Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

Ad, 1954, Linit Perfect Laundry Starch, Ad*Access

Advertisements have surrounded us for years. How can you interpret them? Where can you find them?

Making Sense of Advertisements

In Using Primary Sources

Historian Allida Black analyzes FDR's April 28, 1935 Fireside Chat. What ideas and arguments does FDR present to the American people?

FDR's Fireside Chats

In Examples of Historical Thinking

Image, Marginalia, CHNM

Work with oral history interviews as historical evidence.

Making Sense of Oral History

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

What do slave receipts reveal? Ever considered using similar documents to [...] »

Creative Memo on Lay's Products

Potato chip marketing—how a luxury item became an everyday U.S. food.

Primary Sources as Windows into the Past

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

A Close Look at the FDR Memorial

Historian Christopher Hamner visits the original Franklin D. [...] »

Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman

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

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

Using Maps as Primary Sources

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

How to Introduce Students to Primary Sources

Introducing your students to primary sources for the first time? Watch [...] »

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

Secondary Sources: What Are They?

National History Day identifies secondary sources along with [...] »

Reading Like a Historian

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

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 [...] »

Learning Menus: Textbooks a la Carte

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

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, [...] »