CLARKSDALE, Mississippi—The Delta Blues Museum and the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture will host a teacher workshop on the Mississippi Blues Trail on July 28-30, 2015. The 3-day workshop will be held at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale and is open to teachers of all subjects and all grade levels. Registration is open through July 22. Seating is limited. Registration forms are available on the Delta Blues Museum Website at http://www.deltabluesmuseum.org. The workshop is free and there is a $35 optional fee to cover the cost of lunches and an evening reception. Lunches will be provided by Oxbow Catering.
Sessions will include discussions about the blues, how to incorporate the blues into classroom teaching, and resources available to teachers. Sessions will also include presentations by musicians Kenny Brown and Bobby Whalen; a Mississippi Blues Trail walking tour; and hands-on activities at the Delta Blues Museum. Attendees will receive a bound copy of lesson plans created by the Mississippi Arts Commission for the Mississippi Blues Trail Curriculum. While the teacher booklets are designed to complement the Mississippi Blues Trail, they also work as stand-alone pieces in any classroom. In addition to the lesson plans, maps of the Blues Trail, and information on funding opportunities for teachers and schools will be provided.
Museum Director Shelley Ritter is excited to work with Center for Southern Studies to literally bring the blues trail to life. “Their vast resources complement the work of the DBM,” Ritter says. “We will emphasize place-based education by making educators aware of resources in their community and how they can be incorporated in their classrooms and demonstrate that the Blues trail is not just for visitors. It’s actually and extension our community history and heritage.”
Upon completion of the 3-day workshop, teachers will receive 1.6 CEU credits.
This program is financially assisted by the National Endowment for the Humanities through the Mississippi Humanities Council, by funding from the Mississippi Arts Commission, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. the We Shall Overcome Fund and Atmos.
About the Mississippi Humanities Council (MHC)
MHC is a private nonprofit corporation funded by Congress through the National Endowment for the Humanities to provide public programs in traditional liberal arts disciplines to serve nonprofit groups in Mississippi. MHC sponsors, supports, and conducts a wide range of programs designed to promote understanding of our cultural heritage, interpret our own experience, foster critical thinking, encourage reasonable public discourse, strengthen our sense of community, and thus empower Mississippi’s people with a vision for the future. For more information visit www.mshumanities.org.
About the Mississippi Arts Commission (MAC)
The Mississippi Arts Commission (MAC), a state agency, serves the residents of the state by providing grants that support programs to enhance communities; assist artists and arts organizations; promote the arts in education and celebrate Mississippi’s cultural heritage. Established in 1968, the Mississippi Arts Commission is funded by the Mississippi Legislature, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mississippi Endowment for the Arts at the Community Foundation of Greater Jackson and other
private sources. The agency serves as an active supporter and promoter of arts in community life and in arts education. For information from the Mississippi Arts Commission, contact Susan Liles at 601/359-6031 or sliles@arts.ms.gov.
About the Center for the Study of Southern Culture
The Center for the Study of Southern Culture, founded in the mid-1970s, is an educational institute at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi and the first regional studies center in the country. The Center’s mission is to investigate, document, interpret, and teach about the American South through academic inquiry and publications, documentary studies of film, photography, and oral history, and public outreach programs. At the core of the Center’s work is its cross-disciplinary faculty and the undergraduate and graduate degree programs in Southern Studies. http://southernstudies.olemiss.edu
About the Delta Blues Museum
Established in 1979 by the Carnegie Public Library Board of Trustees and re-organized as a stand-alone museum in 1999, the Delta Blues Museum is Mississippi’s oldest music museum and the nation’s first museum dedicated to the American art form known as the Blues. A 2013 recipient of the IMLS National Medal for Museum and Library Services–the nation’s highest honor for museum and library service to the community–as well as a 2014 winner of the National Arts & Humanities Youth Program Award, the Delta Blues Museum is dedicated to creating a welcoming place where visitors find meaning, value and perspective by exploring the history and heritage of the unique American musical art form, the Blues. The Museum is also recognized as a Great River Road Interpretive Center.
For more information on events or programs, please call (662) 627-6820, or visit the Museum web site at www.deltabluesmuseum.org. 
