MHS History Students Attend Workshop at JFK Library and Museum in Boston

Medfield High School students in Richard DeSorgher's AP U.S. History classes attended a workshop at the JFK Library and Museum in Boston last week.

Using actual primary source materials from the Kennedy presidency, students took part in a workshop using a Document Based Question (DBQ) similar to the ones  they will take on their upcoming national exam. In the workshop run by the JFK Library, students examined letters from Attorney General Robert Kennedy written to Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett, newspaper articles and political cartoons from the Birmingham, Alabama newspapers and actual letters written by President Kennedy pertaining to the Civil Rights Crisis from 1961-1963.

Student were then given a guided tour through the museum by education director Nina Tisch. Students  watched parts of the Kennedy-Nixon debates, listened to Kennedy's inaugural address,  watched a film on the Cuban Missile Crisis and debated the action taken and toured through the other areas of the museum including areas covering the Space Program, the Peace Corps, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and JFK's  press conferences. Students will be taking the national AP U.S. History exam in early May.