Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

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

Watch this 9th-grade teacher lead his class in planning, writing, and organizing their own documentary films.

Teaching Historical Interpretation through Planning Documentary Films

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

Women's Suffrage Photographs

How did the women's suffrage movement use the rise of journalism to its [...] »

Jefferson's Confidential Letter to Congress

Jefferson, surprised by the Louisiana Purchase? Maybe not. Historian Leah [...] »

Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman

Can you trust a biography? Historian Tiya Miles analyzes an 1869 biography [...] »

FDR's Second Inaugural Address

What is the key line in Franklin D. Roosevelt's second inaugural address? [...] »

National Portrait Gallery: Teaching with 19th-Century Portraits

Watch Briana Zavadil White introduce teachers to portraits of inventors and [...] »

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

Historical Context and Roleplaying

A 5th-grade teacher teaches historical context through roleplaying [...] »

Teaching the Bill of Rights

Daunted by teaching the Bill of Rights and its complex vocabulary to [...] »

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

Making Sense of Letters and Diaries

Source and approach letters and diaries with historical thinking.

SCIM-C: Historical Source Analysis

Virginia Tech’s short video shows how to analyze primary sources and put [...] »

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 [...] »

Children’s Voices from the Civil War

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

Using Historiography to Analyze the Mexican-American War

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

Questioning Textbook Authority

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

Learning Menus: Textbooks a la Carte

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