political and social structure of the United States, as well as how these regional differences are influencing the U.S. today.
This workshop can be interactive or lecture style, can be adapted to different levels of English proficiency, and works for larger or smaller groups.
A History of America in 10 Songs
What is music? Is it just art or can it be historical as well? This interactive, collaboration-based workshop uses a mixtape of American music from early colonial hymns to contemporary rock and roll and rap to explore how music serves a documentary function. By focusing on the music and lyrical content, students will understand themes and trends of American consciousness, recognize tensions within American history, and connect these observations to their own history.
This workshop can be interactive or lecture style, can be adapted to different levels of English proficiency, and works for larger or smaller groups.
A San Francisco Bay Area Day (A Role-Playing Adventure)
This workshop takes students and their teachers through the many different experiences that students around the San Francisco Bay Area experience. From the rural regions of the far North Bay to the tech-driven Silicon Valley, from the patchwork of towns and growing cities that make up the East Bay to the combination of all of these (and more) that make up the city of San Francisco, this workshop has students racing to navigate public transportation, microclimates, inequality, and even natural disasters as they journey to and from school in this role-playing adventure. While this workshop is best conducted with small groups, it can be adapted into a lecture for larger groups on request.
American Politics – Contest or Conflict?
Nowadays, American society seems beset by a whole range of social and political disagreements: control over one’s body, guns in society, healthcare and social welfare, the legacies of racism, voting rights, and more. Even the nature of democracy seems open for debate. This workshop aims to illustrate and explain one or more of these social and political flashpoints, connecting them to ongoing American history and suggesting connections between America and Norway.
This workshop can be tailored to connect to classes’ current lessons or content. Also, this workshop can be interactive or lecture style, can be adapted to different levels of English proficiency, and works for larger or smaller groups.
The Long Road to Social Justice
Why is a seemingly benign declaration of rights like “Black Lives Matter” so politically contentious? Is the experience of bigotry in 21st century America unique? In this workshop, students will learn how the recent movements for social justice exist both as a reaction to the problems of the current era and are deeply connected to the struggle for justice that defines much of American history. By looking at excerpts from some of the central thinkers, photographs and videos, first-hand accounts, and other artifacts, student participants will learn how activism for justice is a central part of the American experience.
This workshop can be interactive or lecture style, can be adapted to align with classroom lessons, and works for larger or smaller groups.
Migration, Immigration, and Displacement
Oftentimes, immigration is an overly simplified issue, distilled to the movement of people from one place to another. In the American context, especially, where legacies of slavery, forced displacement of Indigenous peoples, and waves of migration throughout its history, this oversimplification helps hide the truth – that much of the current American environment can be illustrated or explained through the lens of human movement. Through this workshop, students will learn how push and pull migration and displacement defined America.
This workshop can be interactive or lecture style, can be adapted to different levels of English proficiency, and works for larger or smaller groups.
The American Experience Through Three Texts: Poems, Short Stories, Novels, Nonfiction
Sometimes, there is a single work of art that defines a generation. This workshop intends to share either three poems, short stories, articles, or longer books that capture a key aspect of American life and how, when linked together, they offer insight into the development of American identity and experience. Throughout this workshop, students will read excerpts, discuss their themes and contexts, and develop observations about American history and culture. Ultimately, students will leave with knowledge about American literary history and with the skills to connect that history to the present day.
Introduction to Dungeons and Dragons – What Games Can Teach Us About Community-Building
This session uses the much-loved tabletop game Dungeons and Dragons to explore consensus decision-making and collaboration. Teachers, students, or a combination experience the process of character-making, adventuring, and questing, through an original quest aimed to highlight these topics and values. Ultimately, our heroes – I mean our participants will face certain peril and will, if they work together, come out triumphant. From there, the workshop will connect to games and gaming more broadly, showing the power and educational opportunity latent in these activities.
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David’s Workshops for Videregående Teachers and Teachers-in-Training