America Heads West (Teacher Symposium)

America Heads West

Westward Expansion and the Making of the Nation

In this course, we will follow the westward growth of the United States, from its colonial beginnings to the late nineteenth century, and consider how that expansion helped form the nation, not just in its geographical scope but also in the shaping of our institutions and national character.

 

Lead Scholar: Elliott West, University of Arkansas
Master Teacher: Keisha Rembert

 

Image Source: Photograph of Columnar Basalts on the Yellowstone River, by William Hicks Jackson, ca. 1880–1895 (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC02436.21)

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Late nineteenth-century photograph by William Hicks Jackson of Colummar Basalts on Yellowstone River

  • Up To 21 PD Hours

Table of Contents:

Course Description

In this course, we will follow the westward growth of the United States, from its colonial beginnings to the late nineteenth century, and consider how that expansion helped form the nation, not just in its geographical scope but also in the shaping of our institutions and national character. We will pay particular attention to the interaction with Native peoples and with other nations and cultures, and we will look at the changing forces abroad in America that propelled it to the Pacific and beyond. The course’s guiding message will be that our students cannot understand American history without some sense of its three centuries of expansion and the consequences that remain with us today. 

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Optional Book Talk: If you are interested in Professor West’s scholarship but want to take a different course at the Teacher Symposium, you may attend his book talk on Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion. Symposium participants who come to these optional book talks can earn additional PD credit.

Recommended Course Readings (Optional)

19th century handwriting with words Manifest Destiny in focus

Detail from a letter from John Moore to James Kelly discussing “manifest destiny,” July 3, 1853 (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC04193.02, p.2)

  • Camilla Townsend. Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma. New York: Hill and Wang, 2005.
  • Reginald Horsman. Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.

Course Leaders

Headshot of Elliott West

Elliott West, Lead Scholar

Elliott West, Alumni Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Arkansas, is a specialist in the social and environmental history of the American West and of Native American history. He has written eight books, four of which have received national awards. One of three finalists in 2009 for the Robert Foster Cherry Award for the outstanding classroom teacher in the nation, he has worked with hundreds of K–12 teachers over the past twenty years to encourage new approaches to teaching American history, in particular that of the American West.

 

Headshot of Keisha Rembert

Keisha Rembert, Master Teacher

Keisha Rembert is the 2019 Illinois History Teacher of the Year. She is passionate about anti-racism and equity in schools. Currently, Keisha is a doctoral student and an assistant professor of teacher preparation at National Louis University. Prior to entering teacher education, she spent more than fifteen years teaching middle school English and US history in the Chicagoland area. She is the 2019 recipient of the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) Award for Outstanding Middle-Level English Educator.