ABSTRACT

Th ese refl ections by teachers involved in the Chicago History Project (CHP; https://www.chicagohistoryproject.org/) off er a sense of how this professional development program aff ected participants’ knowledge and teaching of American history. Th e project gave teachers a chance to rethink the use of primary and secondary historical sources in their teaching and to consider including scholarly arguments and disciplined inquiry in precollegiate American history classrooms. Th is chapter focuses on the CHP, which was funded by the Teaching of American History (TAH) grant program of the U.S. Department of Education in 2002. CHP was the fi rst TAH grant received by the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Th e project also involved several organizational partners, which included the Newberry Library (NL), the Chicago History Museum (CHM),1 the Constitutional Rights Foundation of Chicago (CRFC), the Chicago Metro History Education Center (CMHEC), and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).2