For Participants
NEH Landmarks Workshops
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) makes Landmarks Workshops available to K–12 educators across the nation so that they can help strengthen humanities teaching at the K–12 level. These workshops support critical interpretation of historic sites so participants can explore central themes across K–12 social studies, language arts, and fine arts curricula.
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) makes Landmarks Workshops available to K–12 educators across the nation so that they can help strengthen humanities teaching at the K–12 level. These workshops support critical interpretation of historic sites so participants can explore central themes across K–12 social studies, language arts, and fine arts curricula.
Kent State Workshops: Making Meaning of May 4
The significance of what we at Kent State call May Fourth is rooted in America’s constitutional democracy founded in 1776. Like the Boston Massacre, it is a story of the First Amendment, of government authorities using undue force against its protesting citizens. It is also a unique story, immediately titled The Day the War Came Home—the day that government soldiers killed America’s children, on their school grounds.
The significance of what we at Kent State call May Fourth is rooted in America’s constitutional democracy founded in 1776. Like the Boston Massacre, it is a story of the First Amendment, of government authorities using undue force against its protesting citizens. It is also a unique story, immediately titled The Day the War Came Home—the day that government soldiers killed America’s children, on their school grounds.
In Kent State’s 2021 workshops, you will make new meaning of May 4 by developing a teaching project for the students that you teach. We know from the experience of many hundreds of middle and high school students who have learned the May 4 history that they engage with the story.
- When you share with your students the chart of birthdates and draft numbers from the December 1, 1969, Lottery, your students will realize, “It could have been me.”
- When the photo of David Crosby in fringed suede standing next to his father in the family living room comes up on the screen, they’ll see the generation gap—at its worst a divisiveness as deep as that during the Civil War.
- When they study the photo of six-year-old Ruby Bridges on the steps of William Frantz Elementary School with her mother, but also ringed by federal agents, they’ll sense, young people can make a difference.
During the workshop, you’ll gather many examples from the presentations that tell the May 4 story set in the context of the long sixties (from the Civil Rights Movement through the end of the Vietnam War). You’ll also practice accessing the thousands of digital archival resources that illustrate what happened on May 4 and after. Your lesson plan will reach students through these facts and details.
May 4 is a story much documented and still being written, with an extensive reach into the breadth of subject areas.
- Print coverage of the 50th commemoration of May 4 ranged from the New York Times and Rolling Stone to the eNewsletter of the National History Club for middle and high school students and teachers and the Lorain Morning Journal (hometown paper of William Schroeder, who was killed May 4, 1970).
- New books on May 4 published in 2020 included Susan Erenrich’s The Cost of Freedom: Voicing a Movement after Kent State 1970, described on its back cover as a “multi-genre collection . . . of personal narratives, photographs, songs, testimonies, and poetry.” The back cover cites Christopher Strain, author of The Long Sixties: America 1955–1973, who comments, “Fifty years later, what happened at Kent State on May 4, 1970, still reverberates, inviting reflection on orthodoxy, dissent, and power in the United States.”
- And, as you read this, a well-known, award-winning director creates a new six-part miniseries about May 4 to be released on television.
Such projects connect to the timeless meaning of May 4 and connect and provide entrée to issues of injustice for which recourse is sought today.
Making Meaning of May 4: Course Content
NEH requires that Landmarks workshop presentations and discussions be firmly grounded in rigorous scholarship. The workshop’s expert May 4 presenters—which include witnesses and survivors of the shootings—will share information on what happened against the backdrop of the 1960s to mid–1970s and discuss May 4’s lasting impact and significance. The workshop’s K–12 experts will facilitate the incorporation of workshop content into classroom teaching in relevant and creative ways. Click here to read about the Project Team. Content themes and threads that the cross-disciplinary and multifaceted project team and participants will purse together include:
NEH requires that Landmarks workshop presentations and discussions be firmly grounded in rigorous scholarship. The workshop’s expert May 4 presenters—which include witnesses and survivors of the shootings—will share information on what happened against the backdrop of the 1960s to mid–1970s and discuss May 4’s lasting impact and significance. The workshop’s K–12 experts will facilitate the incorporation of workshop content into classroom teaching in relevant and creative ways. Click here to read about the Project Team. Content themes and threads that the cross-disciplinary and multifaceted project team and participants will purse together include:
- Truths told by National Historic Landmarks
- The Kent State shootings in the arc of US history
- Witnessing history
- Understanding May 4 in the context of the long sixties, 1960–1975
- Orangeburg, Kent State, and Jackson State
- Social divides and new cultures
- The Civil Rights Movement, Black Student Movement, and Black Lives Matter
- The struggle to preserve the site
- Student activism then and now
- May 4 across the arts and culture
- The enduring impact of May 4, 1970
- May 4 and the First Amendment
- Evaluating sources
- Accessing the expanse of May 4 resources
- May 4 inquiry and your students
Role and Responsibilities of Participants
Within the six-day workshop, you will develop your own May 4 teaching project to use with your students. Your preparation in advance and engagement during your workshop will support your experience.
Within the six-day workshop, you will develop your own May 4 teaching project to use with your students. Your preparation in advance and engagement during your workshop will support your experience.
