A group of Shipley juniors is gathered in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, examining a pair of sculptures by William Rush and discussing their significance in the early 19th century American debate on the use of natural resources.

The students are gathering material for a five-page midyear essay that has been assigned in their American Studies Honors class. The goal of the assignment is to have students use textual and visual primary sources to produce their own analysis of American history. Moving beyond the textbook to documentary material, students aren’t just regurgitating something they’ve been assigned to read. Instead, they’ll use historical essays and works of art to develop their own analyses of issues that helped shape America.

The American Studies students look critically at Rush’s “Allegory of the Schuylkill River in its Improved State” and see a celebration of human innovation. The students examining “Penn’s Treaty with the Indians” ask questions about the use of light in Edward Hicks’s painting and what it says about the artist’s feelings towards Native Americans. Charles Willson Peale’s painting, “Rachel Weeping,” provides a platform from which another group of students can explore the role of American women in the early 19th century.
 
Though the students are working collaboratively to gather information and develop a common question that will guide their five-page essays, even students in the same group will turn in unique examinations of the same issue. These students don't go to a book for answers; they look at true sources and artifacts from the past. History isn’t a fixed entity. This isn’t your typical high school course.