"LeAp Receives Additional Grant to Expand 'Teaching American History' in Manhattan"

NEW YORK, NY - This year, LeAp received a second Fundamentals of American History, Teaching American History Project (TAH) grant from the U.S.  Department of Education (USDOE) for a consortium of ten Manhattan charter schools, led by Harlem Day Charter School. TAH builds on LeAp’s prior USDOE five-year Teaching American History grant with Carl C. Ichan Charter School and six Bronx schools. Both grants support LeAp’s American History Comes Alive Program by increasing teacher knowledge through lectures by Columbia professors and classroom instructional strategy workshops using LeAp’s tested effective strategies conducted by Ila Lane Gross and Dr. Deborah Everett-Lane.

Lectures which began in October, are being given by Columbia University history professors including Eric Foner, Elizabeth Blackmar, Herbert Sloan, and Alan Brinkley, among others. Each lecture is followed with an innovative LeAp strategy workshop and an in-classroom modeling session. The first three proven-effective strategy workshops, conducted by Gross and Dr. Everett-Lane, focused on historical maps and travel logs, primary source texts, and primary source visual material, including political cartoons and paintings. TAH provides teachers with great knowledge and new approaches to teaching American History.

About LeAp
For over 34 years, LeAp, an arts education organization, has been teaching the academic curriculum through the arts and developing programs designed to help students with social issues.  Today, Leap continues to grow and expand, currently works in over 300 public schools, community-based organizations, shelters and cultural institutions throughout the New York metropolitan area, serving over 220,000 students and 8,500 teachers. For more information, please visit www.leapnyc.org.