Over the next few years, Ford’s Theatre looks forward to engaging education professionals in developing a set of meaningful, useful learning tools focused on teaching history and leadership to middle and high school students using theatre, speech and storytelling.
If you live in metropolitan Washington or plan to visit, please consider bringing your students to see the Petersen House, where Lincoln died, open during the renovation, or bringing our play about the assassination, One Destiny, to your school. Please visit the For Schools section to learn more about local learning opportunities.
(A Special Opportunity for DC Public School and Public Charter School Teachers)
TUESDAY, JUNE 24 through FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2008. The Civil War Washington Consortium (Ford's Theatre Society and National Historic Site, Tudor Place Historic House and Garden, and the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site) invite you to participate in a four-day experiential learning adventure that will prepare you to engage your students in the Civil War history of Washington and the country through performing speeches and analyzing primary sources, interpreting letters in order to demonstrate their understanding. Over the course of four mornings, travel to three historic sites in three parts of Washington. In the afternoons, experience interpretations of important and moving speeches and letters, and learn teaching techniques that will help integrate interpretive performance into your social studies and English language arts classrooms. We offer a stipend of $50 per day and 24 PLUs for your time, as well as one in-class visit by a teaching artist to support your classroom work. We ask you to include the strategies as part of your social studies and/or language arts classes, and to bring your students, for free and with free arranged transportation, to the participating historic sites.
National Lincoln Teacher Fellow Residencies, Summer 2009
Ford’s Theatre will offer professional development opportunities and externships for social studies teachers from every state. We particularly hope to create summer residencies that will allow teachers to come to Washington and delve deeply into Civil War history of this area, using a range of primary source resources and professional learning tools in a technology-rich environment. Fellowships available. To receive information about these programs, please send your name, school, and contact information to sjencks@fords.org.
Abraham Lincoln was an inveterate storyteller. In carefully edited interviews, historians who have gained fame for their expression of Lincoln’s life and legacy tell stories that shed light on the great man and his times, even questioning what made him so great. Lesson plans and discussion and writing prompts help make these interviews valuable classroom resources.
Other Online Teaching Resources
Ford’s Theatre looks to aid education professionals in their efforts to teach about the life, presidency and legacy of Abraham Lincoln, as well as Civil War Washington. Through Ford’s Theatre’s onsite, offsite and Web programming, teachers are afforded a wide array of learning opportunities with which to engage students of all ages.
Explore Lincoln Use this material as primary text or have students explore it online as they learn the basics of Lincoln’s presidency and understand the events that led to his assassination. Lincoln’s Legacy is a growing section of this site that includes multi-media experiences of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and Marian Anderson’s famous Easter concert at the Lincoln Memorial.
Ford’s Theatre Virtual Tour Take your students on a virtual tour of Ford’s Theatre, experiencing it as a visitor would have in 1865. Look closely at artifacts from the Lincoln Museum that shed light on the assassination and that fateful night.
Leaders on Lincoln Watch streaming video clips of leaders from many walks of American life as they speak about Abraham Lincoln’s legacy and what made him important to them.
Lincoln’s Assassination: A Tour of Civil War Washington (Available June 2008) In partnership with Mobile Tours, Ford’s Theatre presents a visual and audio virtual walking tour of Civil War Washington. If you cannot come to Washington yourself, stream the tour or download it as a Podcast to accompany you on your own walk.
One Destiny: A Portable Production (Available June 2008) One Destiny, a 45-minute, one-act play that has engaged visitors to Ford’s by telling the story of the assassination through the eyes of witnesses, will be available for student performance. With a script that allows for a two-person show or a multi-actor cast, and downloadable digital sound cues to accompany the performance, students around the country can understand the tragedy of Lincoln's assassination through performance of this moving play.