The workshop will begin Sunday and run through Friday. Each day will feature three to four remote sessions. Most sessions will be 1.5 hours long and will be scheduled with breaks in between. Weekday sessions will generally begin at 10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), which will be 7 a.m. West Coast time. Some sessions will take place during the evening (EDT).
Session formats always will include discussion and other forms of interaction and will range in nature from guided tours to lecture to guided pedagogy workshops. On Friday, each participant will present their final teaching project. You also will submit your project that day to the workshop directors.
Upon acceptance into Making Meaning of May 4, you will be given access to two books and several other items to provide you with background and multiple perspectives on what happened on May 4. Go to the About the Workshop page to read more about these works. You’ll also complete short reading and project assignments and view a 90–minute May 4 film during a time that you choose as the workshop is underway.
Your workshop week will be fully packed and intense—and engaging, amazing, and worthwhile! Plan your week accordingly. In the words of NEH: “Landmarks program participants are required to attend all scheduled meetings and to engage fully as professionals in all project activities. Participants who do not complete the full tenure of the project will receive a reduced stipend.” The stipend for 2021 is $1,300.
The Making Meaning of May 4 workshops offer significant and timely opportunities to create lessons based on the best research, vivid accounts, and artifacts of the history of May 4. We very much look forward to working with you as learn about May 4 and develop your teaching projects. Your projects will live on after the workshops on a lasting public website. We are eager to hear about your plans for using your teaching plan both immediately and in the long term. So, too, we are eager to know the potential for enhancing teaching and learning about May 4 in your institutions, districts, and communities.
Join us to do this good work together.
Principles of Civility for NEH Summer Programs
NEH Landmarks programs are intended to extend and deepen knowledge and understanding of the humanities by focusing on significant topics, texts, and issues; contribute to the intellectual vitality and professional development of participants; and foster a community of inquiry that provides models of excellence in scholarship and teaching.
NEH Landmarks programs are intended to extend and deepen knowledge and understanding of the humanities by focusing on significant topics, texts, and issues; contribute to the intellectual vitality and professional development of participants; and foster a community of inquiry that provides models of excellence in scholarship and teaching.
NEH expects that project directors will take responsibility for encouraging an ethos of openness and respect, upholding the basic norms of civil discourse.
Presentations and discussions should be:
Presentations and discussions should be:
- firmly grounded in rigorous scholarship, and thoughtful analysis;
- conducted without partisan advocacy;
- respectful of divergent views;
- free of ad hominem commentary; and
- devoid of ethnic, religious, gender, disability, or racial bias.
Participant Eligibility Criteria
The Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops are designed principally for full-time or part-time teachers and librarians in public, charter, independent, and religiously affiliated schools, as well as home schooling parents. Museum educators and other K–12 school system personnel—such as administrators, substitute teachers, and curriculum developers—are also eligible to participate. Participants must be United States citizens, residents of U.S. jurisdictions, or foreign nationals who have been residing in the United States or its territories for at least the three years immediately preceding the application deadline. Foreign nationals teaching abroad at non-U.S. chartered institutions are not eligible to participate.
Participants may not be delinquent in the repayment of federal debt (e.g., taxes, student loans, child support payments, and delinquent payroll taxes for household or other employees).
Individuals may not apply to an NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture program whose director is a family member, is affiliated with the prospective applicant’s institution, or is someone with whom the prospective applicant has previously studied.
At least three spaces per week (up to six spaces total for a program) may be reserved for teachers who are new to the profession (five years or fewer of teaching experience).
To be considered eligible, applicants must submit a complete application as indicated on the individual Landmarks Workshop website.
The Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops are designed principally for full-time or part-time teachers and librarians in public, charter, independent, and religiously affiliated schools, as well as home schooling parents. Museum educators and other K–12 school system personnel—such as administrators, substitute teachers, and curriculum developers—are also eligible to participate. Participants must be United States citizens, residents of U.S. jurisdictions, or foreign nationals who have been residing in the United States or its territories for at least the three years immediately preceding the application deadline. Foreign nationals teaching abroad at non-U.S. chartered institutions are not eligible to participate.
Participants may not be delinquent in the repayment of federal debt (e.g., taxes, student loans, child support payments, and delinquent payroll taxes for household or other employees).
Individuals may not apply to an NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture program whose director is a family member, is affiliated with the prospective applicant’s institution, or is someone with whom the prospective applicant has previously studied.
At least three spaces per week (up to six spaces total for a program) may be reserved for teachers who are new to the profession (five years or fewer of teaching experience).
To be considered eligible, applicants must submit a complete application as indicated on the individual Landmarks Workshop website.
Equal Opportunity Statement
Endowment programs do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, age, or sexual orientation. For further information, write to NEH Equal Opportunity Officer, 400 Seventh Street, SW, Washington, DC 20506. TDD: 202/606-8282 (for the hearing impaired only).
Endowment programs do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, age, or sexual orientation. For further information, write to NEH Equal Opportunity Officer, 400 Seventh Street, SW, Washington, DC 20506. TDD: 202/606-8282 (for the hearing impaired only).
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
