Allan O. Kownslar | Professor

Dr. Kownslar received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Trinity University and a doctorate in history from Carnegie Mellon University as well as completed graduate work at Trinity University, Chicago's Presbyterian McCormick Theological Seminary, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He has been a Danforth Fellow, a writer for the Committee on the Study of History at Amherst College, a Fellow of the Andrew Carnegie Society, and over the years presented a series of inquiry-oriented lessons for teachers from well over eight hundred school districts as well as for workshops sponsored, among others, by the Institute of Texan Cultures, the Texas Education Agency, the National Council for the Social Studies and its state affilianes, the Texas Humanities Council, the Social Science Education Consortium, and the National Council for History Education. He has also done a series of television programs for PBS for which he received the Star Award for using the inquiry method in teaching history, and received the 1985 Distinguishied Alumnus Award from the Carneigie Mellon University Alumni Assocation as a "nationally acclaimed educator" for making outstanding contributions and innovations in the fields of the teaching and writing of history. In addition, he was honored with the 1984 Outstanding Professor Award from the Trinity University student body, was one of the main subjects of a Ph.D. dissertation (The University of Texas at Austin) on "A Study of Innovative Educators in the United States," on occasion has been a visiting Distinguished Professor and a visiting history researcher elsewhere, served as president of the Texas Association for the Advancement of History (affiliated with the American Historical Association), honored as a Key Educator in Texas by the Institute of Texan Cultures, been a member of the Texas State Commission on Standards for the Teaching Profession and a member of the Curriculum Steering Committee of the Texas Council for the Social Studies, been a historical consultant and supervisor for numerous oral history interviews and television documentaries as well as a contributor to the critical thinking American history sections of the College Board AP exams, and served as chair of the Trinity University history department at various times.

Additionally, The New Social Studies: People, Projects and Perspectives (Information Age Publishing, 2010) has a chapter entitled "The Quest for Revelancy: Allan Kownslar and Historical Inquiry in the New Social Studies Movement" by Elizabeth Washington and Robert Dahlgren of the University of Florida. The chapter is devoted to Allan Kownslar and his work as one of the nation's leading pioneer-innovators in developing numerous inquiry oriented books in the fields of history, political science, and biography and other of his books devoted soley to the teaching of those subjects with emphasis on his point-counterpoint teaching and writing styles. The book is a volume in the Studies in the History of Education series.

Kownslar's role as one of the nation's innovative historian/teacher pioneers in the New Social Studies Movement will also appear in another book with samples of his writings. The book will be introduced by noted Harvard University cognitive scientist Jerome Bruner and entitled Constructivism and the New Social Studies: A Collection of Classic Inquiry Lessons, Information Age Publishing and the National Council for the Social Studies.

His courses are in the fields of American history, methods of teaching history, and Texas history.

Thesis: A Comparison of the Various Texas Bills of Rights with Subsequent Interpretations of State Laws and Supreme Court Decisions, 1836-1875: United States Supreme Court Decisions, 1875-1960. Different parts of this have been some subject matter in three of Kownslar's books.

Currently, he is a member of the Trinity University Council on Teacher Education, the faculty representative to the Trinity University National Alumni Board, and a Trinity Associate as well as continues to do numerous presentations for the University of Texas at Austin Elderhostel Program.

Some of Kownslar's publications include the following. Note: Sometimes co-author signifies more than two authors of a work.

