Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

High school teacher Joe Jelen combines roleplaying and critical analysis—by having students roleplay critics of the New Deal.

FDR's Fireside Chats

In Teaching in Action

Photo, Police Evidence Room, November 14, 2008, th.omas, Flickr

Challenge students to gather evidence from multiple primary sources. Here, a high school student uses two related primary sources to understand the civil rights movement.

Cross-checking Sources and Testing Hypotheses

In Examples of Historical Thinking

Use autobiographies to deconstruct views of slavery and historical heroes.

Frederick Douglass's Autobiographies

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

Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

Teaching the Reconstruction? Ford's Theatre's Sarah Jencks leads teachers [...] »

What can an inventory tell you about daily life in Delaware in 1804? Curator [...] »

Women's Suffrage: Burroughs's Article

In the struggle for women's suffrage, how did African American women [...] »

Piscataway Park and Tobacco Farming

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

The Election of 1932: Clifford Berryman Cartoon

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

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

Organize Your Thinking to Critically Analyze Text

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

Students in the Community

Is a school an island? James Liou talks about working to integrate schools [...] »

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

Analyzing Composition in Paintings

Incorporate art into lesson plans with this resource from The Metropolitan [...] »

Scholars in Action: Analyzing 19th-Century Letters

Watch a scholar interpret letters from labor activist and reformer Sarah [...] »

Teaching with Textbooks

Techniques for promoting historical inquiry

Questioning Textbook Authority

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

Building a Conversation between Textbooks, Students, and Teachers

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

Children’s Voices from the Civil War

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

Learning Menus: Textbooks a la Carte

Turn your students into 'master chefs' by using learning menus that allow [...] »

The Grammar of History Textbooks, Part I: Language Analysis

The language of history textbooks challenges English language learners and [...] »