Program Schedule
Week 1 (Online): Formal sessions will occur Monday through Friday, combining synchronous and asynchronous experiences. To accommodate participants from a variety of time zones, synchronous events will not begin until 12:00pm ET each day and will end by 4:00pm ET.
Weeks 2-3 (In-person): Formal sessions will occur Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m., with a fifteen-minute break at the halfway point. On several occasions, primary source-based sessions in the early afternoon will help participants incorporate their learning into classroom use. Late afternoons will be devoted to individual research and study. There will be a number of voluntary evening screenings of films related to the institute’s theme.
For their final project, participants will create innovative in-class exercises, assignments, and lesson plans or a research paper involving the seminar’s theme. Participants will work closely with the co-directors and K-12 advisor Dr. Reynolds, and they will have an opportunity to share their work in progress on the final day of the institute and receive feedback from their peers.
Another round of revisions will take place before participants post their resources to the website by December 15th, 2023. The institute website will make available background information, readings, sample handouts and lesson plans produced over the three weeks and beyond.
Institute pre-reading (all readings will be provided to participants):
Baker, Emerson W. A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. Oxford University Press, 2014.
Godbeer, Richard. Escaping Salem: The Other Witchhunt of 1692. Oxford University Press, 2004.
Godbeer, Richard. The Salem Witch Hunt: A Brief History with Documents. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2018.
Daily Schedule (subject to change)
July 10, 2023
Day 1 [Remote]: Introductions, overview, and Salem’s place in the history of witch-hunts
Reading: Intro, Levack, Brian. The Witch-hunt in Early Modern Europe, Second Edition. Longman, 1995.
Morning: Introductions: 12:00pm - 1:30pm
Intros of Project Team, Intro to Canvas site modules
Quick Share around the group: Name, Place, Role
Breakout Rooms in Pairs: One unique thing about you, your interest in the trials and why, your academic/education journey to this point
Main Zoom room: Present your partner to the rest of the group
Break / Lunch: 1:30pm - 2:15pm
Afternoon: 2:15pm - 4:00pm
Overview of witch-hunting in history and the place of the Salem witch trials in that history
Final Project Overview and Samples / Possibilities
July 11, 2023
Day 2 [Remote]: Perspectives on the Salem witch trials (1692 in Focus)
Reading:
“Introduction: Explaining the Salem Witch Hunt” from Richard Godbeer, The Salem Witch Hunt: A Brief History with Documents, Second Edition (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2017).
Baker, Emerson W. A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. Oxford University Press, 2014.
Morning: 1692: What We Know
Zoom Q&A with Dr. Emerson Baker
Afternoon: Primary Source Activity - Reading challenging documents (Bridget Bishop)
Evening film screening on Zoom: The Crucible (1996) [voluntary]
July 12, 2023
Day 3 [Remote]: The World of the Puritans
Reading: selections from William Bradford’s “On Plimoth Plantiation” and Anne Bradstreet’s poetry, including “A Dialogue Between Old and New England”; “In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth”; “The Prologue”; “Farewell, dear Babe” ; “The Author to her Book”
Afternoon: Writing responses to poetry
Teaching in Focus: Modeling of Common Core State Standards linking poetry to place, tone, setting, and context among teachers, which can be repeated with their students
July 13, 2023
Day 4 [Remote]: Gender and Witch-craft
Reading:
Kamensky, Jane. “Female Speech and Other Demons: Witchcraft and Wordcraft in Early New England.” In Spellbound: Women and Witchcraft in America, edited by Elizabeth Reis, 25-52. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998.
Reis, Elizabeth. “Gender and the Meanings of Confession in Early New England.” In Spellbound: Women and Witchcraft in America, edited by Elizabeth Reis, 53-74. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998.
Godbeer, Richard. “‘Your Wife Will Be Your Biggest Accuser’: Reinforcing Codes of Manhood at New England Witch Trials.” Early American Studies 15, no. 3 (Summer 2017): 474-504.
Morning:
Zoom Q&A with Dr. Elizabeth Reis
Discussion of readings and primary source activity (What Makes a Witch? witness depositions and confessions)
Afternoon:
Teaching in Focus: Small group and individual conferences between participants and Dr. Reynolds and 2021 seminar participants, Colleen Remar and Sam Futrell, to discuss their respective teaching roles, aims, needs, and connections between the seminar content and their own students back home; opportunity to write up goals and draft initial project possibilities.
July 14, 2023
Day 5 [Remote]: The Salem witch trials and Race
Asynchronous lecture: Salem Witch Museum presentation on Race and witch trials
Reading:
Primary source: “Examination of Tituba” in the Richard Godbeer document collection
Breslaw, Elaine G. “Tituba’s Confession: The Multicultural Dimensions of the 1692 Salem Witch Hunt.” Ethnohistory 44, no. 3 (1997): 535-556.
Hansen, Chadwick. “The Metamorphosis of Tituba, or Why American Intellectuals Can’t Tell an Indian Witch from a Negro.” The New England Quarterly 47, no. 1 (1974): 3-12.
Rosenthal, Bernard. “Tituba.” OAH Magazine of History 17, no. 4 (2003): 48-50.
