Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

Photo, Toy Cradleboard, Nez Perce National Historical Park, NEPE 1629

National Park Service lesson plans, teaching materials, and vibrant images reveal what historical objects tell us about history.

Teaching with Museum Collections

In Using Primary Sources

Photography, Towards Whitelea Lane from Tansley Knoll Derbyshire, 11 Jun 2011, E

Discover historic landscapes with this guide to reading the land produced by the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

How to Read a Landscape

In Using Primary Sources

How do the speeches of Sojourner Truth and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper differ? Historian Carla Peterson examines documents for answers.

Abolitionist Speeches by African American Women

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

Reading Place with the National Building Museum

What does architecture say about the past and the present? TAH teachers [...] »

FDR's Fireside Chats

Historian Allida Black analyzes FDR's April 28, 1935 Fireside Chat. What [...] »

Paintings About Segregation

Textbooks describe segregation in a few pages, but these artists share [...] »

The Election of 1932: Photographs of FDR

What can a photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 reveal? Donald A. [...] »

The Barbary Pirates: Letter from Tripoli

Two letters from 1800 Tripoli lead into a story of piracy, privateering, [...] »

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 [...] »

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

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

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

Teaching with Monuments and Memorials

Every town has a scattering of historical markers and statues. Discover what [...] »

Making Sense of Oral History

Work with oral history interviews as historical evidence.

Teaching with Textbooks

Techniques for promoting historical inquiry

The Grammar of History Textbooks, Part I: Language Analysis

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

The Grammar of History Textbooks Part II: Questioning the Text

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

Children’s Voices from the Civil War

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

Building a Conversation between Textbooks, Students, and Teachers

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

Learning Menus: Textbooks a la Carte

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