1. 1.  How frequent do you use primary sources in your classroom (daily, weekly, monthly, or randomly on a needs basis)? How do you unpack primary sources/documents with students? 
2. 2.  Do you conduct organic primary source research from websites, archives, books that contain primary sources within them, etc. or do you rely on teacher based/pedagogical books that have pre-made lessons or what some may term "commercial teacher resources" to utilize for primary source work with student? 
3. 3.  What does "historical thinking" mean to you? A classroom based on "historical thinking" looks like? If you are a practitioner of historical thinking please identify what you do.
4. 4.  If you have other professional development goals in relation to the Institute since submitting your application please feel free in articulating them.

1.  Multiple Accounts & Perspectives 2.  Analysis of Primary Sources 3.  Sourcing 4.  Context 5.  Claim-evidence Connection

...I have developed a year-long study, most of which is viewable on my website, which just keeps growing.  I am working on integrating other parts of our curricula (science, math writing, and reading) into each of the lesson sets, as well as curating and adding primary sources and other items that I find along the journey.  I have always been the maverick teacher who would rather find my own materials and develop my own activities than rely on a generic textbook.

My class is heavily themed to history, though I can't say that I use as many primary sources as I would like:  time has always limited me in locating the resources and getting transcripts that are useable for nine-year olds (who can't all read on grade level).  When I have, I find websites connected with the Library of Congress and Mount Vernon to be valuable.

When I teach any subject, the practices involved in historical thinking come naturally.  I have never handed answers out like candy to my students, but allowed them to wrestle with material (and each other) to develop their own ideas before I enter a "lesson".  We often begin with a piece of art, and students spend a good deal of time making observations.

I find out a lot about their previous knowledge and abilities to synthesize and infer through this process (and they really love to try to figure things out).  They will notice different flags, the direction of movement, clothing, the setting, etc., and put all of it into context with what they have learned in previous lessons.

In the lesson that develops, I also get them to see things from each point of view from the characters in the artwork or from the artist.  They have to have an open mind, and they quickly figure out that history is often dirty and ugly and that the main characters all have flaws.  When they realize this, they can be motivated to acknowledge their own imperfections and be OK with making mistakes.

I am fortunate in that I have a self-contained classroom, that I can close my door, and that my administrators trust me.  I can go overtime with a rich history lesson without getting into trouble, because they understand that I integrate other areas of the curricula into everything we do.

I hope that answers your questions thoroughly enough without getting too tedious.  I've been looking forward to this teacher institute for a couple of years...If you are interested, in addition to the link to my webpage of lesson sets above, I am also collecting everything I have recorded in anticipation of this year's institute.

It was a different time, with cultures that were resoundingly different from what we are used to.  As I have previously read in Fred Anderson's book, The War that Made America, in the mid-18th century, certain Indians would "replenish" their populations by kidnapping people from other cultures or groups.  That was definitely true when the French and the British invaded the area. This kidnapping, however, was intended to be adoption.  Most of the adoptees into the tribes, though, were women and children.  The Indians feared the men were more likely to resist, rebel, and kill to escape, so many of the men were left alone or left dead to deter anyone who might come looking for them.

The frontiers of the central colonies collapsed when the first parties of Delaware, Shawnee, and Mingo warriors left their Ohio villages in the company of troupes de la marine and French-allied Indians from the Great Lakes who had gathered at Fort Dusquesne.  Their descent on the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia reflected a cold calculus of terror, for the goal was to bring anarchy to backwoods communities that even in time of peace were fragile, unstable, and intensely localist in orientation.  The fifteen hundred frontier farmers whom the raiders killed and the additional thousand whom they took captive during the last months of 1755 served the strategic purpose of terrorizing hundreds of thousands of white settlers and creating a massive refugee crisis to which colonial governments were utterly unprepared to respond.

...Mary Jemison, who was fifteen or sixteen when Shawnee raiders took her captive in Pennsylvania in 1758, married Sheninjee, a Delaware warrior, in 1759 and bore him two children, a daughter who died in infancy and a son.  When Sheninjee died, she married another warrior - a Seneca named Hiokatoo (or Gardow) - with whom she had six more children.  They remained man and wife for fifty years.  Mary never forgot her origins and gave her children English names...but became in every other sense a Seneca.  She refused to leave her people when offered the chance to do so, as did many captives at the end of the war...

I did not expect to be as interested in the economic effects of a simple blockade during World War I as I was when I read chapter seven of Hew Strachan's The First World War.  After some description of unbalanced naval battles, Strachan lays out the geopolitical, yet not always moral, strategies of Germany and Britain, who are clearly the dominating powers during the war.  As long as the naval blockade was intact, there would be cataclysmic human suffering. The blockade remained intact.  Economic warfare rather than battle was the means of exercising maritime supremacy, particularly against a Continental coalition...By 1914 almost 60 per cent of the food consumed in Britain was imported from overseas. Germany, its agriculture (unlike Britain's) protected from foreign competition by tariffs, claimed to be self-sufficient in foodstuffs, although in fact about 25 per cent was imported...

