Summer Workshops

pictures of summer 2023 workshop instructors

 

July 5 - 7, 2023

July 5-7, 2023

Register here!

Fascinating stories about the history of African Americans in New England are now at our fingertips thanks to the work of scholars, librarians, and nonprofit organizations. How can we begin to integrate these powerful stories into K-12 language arts classrooms? Come join us for this three-day workshop where we explore how best to bring these stories into our classrooms and schools.  

This workshop explores storytelling, literature, and social studies as digital archival collections continue to grow. We will discuss historical narratives, archival collections, and educational resources that work well in the classroom. We ask two central questions: 

  • What are the stories of freedom that we ought to share? 
  • How can we use archival materials to enrich our reading and analysis of texts written by writers of color?  

This workshop brings together teachers and cultural leaders who will also share best practices on incorporating archival materials in teaching language arts and humanities. We'll go on a walking tour of the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire and visit the historical site of novelist Harriet E. Wilson, the first African American to publish a novel in North America. Along with these field trips, we’ll share how to analyze documents, from poems to petitions with your students; and we’ll study Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing and view documentaries like Shadows Fall North

Required Readings: • Lisa Ze Winters, “Fiction and Slavery’s Archive: Memory, Agency, and Finding Home,” in Reviews in American History 46.2 (June 2018): 338-344. • Shadows Fall North. Directed by Brian Vawter. Durham: University of New Hampshire’s Center for the Humanities/Atlantic Media Productions, 2016. • Susanna Hargreaves, “A Memorial to a New Hampshire Mother and Author,” in New Hampshire Magazine, https://www.nhmagazine.com/the-memorial-to-a-new-hampshire-mother-and-author/

Scholarships are available as needed. Please email nhliteracy.institute@unh.edu if you're interested. 

INSTRUCTORS: KABRIA BAUMGARTNER & JERRIANNE BOGGIS

Kabria Baumgartner outside UNH building

Kabria Baumgartner is the Dean’s Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies and Associate Director of Public History at Northeastern University. Her research focuses on African American history, literature, and culture in nineteenth-century New England. She is the author of the award-winning book, In Pursuit of Knowledge: Black Women and Educational Activism in Antebellum America (New York University Press, 2019). She previously taught in the English department at the University of New Hampshire, where she was named the 2019 Outstanding Assistant Professor. She has published numerous scholarly articles as well as op-eds in The Washington Post and WBUR’s blog Cognoscenti

JerriAnne Boggis in front of statue

JerriAnne Boggis is Executive Director of the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, an organization that preserves, celebrates, and honors African American history in the state. She is a writer, educator, and community activist who works to correct the historical record on the racial complexity and richness of New Hampshire’s diverse past.  She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2022 Social Innovation Leader Award in the non-profit sector by the Entrepreneurs Fund of New Hampshire, the Ona Judge Award by the Human Rights Society in 2021, and named as one of the ten most influential women of the century in New Hampshire by the Seacoast Press in 2020.  Most recently, an interview with her was featured in the November 2022 issue of Yankee magazine. 

Comments from former workshop participants:

“Kabria’s and JerriAnne’s workshop allows teachers to explore local sites, stories, and literature. Most interesting to me were Kabria’s students’ digital compositions/documentary videos that tell local histories using archival images and materials. They show the amazing work that’s possible.” 

“The most powerful piece for me was walking in the footsteps of those before us. It was a living history moment that was incredibly powerful.” 

“Kabria is pure magic! Her examples of student’s archival work was powerful! I really think the workshop’s focus on living histories and archival work provides a concrete foundation that weall need to move forward with this tenuous work.”  

Scholarships are available as needed. Please email nhliteracy.institute@unh.edu if you're interested.