Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

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Work with oral history interviews as historical evidence.

Making Sense of Oral History

In Using Primary Sources

Teacher Eva La Mar's third graders become historians, writers, and videographers as they explore a community site.

Geo-Literacy Project: Students Explore Their World

In Teaching in Action

How can you get teachers thinking about monuments and memorials as secondary and primary sources? Historians Christopher Hamner and Michael O'Malley started out by introducing teachers to the George Mason Memorial, Washington, DC.

Visiting the George Mason Memorial

In Examples of Historical Thinking

Spotlight on Elementary Education

Oral histories and interviews are a unique form of historical documentation. This guide by Linda Shopes offers an overview of the various ways oral history can be integrated into classroom discussions. Though some of the techniques will have to be adapted for elementary students, the ideas Shopes presents are extremely useful. FIND OUT MORE »

Example of Historical Thinking

Scholars, students, and teachers model historical thinking

The Election of 1932: Clifford Berryman Cartoon

Donald A. Ritchie, Historian of the U.S. Senate, asks how a political [...] »

What do slave receipts reveal? Ever considered using similar documents to [...] »

World War II Memorial

What meanings does the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC, have? [...] »

Smithsonian American Art Museum: "Westward the Course of Empire"

Watch Suzannah Niepold guide TAH teachers through analyzing the differences [...] »

Piscataway Park and Tobacco Farming

What was it like being a small farmer in the 1700s? Follow a tour group [...] »

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Teacher Bill Kendrat demonstrates the techniques he uses to draw students in [...] »

Organize Your Thinking to Critically Analyze Text

Discover the multiple strategies 5th-grade teacher Jennifer Brouhard uses in [...] »

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

How to Read a Landscape

Discover historic landscapes with this guide to reading the land produced by [...] »

Secondary Sources: What Are They?

National History Day identifies secondary sources along with [...] »

Teaching with Textbooks

Techniques for promoting historical inquiry

Building a Conversation between Textbooks, Students, and Teachers

Class discussion and personal inquiry builds an interactive relationship [...] »

Using Historiography to Analyze the Mexican-American War

Allow students to see that history as we know it is interpretation, [...] »

Children’s Voices from the Civil War

Help students identify with the past via children who lived through the [...] »

Questioning Textbook Authority

Show your students how to challenge the authority gap between the textbook [...] »

Opening Up the Textbook

Make the most of your textbook—engage students in close reading and analysis [...] »