Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

Historian Rosemarie Zagarri reads the Declaration of Independence closely, taking time to define its context and its effects.

Declaration of Independence

In Examples of Historical Thinking

Two practices help students to make sense of primary source documents on the internment of Japanese Americans while improving their reading skills.

Reading and Thinking Aloud to Understand

In Teaching in Action

Make large-scale historic events like the Holocaust personal with artifacts and stories from individual human lives.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum: Personalizing History

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

Close Reading of a Primary Document

On the website Historical Thinking Matters, a student reads aloud a [...] »

Intertextual Reading of Two Primary Documents

A student demonstrates thinking aloud reading two documents.

Seeing (and Engaging in) Historical Thinking: A Tutorial

This interactive tutorial models a four-step process for analyzing [...] »

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

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

Creative Memo on Lay's Products

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

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Teacher Bill Kendrat demonstrates the techniques he uses to draw students in [...] »

Historical Context and Roleplaying

A 5th-grade teacher teaches historical context through roleplaying [...] »

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

Bringing History Home’s SOCC Analysis Technique

Explore the SOCC analysis technique with this great website.

Primary Sources: What Are They?

The National History Day’s guidelines for defining and locating [...] »

Teaching with Textbooks

Techniques for promoting historical inquiry

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, [...] »

Children’s Voices from the Civil War

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

The Grammar of History Textbooks Part II: Questioning the Text

Turn your textbook into a conversation by scanning its language for biases [...] »

Questioning Textbook Authority

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