Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

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

Historian Christopher Hamner introduces educators to the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC. He asks, what was its intended audience and purpose?

A Close Look at the World War II Memorial

In Examples of Historical Thinking

If the U.S. interned you and your family, how would you respond?

Japanese American Internment: Ansel Adams Photos

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

Monticello: Jefferson's Experiment

TAH teachers get an introduction to Monticello as Thomas Jefferson's ' [...] »

Whitman Ridgway outlines some of the context in which the Bill of Rights was [...] »

Smithsonian American Art Museum: Close Observation

Close observation and an inquisitive mind are all the tools you need to [...] »

Japanese American Internment: Ansel Adams Photos

If the U.S. interned you and your family, how would you respond?

Primary Sources as Windows into the Past

Excite students by introducing them to primary sources that answer questions [...] »

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

Using Maps as Primary Sources

A 4th-grade teacher shows strategies for encouraging and supporting student [...] »

Organize Your Thinking to Critically Analyze Text

Discover the multiple strategies 5th-grade teacher Jennifer Brouhard uses in [...] »

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

George Washington, A National Treasure

This website by the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery will help students [...] »

Primary Source Sets on the Web

Check out these sites for primary sources grouped into sets by topic, grade- [...] »

Teaching with Textbooks

Techniques for promoting historical inquiry

Children’s Voices from the Civil War

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

Opening Up the Textbook

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

Using Historiography to Analyze the Mexican-American War

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

Learning Menus: Textbooks a la Carte

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

Questioning Textbook Authority

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