Welcome to Best Practices
Spotlight on Elementary Education
Example of Historical Thinking
What can an inventory tell you about daily life in Delaware in 1804? Curator [...] »
How do the speeches of Sojourner Truth and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper [...] »
This interactive tutorial models a four-step process for analyzing [...] »
What does an 1853 daguerreotype have to say? Plenty, says Frank Goodyear, [...] »
Smithsonian Barbara Clark Smith looks at what a colonial newspaper article [...] »
Teaching in Action
The fictional Alphonse the Camel provides insight for one classroom.
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Watch 4th-graders analyze cartoons about Virginia and Brown v. Board of [...] »
Using Primary Sources
Find the National Archive's worksheets for analyzing a variety of primary [...] »
Don't overlook song as a way of understanding the past.
[...] »Teaching with Textbooks
Make the most of your textbook—engage students in close reading and analysis [...] »
Turn your students into 'master chefs' by using learning menus that allow [...] »
Help students identify with the past via children who lived through the [...] »
Turn your textbook into a conversation by scanning its language for biases [...] »
Show your students how to challenge the authority gap between the textbook [...] »