Mark Twain Museum to Receive $10,000 Grant from Missouri Humanities Council

Last Updated on Monday, 14 December 2009 22:51 Monday, 14 December 2009 22:50

The Missouri Humanities Council announced it will provide a $10,000 grant to again support three weeklong teacher workshops at the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum during the summer of 2010.  The teacher workshops were started by curator Henry Sweets in 2006 and have served more than 200 educators from around the country.  Teachers read selected works by Twain, visit related sites, attend lectures by Twain scholars and collaborate to create lesson plans that are posted on the Museum’s website and accessed by educators around the world. 

Michael Bouman of the Missouri Humanities Council has long expressed his support of the workshops for their ability to reach many students via the lessons created and implemented by teachers.  From these workshops teachers have returned with their students, creating a new generation of Twain fans.  Teachers from as far away as Texas, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Utah, and California have attended.  Approximately two-thirds of the participants are educators from Missouri.

English teachers Emily Hayes and Danny Wilson from Carbondale Community High School both attended in 2009.  They recently applied for a Target grant to bring their students to Hannibal in 2010 and have also been invited to present at the Illinois Teachers of English Conference.  On the importance of this grant they said, “Not only was The Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum’s Teacher Workshop a continuation of our study of the importance of place in Midwestern literature, it also opened doors for us to present on Mark Twain at various conferences and inspired us to write a field trip grant to take our students to Hannibal.  We are thankful for the knowledge and professional connections the Workshop gave us and look forward to working with the Museum on future projects.”

“This is exactly what we hope will happen,” said Sweets.  “We want teachers to feel that they have tangible teaching tools when they leave our workshops.  This helps us fulfill our mission at the Museum to preserve the legacy of Mark Twain.”

The Museum will begin accepting applications for 2010 workshops in January.  Application forms will be posted on the website at www.MarkTwainMuseum.org.  Preference will be given to those teachers who have not yet attended.  There is space for 24 teachers during each weeklong session: June 14-18; July 12-16; and July 26-30.  Sweets directs the program with the assistance of executive director Dr. Cindy Lovell.