Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

What was it like being a small farmer in the 1700s? Follow a tour group through Maryland's Piscataway Park.

Piscataway Park and Tobacco Farming

In Examples of Historical Thinking

Photo, ". . . Texas-New Mexico Pipeline Company. . . ," 1972, Hiser, Flickr

Virginia Tech’s short video shows how to analyze primary sources and put them in context.

SCIM-C: Historical Source Analysis

In Using Primary Sources

Introducing your students to primary sources for the first time? Watch fourth-grade teacher Marty MacKenzie guide her students through analyzing John White's drawings of the Powhatans.

How to Introduce Students to Primary Sources

In Teaching in Action

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

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

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

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

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

Women's Suffrage Photographs

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

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

Reading for Context

If students lack historical context, they can miss the substance of a [...] »

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

Critically Analyzing Information Sources

This source from Cornell University's Olin and Uris Libraries includes [...] »

Transform film from a source of entertainment to a piece of historical [...] »

Teaching with Textbooks

Techniques for promoting historical inquiry

Learning Menus: Textbooks a la Carte

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

Opening Up the Textbook

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

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 [...] »

Questioning Textbook Authority

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