Publications

• Books and Monographs
• Book. Editor, Manifest Destiny and Expansionism in the 1840s, D. C. Heath. Key question: Does an idea make history or does it emerge from history as a rationalization of what people do for other reasons?
• Book. Co-author with Terry L. Smart, People and Our World: A Study of World History, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, a finalist for the James Robinson American Historical Association Award for new and creative textbooks in history.
• Book. Designer and co-author with Donald Frizzle of Discovering American History, Holt, Rinehart and Winston. The Texbook Evaluation Committee of America's Future, comprised of various scholars from such institutions as the University of Pennsylvania, Kenyon College, the University of Minnesota, Earlham College, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Dallas, the Foundation for Economic Education, and the Michigan Northwood Institute, declared of Discovering American History: "Brilliant! An excellent collection of source material...with regard to the student's ability to inductively evaluate original materials with almost unlimited possibilities. The student, personally, can become involved in the chronicling of history to become, in effect, a historian, logically questioning, sifting, and synthesizing...with the teacher readily filling a true role as a guide for the student's venture into the world of inquiry. This is not a traditional textbook. It is new, unusual, and very good. It gets at the heart of the matter; it touches the 'For what?' of education; it allows the student to become an active and resopnsible participant in the learning situation."
• Book. Co-authored with Terry Smart, World History: A Story of Progress published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
• Book. Senior author and designer, Inquiring about American History, Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
• Book. Co-author, American Government and National Secuity, Addison-Wesley.
• Book. Author, The Texans: Their Land and History, McGraw-Hill and American Heritage Publishing Company. Dr. Frances Nesmith in reviewing this inquiry-oriented book for the West Texas Historical Association Year Book noted: "This volume, bearing the American Heritage Book insignia, upsets some ideas about how a textbook...should be written--or used in class. The materials of history--letters, diaries, folklore, and other records...are there from distant to recent past....Illustrations add much to the book. They provide more historical evidence from which students are taught to 'read' their history. Paintings, drawings, photographs, many are done by eye-witnesses, provide valuable clues to the past....After several weeks of experience with this volume in classroom use, students are offering their own critique. They like it. Some are even reading it for pleasure. Parents are asking how to get a copy for their home libraries."
• Book. Co-Editor with Terry Smart, Readings in Original and Secondary Sources in World History, Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
• Books. Author, Inquiry-Oriented Studies in Environmental Folk Literature, two volumes, Texas Education Agency and Harris County Department of Education. Studies in environmental folktales with specific examples from the following groups: Cherokee, Shohomish, Tanaina, Delaware, Jicarilla Apache, Kiowa, Chinese, Efik-Ibibio (Nigeria), Bangala (Central Africa), and Australian Aborigines with the key question for inquiry focusing on how should people strive to become more aware of their environments and their various relationships to them.
• Book. Editor, The Progressive Era: Tradition in a Changing Society, 1900-1917, D. C. Heath. Key question: When should a people keep faith with the traditions they cherish?
• Book. Managing editor, a designer, and a co-author, The Americans: A New History of the United States, Holt, Rinehart and Winston and American Heritage Publishers.
• Book. General Editor, designer, and co-author of the 1974 yearbook for the National Council for the Social Studies entitled Teaching American History: The Quest for Relevancy. Stanley P. Wronski, President of NCSS, wrote: "This yearbook rightfully merits the term 'innovative.' It is addressed basically to the classroom teachers, not the curriculum designer. It is practical, not theoretical. It demonstrates how to do it rather than explicates grand designs...by incorporating within [its] novel lessons the kind of cognitive content that has substance and the kind of affective learning that gets under the skin of pupils." ERIC-CHESS selected Teaching American History as one of the most highly recommended publications in the field of social studies education.
• Monograph. Editor and co-author, Teaching about Contemporary Social Issues in American History, University of Colorado Social Science Education Consortium. Four point- counterpoint case studies focusing on the Allan Bakke case, the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, the David Marsden case, and Skokie and Houston cases involving the American Nazi Party. Dr. James F. Davis, Director of the Social Science Consortium, in the preface to the volume wrote: "As every journalist knows, most people are fascinated by controversy.... Allan O. Kownslar, a gifted and prolific history curriculum writer, has produced a variety of resources for teaching about modern controversies.... We hope the resulting volume will prove a valuable resource for incorporating the teaching of social issues into an American history course."
• Books. Co-authored with Terry Smart, American Government, and Civics: Citizens and Society, both programs published by McGraw-Hill.
• Book. Co-author, The New Social Studies for the Slow Learners: A Rationale for a Junior High School American History Course, American Heritage Publishing Company.
• Monograph. Author, Tips for Teaching about the Bicentennial, University of Colorado Social Science Education Consortium.
• Monograph. Senior author and editor, Teaching Basic Thinking Skills in Social Studies, Texas Education Agency.
• Book. Co-author, Teaching Government: National Security in a Nuclear Age, Mershon Center, Ohio State University.
• Books. General Editor, designer and one of the authors of a twenty volume inquiry-oriented Honors World History Program for the Department of Defense Dependent Schools. Kownslar authored the following: (1) What Characteristics Should a Good Leader Possess? Chaka Zulu and Jomo Kenyatta: A Comparative Study of African Opponents of European Imperialism; (2) What Should Characterize a Civilized Society? West, South and East African Trade, 400 B.C.-1800 A.D.: A Study in Empire, Commerce, and City Building; and, (3) What Should Characterize Just or Fair Punishment for Persons Convicted of a Crime? The Penal Colonies of Australia: A Study in 18th - 19th Century European Crimes and Punishments.
• Book. Author, The European Texans, one of a five volume series on ethnic Texans, Texas A&M University Press and recipient of the Texas Library Association's Reference Award.
• Book. Co-author, Black Cowboys of Texas, Texas A&M University Press and recipient of the T. R. Fehrenbach Award from the Texas Historical Commission for original research.
• Book. Editor, Texas Iconclast: Maury Maverick, Jr., Texas Christian University Press, of which a special editorial in Texas Lawyer urged all attorney's "new and experienced" to read.
• Book. Co-author, Texas Women on the Cattle Trails, Texas A&M University Press, and recipient of the Liz Carpenter Award on Women's History from the Texas State Historical Association.

