Best Practices
Engage students and encourage historical thinking in K-12 American history classrooms.
What exactly are elementary students capable of? Third grade teacher Eva La Mar challenged her students to become historians, writers, and videographers through the exploration of a local community site. By doing so, students learned necessary literacy skills and the importance of historic preservation. FIND OUT MORE »
Read and Learn
Examples of Historical Thinking
Scholars, students, and teachers model historical thinking
With the advent of industry and western expansion, U.S. businesses mass [...] »
What is the key line in Franklin D. Roosevelt's second inaugural address? [...] »
Donald A. Ritchie, Historian of the U.S. Senate, asks how a political cartoon [...] »
Potato chip marketing—how a luxury item became an everyday U.S. food. [...] »
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Teaching in Action
Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices
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Using Primary Sources
Strategies for analyzing primary sources
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Teaching with Textbooks
Techniques for promoting historical inquiry
Show your students how to challenge the authority gap between the textbook and [...] »
Turn your textbook into a conversation by scanning its language for biases. [...] »
Class discussion and personal inquiry builds an interactive relationship [...] »
Allow students to see that history as we know it is interpretation, perspective [...] »
