OAH-AP Joint Advisory Board Announces New Essay Series

The OAH-AP Joint Advisory Board on Teaching the U.S. History Survey recently announced "America on the World Stage: Essays on the Teaching of the United States History Course," a new feature of both OAH Magazine of History and AP Central. This essay series is designed to offer practical assistance to both secondary and college-level instructors in the design and substance of the U.S. History course. The thrust of the series is consistent with the recommendation of the OAH's LaPietra Report (2000) that it is time for "rethinking American History in a global age." Such a reframing is necessary, as the authors of the report argue, so that students "will better understand the emergence of the United States in the world and the significance of its power and presence."

Each of the essays in this series will cover a specific chronological period and emphasize both the importance and distinctiveness of the American national experience history in the context of world history. Treatment of themes and subjects will be both comparative and "interactive" (i.e., showing how American events actually interrelate with events elsewhere).

Although the authors of these essays will not be bound by the usual periodization of the survey course, topics will be constructed and presented in a way that allows their smooth placement into the "traditional" syllabus of the survey course. The project will provide instructors with ways to bring new perspectives to the survey course, without necessitating an immediate and complete "make-over" of its structure.

OAH-AP Joint Advisory Board Members

Gary W. Reichard, Chairman and Project Editor, California State University, Long Beach; Joyce E. Chaplin, Harvard University; Ted M. Dickson, Providence Day School, Charlotte, NC; Michelle Forman, Middlebury Union High School, Middlebury, VT; Michael Grossberg, Indiana University; David Robert Huehner, University of Wisconsin, Washington County; Lee W. Formwalt, Organization of American Historians; Michael Johanek, The College Board; Susanna Robbins, Organization of American Historians; and Uma Venkateswaran, Educational Testing Service.