Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

An 8th-grade teacher asks: Was early 20th-century America a "melting pot" or a "salad bowl"?

What Does It Mean to Be an American?

In Teaching in Action

What do the contents of pockets say about their owners? TAH teachers model strategies for examining and questioning artifacts.

Pockets from the Past: Daily Life at Monticello

In Examples of Historical Thinking

Educators tour the NMAAHC exhibit "Slavery at Jefferson's Monticello: Paradox of Liberty" and ask about approaches to presenting the lives of Thomas Jefferson and his enslaved workers.

Slavery at Jefferson's Monticello: Paradox of Liberty

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

Touring Monticello

Tour Monticello with TAH teachers and learn about the history behind Thomas [...] »

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

A Close Look at the FDR Memorial

Historian Christopher Hamner visits the original Franklin D. [...] »

Smithsonian American Art Museum: Teaching with 19th-Century Art

Watch Suzannah Niepold of the Smithsonian American Art Museum guide teachers [...] »

Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener"

Is reading a piece of historic literature once enough? Not if you want to [...] »

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

Prologue to Studying the Emancipation Proclamation

An 8th-grade class analyzes letters about the Emancipation Proclamation.

Geo-Literacy Project: Students Explore Their World

Teacher Eva La Mar's third graders become historians, writers, and [...] »

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

Why Historical Thinking Matters

See this Flash movie for a peek at how historians read and question sources [...] »

The Thomas Jefferson Building: Secret Messages

What messages are hidden in art and architecture? Explore the Library of [...] »

Teaching with Textbooks

Techniques for promoting historical inquiry

Using Historiography to Analyze the Mexican-American War

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

The Grammar of History Textbooks, Part I: Language Analysis

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

Building a Conversation between Textbooks, Students, and Teachers

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

The Grammar of History Textbooks Part II: Questioning the Text

Turn your textbook into a conversation by scanning its language for biases [...] »

Opening Up the Textbook

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