Teaching the Teachers

On June 18, 2010 Women Veterans Historical Project curator Beth Ann Koelsch and former University Archivist Betty Carter hosted a workshop for forty 11th grade Guilford County High School Teachers.



Beth Ann and Betty discussed the holding of the archives and ways to use archival materials to teach their students history.






They even were given a tour of the archives!









Oral Historian and UNCG PhD student Therese Strohmer spoke about using women veterans oral histories and digitized recruiting brochures in her scholarly work.





Beth Ann gave a presentation about using digitized resources. She showed the teachers posters, photographs, documents and oral history transcripts from our website and then gave them ideas about how to use the materials in their instruction. Beth Ann talked about how the digitized materials could be used to teach about a wide range of topics such as world historical events such as World War II, local North Carolina events such as the Greensboro sit-ins of 1960, and how depictions of women on US Army recruiting posters reflected shifting cultural attitudes of gender.

Finally, the teachers were given an “in-class” assignment in which they filled out document analysis worksheets about:

• a WWII Allied Expeditionary Forces telegraph form;



• a WAC songbook; and



• Special Orders issued about German-American relations in 1945.