Category Archives: Historical interpretation

Grants Awarded for Experimental Interpretive Research

Congratulations to Jebney Lewis, Sandy Lloyd, Philip Seitz, and Randall Mason on their 2011 HPP Awards for Interpretive Inquiry and Investigation from the Heritage Philadelphia Program (HPP) of The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Formerly known as the HPP Scholars in the Interpretation of History, this professional development opportunity supports individual practitioners in the investigation of imaginative projects in public history by connecting the present to the past in engaging, imaginative, and meaningful ways; responding to audience/community interests or needs; and
demonstrating a complex understanding and presentation of history.  There are four recipients this year, an unprecedented number:

  • Jebney Lewis for We Make the City.  Lewis will develop and construct a small exhibit with a focus on the intersection of Broad and Market Streets between the years 1900–10. It will examine “how the aspirations of the industrializing city were embodied in the creation of grand expressions of pride and ostentation,” as illustrated through Continue reading →

History Places

HistoryPlaces.WordPress.com by Tim Grove

Some of you may know Tim Grove as the Chief of Education at the National Air and Space Museum or as the History Bytes columnist in History News, but you may not know he started a weekly blog about historic places in April.  Through a wide variety of sites, he posts ideas and opinions about interpretation, visitor experience, and historical significance.  It’s part travelogue, part museum studies.  Most recently he’s discussed the C & O Canal near DC, the Forbidden Drive in Philadelphia, Appomattox Court House, and Fort Mantanzas in Florida.  If you’re enthusiastic about historic sites, check out his blog at HistoryPlaces.WordPress.com.

Teaching History Through Inquiry

If you’ve ever worked with students, you know that lectures and PointPoint presentations are a sure way to kill any interest in history or historic places. In Teaching History Through Inquiry, Stephen Lazar, a social studies teacher at the Academy for Young Writers in Brooklyn, lists six ways he engages high school students to provide cultural literacy and help them develop as critical thinkers:

  1. Carefully craft your questions.
  2. Engage students in examining evidence.
  3. Move on to more nuanced questions.
  4. Navigate myths with the inquiry approach.
  5. Identify helpful resources.
  6. Prepare critical thinkers.

You can find details of each of these points at TeacherMagazine.org, which is making this premium article available for free.  But let me add another point:

7.  Engage with the real thing:  use original documents, visit historic sites, look at objects, and examine historical photographs and maps.  Those experiences bring mind and eye (and perhaps heart) together in a way that’s not possible in textbooks and classrooms.

Upcoming Free Webinars for Historic Sites

The American Association for State and Local History is offering three free webinars that will particularly interest historic sites:  storytelling, interpretive planning, and engaging new audiences.  Thanks to an IMLS 21st Century Museum Professionals grant, webinar participation is free and open to staff, volunteers, board members of history organizations and anyone else interested in learning more about visitor engagement.  You can register for one, two, or all three!

Telling a Good Story

  • November 17, 2011
  • 2-3:15 pm Eastern
  • A good guided tour is a good story, told well, says guest speaker Linda Norris. Join us to explore telling stories to create Continue reading →

Best Practices for Community Engagement and Interpretation Available

For your convenience, I’ve pulled together in one page the various standards and best practices for community engagement, public education, and historical interpretation at historic places and by historical organizations, including scholarship, curriculum development, visitor research, and staff training, as well as the broad range of public programs presented by historic sites, from tours and exhibits to publications and the Internet.  You’ll find “Best Practices” as a topic on the navigation bar on EngagingPlaces.net.

These resources can be used to: Continue reading →