Edidiong Utuk and Karen Kratz

Utuk’s and Kratz’s winning, innovative teaching program, “Becoming History: An Immersive Deliberation Program,” is designed to bring 300+ AP World and World History I honor students fully into the room where history happens through its established, interactive and immersive deliberation program. The students are not spectators, they are in the room. Anchored in primary sources, students step into the fire: prosecuting Chinggis Khan, clashing over workers’ rights in an 1840s town hall or deciding WWI guilt as heads of state. Every simulation ends the same: Students stand, face their peers, and defend their position. According to Utuk and Kratz, it is rigorous, vocal and life changing. They say it works, but the immersion part is incomplete. Not every family can afford a costume, and rigid desks cannot become a courtroom without a fight. The Voya grant will help fund a costume library and flexible furniture so every student can participate regardless of resources.