Book Reviews

Kownslar is an occasional book reviewer for Journal of the West and The Western Historical Quarterly and has done other book reviews for the American Historical Review, Locus: An Historical Journal of Regional Perspectives,Texas Review of Books, Great Plains Quarterly and the New Mexico Historical Review.

Articles

His articles, most of which concern the teaching of history, have appeared in such publications as Social Education: The Journal of the National Council for the Social Studies, Trend (University of Massachusetts at Amherst), Clearing House, OPT Magazine, Passages, The Magazine of Reading, Writing, and Thinking, Yale University Teacher Education Journal, Southwestern Journal of Social Education, Encyclopedia International, Palo Alto Review, and Hidden History plus Op-Ed pieces in various newspapers.

Current Research

His current research includes work on a two-volume work on value conflicts in U. S. history, a biography of James Hall Bell, a slave-owning Texas Unionist who granted slaves due process of law and who served on the Texas Supreme Court dudring 1858-1864, a biography of Jane McCallum, an early twentieth-century Texas suffragette, a history of protests of American social studies textbooks during the 1880s-1920s, a book about twenty outspoken individuals in Texas history during the 19th - 20th centuries titled Texas Voices: 19th-20th Century Lives and Thoughts, a one-volume rationale for utilizing higher level cognitive skills in the teaching of history at the college-university level, and a methods book for utilizing the inquiry process in the teaching of social studies at the secondary level.

His history of the Maverick family from Mayflower signer John Howland in 1592 to noted civil rights attorney Maury Maverick, Jr., in 2003 and entitled "The Mavericks: Four Centuries of Iconoclasm" appeared in the Palo Alto Review, Spring 2008.

Other

Kownslar is listed in Leaders in Education, Outstanding Young Men of America, The Writers' Dictionary, Outstanding Educators of America, Contemporary Authors, The International Authors and Writers Who's Who, Who's Who in the South and Southwest, International Directory of Distinguished Leadership, Dictionary of International Biography, Personalities of the South, International Who's Who of Intellectuals, American Publishing Who's Who, Outstanding American Educators, Who's Who in American Education, and Who's Who in the World.

 

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