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In August 2008, thirty Mt. Diablo Unified School Teachers joined the UC Berkeley History-Social Science professional development team and UC Berkeley History Department professors and graduate students for a two-week Summer Institute that focused on two main goals:

1. increasing teachers’ historical content and awareness of historical thinking skills
2. incorporating reading and writing strategies into history class curriculum

Teachers heard professor presentations, processed the presentation information and reflected on classroom applications and historical thinking components, interacted with professional development workshops that promoted reading and writing strategies in history, then created lessons for students incorporating reading and writing strategies based on information from the professor presentations, the district-adopted textbook, and primary source readings.  The lessons developed at this summer’s Institute will be utilized by MDUSD history teachers this year and the student work produced from these lessons will be discussed at follow-up Colloquia.