Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

Photo, Toy Cradleboard, Nez Perce National Historical Park, NEPE 1629

National Park Service lesson plans, teaching materials, and vibrant images reveal what historical objects tell us about history.

Teaching with Museum Collections

In Using Primary Sources

How do the buildings and artifacts at Mount Vernon reflect the lives of the people who lived and worked there? Educators explore the slave quarters and question what they find.

Slave Life at Mount Vernon

In Examples of Historical Thinking

Detail, KWL graphic organizer

Eighth-grade teacher Amy Trenkle keeps students on-task before, during, and after a museum visit with graphic organizers.

Teaching Strategies for Museums: Graphic Organizers

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

Pockets from the Past: Daily Life at Monticello

What do the contents of pockets say about their owners? TAH teachers model [...] »

Japanese American Internment: Ansel Adams Photos

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

Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman

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

Reading Place with the National Building Museum

What does architecture say about the past and the present? TAH teachers [...] »

The Election of 1932: Clifford Berryman Cartoon

Donald A. Ritchie, Historian of the U.S. Senate, asks how a political [...] »

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

Third Graders Analyzing Historical Sources

A 3rd-grade teacher leads her students through analysis of child labor [...] »

Of the Student, For the Student, By the Student

Sixth graders in Prince William County film their interpretations of the [...] »

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

Making Sense of Letters and Diaries

Source and approach letters and diaries with historical thinking.

Scholars in Action: Analyzing 19th-Century Letters

Watch a scholar interpret letters from labor activist and reformer Sarah [...] »

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 [...] »

The Grammar of History Textbooks, Part I: Language Analysis

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

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 [...] »