Morning:
Discussion of readings, “telephone” activity, and close reading of Tituba’s confession
Afternoon:
Teaching in Focus: Connecting the current realities of race in America to the context of the Salem Witch Trials: how does history inform contemporary issues?
Sunday, July 16, 2023
Participants arrive on campus
Morning: Arrive on campus, check-in with conference services for key to room in the residence hall.
Afternoon: lunch and campus tour
Evening: Group dinner with participants, co-directors, and other institute team members.
July 17, 2023
Day 6: Contemporaries’ and Historians’ accounts of the Salem witch trials
Reading:
Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World
Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World
John Hale, A Modest Enquiry
Morning:
Discussion of contemporaries’ accounts and primary source activity: Cotton Mather, Memorable Providences (1689)
Afternoon: Fixing the blame, medical explanations, and new approaches to the Salem crisis
● Participants give mini-presentations on the most popular/unique theories for why the Salem Witch Trials happened or small groups share of unique readings
July 18, 2023
Day 7: Magic and Witchcraft in Colonial New England
Reading:
Godbeer, Richard. Escaping Salem: The Other Witchhunt of 1692. Oxford University Press, 2004.
Morning:
Visiting scholar Dr. Richard Godbeer
Afternoon:
Visiting scholar Dr. Ben Ray
4:00pm - 6:00pm : Welcome reception at Endicott College President, Dr. Steven DiSalvo’s on-campus house (Beechwood)
July 19, 2023
Day 8. “The Salem Village Witchcraft Hysteria.”
Reading:
“Rebecca Nurse: A ‘Witch’ and Her Trials,” in John Demos, The Enemy Within: A Short History of Witch-hunting (Penguin Book, 2008)
Gagnon, Daniel A. A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse, Westholme Publishing, 2021 (excerpts).
Off-campus tour of Danvers, Massachusetts – original location of Salem Village — with Dan Gagnon,
● Salem Village Parsonage
● Rebecca Nurse Homestead
● Salem Village Meeting House
● Salem trials memorial (Danvers)
July 20, 2023
Day 9: Hawthorne and the Legacy of the Puritans
Reading: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister’s Black Veil”
Morning:
Writing responses to Hawthorne
Afternoon: Discussion: How to use history in the English classroom
Teaching in Focus: Overarching discussion on how to help history become an exploration rather than a regurgitation; critical thinking in the English and History classroom
Evening film screening: Witch City documentary
July 21, 2023
Day 10: Visit to Salem and the commercialization of the Salem witch trials
The group will visit:
Salem Witch Museum - meeting with Rachel Christ, Director of Education
The Witch House, home of witchcraft trial judge Jonathan Corwin
The Salem Witch Trials Memorial - meeting with Fara Wolfson, co-chair, Voices Against Injustice
Proctor’s Ledge and memorial, confirmed location where 19 convicted witches were hanged – meeting with Dr. Emerson Baker.
Afternoon: Debriefing of visit and discussion of:
Hill, Frances. “Salem as Witch City.” In Salem: Place, Myth, and Memory, edited by Dane Morrison and Nancy Lusignan Schultz, 283-296. Northeastern University Press, 2004.
Weir, Robert. “Bewitched and Bewildered: Salem Witches, Empty Factories, and Tourist Dollars.” Historical Journal of Massachusetts 50, no. 1/2 (2012): 178-211.
July 24, 2023
Day 11. Boston Visit: Massachusetts State Archives
Visit to Mass State Archives (Boston) to view 1692 documents with visiting scholar Margo Burns.
July 25, 2023
Day 12. Modern Day Witch-hunts: Pearl Harbor and Japanese Incarceration
Reading:
Daniels, Roger. Prisoners without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II. Hill and Wang, 2004 (excerpts).
Okubo, Miné. Citizen 13660, University of Washington Press, 2014.
Morning:
Discussion of readings; read and discuss majority and dissenting opinions from Mitsuye Endo vs. United States and Korematsu vs. United States
View: “Japanese Relocation” by U.S. Office of War Information (1943) https://archive.org/details/Japanese1943
Afternoon:
Primary Source Activity: the photography of Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams
July 26, 2023
Day 13: Modern Day witch-hunts: Red Scares and McCarthyism
Reading:
Arthur Miller, “Why I Wrote The Crucible,” The New Yorker (October 21 & 28, 1996).
Asynchronous lecture: Dr. Liz Matelski
Morning:
Teaching The Crucible with teacher scholars Sam Futrell and Colleen Remar
Afternoon:
Primary Source Activity - HUAC Transcripts from the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities (HUAC): Friendlies vs. Unfriendlies
Remote presentation with Ellie Gettinger, Jewish Museum Milwaukee
Evening film screening: Salt of the Earth or On the Waterfront
July 27, 2023
Day 14. Modern Day witch-hunts: Disease, Fear, and Scapegoating
Asynchronous lecture: Dr. Liz Matelski
Morning: Primary source activity: Visual Culture and HIV/AIDS
Afternoon: Teaching in focus: teaching against bigotry and hatred in the classroom
July 28, 2023
Day 15: Presentations and conclusions
On the final day of the summer institute, participants will have the opportunity to present the preliminary draft of a teaching unit, lesson plan, or research paper that they developed.