UCHS Students Take a History Lesson from Hamilton
UCHS Students to Take a History Lesson from Hamilton at the Fox
The program is part of the Hamilton Education Program
St. Louis, MO (April 5, 2018) -- On Wednesday, April 11, University City High School (UCHS) students will join others across the region at a showing of the musical Hamilton at the Fabulous Fox Theater. The opportunity is offered as part of the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s partnership with Hamilton and The Rockefeller Foundation on the Hamilton Education Program.
There is no denying that the song and rap-filled musical, written by Lin-Manuel Miranda from a biography by historian Ron Chernow, has a unique appeal to today’s generation of young people as they work to connect to history. The musical includes hip-hop, rhythm and blues, pop, soul and traditional show tunes to help tell the story of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. Students will no doubt be intrigued by the intentional casting of non-white actors as Hamilton and other historical figures.
According to UCHS’ Social Studies Instructional Team Leader Will McAnulty, the Hamilton Education Program provides support to students and teachers who are studying this specific time in history. “Thanks to the program, we are taking our entire high school social studies department and 84 juniors and sophomores now enrolled in Government or U.S. History.” McAnulty added, “You wouldn’t believe how excited they are! Hamilton came out in 2013 and our students are still constantly singing the songs. When the Fox sold out of tickets in 15 minutes, I remembered the education program.
McAnulty, who has been teaching social studies at UCHS for seven years, learned of the opportunity geared toward Title I schools through a professional development course at the Eagleton Courthouse, judicial learning center. He said, “In order for students to attend, they each had to produce a two minute skit, song or poem performance event as part of the Gilder Lehrman curriculum.”
“This experience goes right along with our government and U.S. History curricula,” he said. “We study America’s founding fathers and the writing of the Constitution. Hamilton was a big player in the writing of the constitution and creating the Federalist Papers or, the justification of why the Constitution is written the way it is. Our students have already studied Hamilton’s writing and they have considered how to relate events from that time period to our lives today.”
The Hamilton Program will start with an 8:30 a.m. morning session, which will include a Q & A with some of the cast members. The actual performance is from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m.
The Hamilton Education Program is part of the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s broader mission to improve the teaching and learning of American history. Made possible through a grant by The Rockefeller Foundation to the Gilder Lehrman Institute, high school students in Title I schools in New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Denver, St. Louis, Houston, Salt Lake City and selected cities will each pay just a “Hamilton” ($10) to see the performance. For additional information, please contact hamilton@gilderlehrman.org.
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Click here for link to KSDK-Ch5 News Report aired on April 11, 2018
UCHS social studies students prepare and perform Hamilton-related skits as part of Learning Reimagined curriculum in pepartion for seeing the April 12 Hamilton production at the Fox.