History professor Robert Cassanello actively engages students in primary document research in his new course, “History of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.” The course is a featured case study on the Adam Matthew website, a digital publisher of unique primary source collections from archives around the world.
Within the course design, Cassanello involves students in research using the African American Communities and Race Relations in America Databases to explore topics related to the Civil Rights Movement, from its nineteenth-century origins to the 1960s victories to the problems of desegregation today. This topic companions with his current research into the Civil Rights Movement in Florida.
“I see the classroom, content and discussion as an extension of my own research,” says Cassanello. “I like to bring to the class ideas and debates I am working on in my own research to see what the students come up with in their research. To me the classroom is a lab for the production of history knowledge.”
View the Adam Matthew case study interview on Teaching ‘History of The Civil Rights Movement’ with African American Communities and Race Relations in America to learn more on how Cassanello employs this philosophy to the classroom, which includes active learning and primary research to bring the Civil Rights Movement to students.