AMERICAN CREED EDUCATION CAMPAIGN
American Creed, an ongoing multiformat PBS project, invites students to explore foundational ideals that can inform how we build community. Since 2018, students have been discussing American Creed documentary clips in classrooms around the country. With curricular support from the National Writing Project, students reflect on those ideals and what matters most to them about their own communities. In the run up to America’s 250th anniversary, PBS LearningMedia is launching new films along with standards-aligned project-based learning activities.
A forthcoming series disseminated by PBS Plus will interweave the stories of “extraordinary, ordinary” young adults with on-camera dialogue between them, co-facilitated by American historian David M. Kennedy and political scientist Condoleezza Rice, from their notably different perspectives.
To stay connected and find out about professional development workshops and community events in your area, join the American Creed educator mailing list.
Meet “extraordinary, ordinary” young leaders and explore ideals that motivate them to serve their communities:
Sample viewfinder photo projects:
“Coming Up In These Mountains” by Jonathan Blair
“Salmon Tales – Subsistence on the Kenai Peninsula” by Sam Schimmel
“Slag Valley” by Trinity Colón
“Community, Land and Care” by Jace Charger
Sample reflections from David M. Kennedy and Condoleezza Rice:
Curricular guides:
PBS LearningMedia resources include discussion activities, critical analysis walk-throughs, and step-by-step guides for students to compose standards-aligned persuasive essays, personal voice narratives, or photo-essays exploring their own experiences of community engagement.
Students respond to American Creed:
Education Partners
After viewing and discussing American Creed shorts, students compose their own work—essays, photography projects and other media exploring the relevance of ideals like freedom, fairness and opportunity in their own communities and family history.
Student perspectives will be amplified by the following partners:
America's largest network of teachers of writing creates and distributes resources that support the use of American Creed documentary films and photography projects in classrooms
Produced by KQED Education, this national youth media publishing platform is a vehicle through which students contribute their voices and visions to a national conversation.
America’s largest and most trusted source of curricular materials utilized by over 1.6 million educators nationwide, PBS LearningMedia hosts American Creed short films, clips and open-source educational assets intended for classroom use.
Working Assumptions engages students in combining photography and writing to explore family, community and care. They helped guide the young adults featured in American Creed to create photo projects that provide models for teens' exploration of their own ideas and experiences.
Underwriters
THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN CREED
The National Writing Project is conducting professional development and teacher training workshops to show educators how to utilize American Creed curricular resources and public media publishing platforms.
Join the American Creed mailing list for educators to see how you and your students can get involved.