We Are What We Teach: American Studies in the K-16 Classroom

Abstract

We Are What We Teach:American Studies in the K-16 Classroom Adam Golub (bio) American Identities: An Introductory Textbook. Edited by Lois P. Rudnick, Judith E. Smith, and Rachel Lee Rubin. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 2006. 370 pages. $34.95 (paper). Writing Our Communities: Local Learning and Public Culture. Edited by Dave Winter and Sarah Robbins. Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English, 2005. 110 pages. $29.95 (paper). Writing America: Classroom Literacy and Public Engagement. Edited by Sarah Robbins and Mimi Dyer. Foreword by Paul Lauter. New York: Teachers College Press, 2005. 179 pages. $21.95 (paper). American studies is in part characterized by long-standing debates over what the field is, was, or can be, but such debates are temporarily resolved the moment we each enter the classroom to actually teach it. We may introduce the contours and history of those disciplinary debates in our courses, but when we stand before our students on that very first day of class, we are pressed to start teaching American studies in a way that makes the most sense to us individually. Whatever academic department or grade level we may call home, if we consider ourselves to be American studies teachers, then our particular syllabus and our teaching style in effect become American studies for the students sitting in that room during that semester. Given this shared experience, it is surprising that our field's penchant for asking "What is American studies?" does not lead us more often to the related question, "How do you teach American studies?" Both questions, of course, raise the specter of having to define a discrete methodology for a field that may or may not have a method. Both questions also oblige us to draw distinct boundaries between what American studies is and what it decidedly is not. But because the question "How do you teach American studies?" necessarily focuses the discussion around concrete classroom practice rather than abstract conceptualization, it [End Page 443] can bluntly illuminate both the possibilities and the limitations of our branch of learning. Three recently published books have significantly advanced this discussion by laying out practical approaches to teaching American studies in the K-16 classroom. All three books share a common view of what American studies is: the interdisciplinary study of identity, community, and culture. They also agree that American studies is taught most effectively when teachers collaborate and when students find the material relevant to their everyday lives. Taken together, these three books are noteworthy for both their presentation of innovative pedagogical strategies and their conviction that American studies can act as an agent of social change in classrooms and communities. American Identities: An Introductory Textbook is the product of a university-secondary school collaboration that began in Boston more than a decade ago. In 1996, administrators at University of Massachusetts, Boston, asked the American studies department to develop an introductory American studies course that would meet a general education requirement for all entering students, regardless of their major, and help acculturate them to college-level work. Three American studies faculty members, Lois Rudnick, Judith Smith, and Rachel Rubin, consequently teamed up with Carol Siriani, a social studies teacher at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School (CRLS), to create "American Identities." This interdisciplinary course was designed to serve both undergraduates at UMass and CRLS seniors who could take the class for college credit. The first incarnation of "American Identities" was taught in 1997, and the story of its development is recounted in a 2002 American Quarterly article, "Teaching American Identities," written by the four instructors along with teaching assistant Eric Goodson.1 In that article, the authors announced that a course reader was being assembled for publication by Blackwell Publishers, and that text appeared in 2006, edited by Rudnick, Smith, and Rubin. An accompanying Instructor's Guide is available for download at the Blackwell Web site (www.blackwellpublishing.com/rudnick/); a print copy is provided to instructors who adopt the text. American Identities is an anthology of primary and secondary sources that focuses on the question of how "American" has been defined by different people at different moments in history since World War II. The collected readings include...