If Britain were neutral, the Declaration of London served the country's interests as a trading nation.  If it were a belligerent, it did not.  Britain refused to ratify the Declaration of London, but the divisions in its counsels revealed the practical...objection to blockade.  Germany would be able to circumvent it by importing through the neutral powers on its borders.

The problems of assessment were compounded because, of all the enemy's assets, his armed forces suffered least from the blockade's effects.  The focus of economic warfare lay not simply where pre-war German calculations had located it - in the denial of raw materials vital for munitions production - but also in food supplies.  Because in time of war the state fave priority to feeding its direct defenders, the soldier and the factory worker, those most likely to suffer from shortages were the militarily useless, the old and the weak...The British official history attributed 772,736 deaths in Germany during the war to the blockade, a figure comparable with the death rate for the British armed forces, and by 1918 the civilian death rate was running 37 per cent higher than it had been in 1913.  Indirectly, at least, the blockade breached the principle of non-combatant immunity...

• To understand the similarities and differences between the Seven Years’ War (1754-1763) and the Great War (1914-1918) as global conflicts.
• To understand the Ticonderoga experience during the Seven Years’ War as a microcosm of the larger global conflict.
• To learn how local history can be used as a connection to global historical themes, using the World War I experiences of Stephen Pell as an example.
• To understand the role of geography in warfare in North America, utilizing 18th-century maps and the historic landscape at Ticonderoga as an example.
• To appreciate how opposing forces maintained and supplied vast armies in remote locations like Ticonderoga.
• To use critical thinking, literacy skills, historical thinking skills, and where possible, interdisciplinary connections in creating lesson plans and/or units of study related to the French & Indian War and/or World War I.
• To learn how historical documents, maps, and artifacts can be utilized to facilitate learning about the Seven Years’ War and World War I.

Winston Churchill once remarked that the geographical range of the Seven Years’ War (known as the French & Indian War in North America) could very well have constituted the “first world war.” Fort Ticonderoga invites teachers to dive into this assessment at the 2019 Fort Ticonderoga Teacher Institute “World Wars: Historical Comparison of the French & Indian War and World War I.”

Twelve teachers spend a week at Ticonderoga, using the museum’s object and archival collections to examine the origins, scope, evolved warfare, failures, and subsequent consequences of both wars. The week includes discussions with visiting history scholars along with practical methodologies for incorporating content into the classroom. Fort Ticonderoga staff provides participants with behind-the-scenes opportunities, practical sessions on integrating documents and artifacts into the classroom, and immersive experiences.

The Fort Ticonderoga Teacher Institute features lecture-based discussions with visiting scholars, experiential and immersive experiences related to the Seven Years’ War and World War I, behind-the-scenes opportunities, document and artifact analysis using the Fort Ticonderoga Collection, as well as classroom applications. Participants take part in activities revolving around artifacts and documents in Fort Ticonderoga’s renowned collections linked to Historical Thinking practices, C3 Frameworks, and state learning standards.

The Director of Academic Programs at Fort Ticonderoga, Rich Strum, sent this list of suggestions for the twelve participants in this year's program who will converge on the fort:

I know many of you have already begun packing for your week here. Here are some suggestions:

Clothes for comfort (t-shirts, long sleeve shirts, sweatshirts, shorts, pajamas, etc.) for five days at the Fort and five nights at the Best Western Hotel.

​Ultimately, we want you to be comfortable!

​Keep in mind that so far we have had a warmer-than-usual summer here in Ticonderoga. It appears that after Sunday, however, temperatures will be in the low 80s. We will be returning to the fort Thursday evening, where it can cool off quickly as the sun goes down. Best to pack accordingly!

Rain gear – wide-open spaces between the Fort and the parking lot make for wet walks without gear or umbrellas.

The hotel has a coin-operated laundromat, if you run out of clean clothes.

If you are interested, the hotel also has a pool and an indoor exercise facility.

Shoes for comfort during the days at the Fort are the best option.  Comfortable hiking/walking shoes for days when we explore the historic landscape.

If you get cold easily, definitely bring a sweatshirt! The Mars Education Center is climate-controlled, and thus relatively chilly!

Writing utensils and paper.  We will provide a binder for you.

Toiletries – you know what you need for the most part.

Don’t forget any medications!

Also, SUNSCREEN is strongly recommended.

Water bottle. We will also provide a coffee station at the Mars Education Center.

You will have access to Wi-Fi at both the hotel and at the Fort. You don’t have to bring a laptop by any means, but you can if you would like to.

If you forget anything, don’t worry! Ticonderoga, despite its rural outpost location, has a Walmart Supercenter near the hotel. You can always pick up forgotten items there.