Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

How does the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial in Washington, DC, depict Grant and the Civil War? Historians Christopher Hamner and Michael O'Malley take a look.

Ulysses S. Grant Memorial

In Examples of Historical Thinking

Negative, "Letters. Posting of letters III," c.1920-1950, Theodor Horydczak, LoC

Watch a scholar interpret letters from labor activist and reformer Sarah Bagley.

Scholars in Action: Analyzing 19th-Century Letters

In Using Primary Sources

Photo, V-mail, February 1943, U.S. Office of War Information, LoC

Source and approach letters and diaries with historical thinking.

Making Sense of Letters and Diaries

In Using Primary Sources

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

Watch Smithsonian curator Barbara Clark Smith discuss John Smith’s Map of [...] »

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

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

An Introduction to Historical Thinking and Reading

Watch this flash movie for a peek at how historians read and question [...] »

Paintings About Segregation

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

The Iran Hostage Crisis: Diary of Robert Ode

Diaries give a personal view of historical events. Historian Peter Hahn [...] »

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

Foundations of American History: John Brown Song

How did people in the North feel about John Brown after his raid on Harpers [...] »

Teaching Historical Interpretation through Planning Documentary Films

Watch this 9th-grade teacher lead his class in planning, writing, and [...] »

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 [...] »

Reading Like a Historian

Use the Stanford History Education Group's curriculum to teach historical [...] »

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 [...] »

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 II: Questioning the Text

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

The Grammar of History Textbooks, Part I: Language Analysis

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