The battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876 was one of the last great wars fought by Native Americans on a grassy battlefield. The battle was fought over territory and the right to live in the Dakota and Montana territories. The Native Americans won the battle of Little Big Horn but eventually lost the war and were forced to live on a reservation…

The 1960s was a tumultuous decade in American public education. It was a time of transition and change. To many Americans in the early 1960s, Max Rafferty appeared to be a reactionary conservative harking back to an educational past. The longer perspective of history may instead see Rafferty as a harbinger of the educational policies of the 1990s.…

In the following pages, Robert Moses tells the history of the early civil rights movement in Mississippi, focusing on the individuals, alliances, and strategies that brought about fundamental change in the United States and ultimately made possible the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. Moses describes how the efforts of Justice…

When students take action, they create change that extends far beyond the classroom. In this article, the author, who was a former teacher from Crystal City, Texas, remembers the student walkout that helped launch the Latino civil rights movement 40 years ago. The Crystal City student walkout remains a high point in the history of student activism…

Barack Obama's ascension to the highest elected office in America's land is surely a milestone in the American narrative. The events of Nov. 4, 2008, and Jan. 20, 2009, are marks of America's collective progress. In the course of the long campaign season, however, there is another date that also should be etched into American textbooks: March 18,…

The First Amendment's guarantee of an independent press that may freely collect and disseminate news is often considered the bedrock of American democracy. Yet more than a century and a half after the "New York Herald's" John Nugent became the first American reporter jailed for refusing to identify a confidential source, reporters…

The centering processes of geographic information system (GIS) development at the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was an extension of past cartographic encounters with American Indians through the central control of geospatial technologies, uneven development of geographic information resources, and extension of technically dependent…

This study explores the differences between traditional and alternate route certification by focusing on the achievement of students who have been instructed by teachers from each program. In addition, this study identifies the strengths and weaknesses of teachers from each certification route through surveys and interviews with principals in the…

The hurried pace of the modern classroom does not permit formative feedback on writing assignments at the frequency or quality recommended by the research literature. One solution for increasing individual feedback to students is to incorporate some form of computer-generated assessment. This study explores the use of automated assessment of…

From the perspective of a wide range of labor market outcomes, the recession that began in 2007 represents the deepest downturn in the postwar era. Early on, the nature of labor market adjustment displayed a notable resemblance to that observed in past severe downturns. During the latter half of 2009, however, the path of adjustment exhibited…

Critical literacy has been on the map of literacy pedagogy internationally since the time of Freire, and more commonplace in the United States in the last few decades. However, in this column the authors argue that the common practices of critical literacy are insufficient for critical engagement with texts. The tools of critical literacy are…

Catholic schools achieved the greatest social transformation in American history, pulling impoverished Irish immigrants out of the underclass and into the working and middle classes, writes Patrick McCloskey, author of The Street Stops Here--an account of a year in the life of a Catholic school in Harlem. These schools now provide a lifeline for…

Malaika Favorite's "Furious Flower Poetry Quilt" (2004) is an acrylic painting that depicts 24 portraits of leading poets of the African Diaspora. Commissioned by Dr Joanne Gabbin, English professor and director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University, the painting is part of a larger programme of poetry…

Social studies teachers assess their students in a number of ways. Among these are formative assessments, authentic assessments, and summative low-level multiple-choice tests. Working with two classrooms of low-achieving U.S. history students, the authors compared student experiences in traditional units to those in units that integrated an…

This article describes New York City. It presents information about its history, immigration process, geography, architecture, rivers, bridges, famous buildings and parks, famous neighborhoods, arts and entertainment, and tourist attractions and activities. The article also provides useful websites about New York City. It ends with a text about…