Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

Written primary sources only tell you so much. To learn about history that was never written down, listen to sources like these two songs.

Two Blues Songs

In Examples of Historical Thinking

Integrate these two guides into your curriculum to help students develop visual and textual analysis skills.

The Civil War in Art: Teaching and Learning Through Chicago Collections

In Using Primary Sources

Detail, The Thomas Jefferson Building homepage

What messages are hidden in art and architecture? Explore the Library of Congress's Jefferson Building in this online activity.

The Thomas Jefferson Building: Secret Messages

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

Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

Teaching the Reconstruction? Ford's Theatre's Sarah Jencks leads teachers [...] »

Touring Monticello

Tour Monticello with TAH teachers and learn about the history behind Thomas [...] »

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

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

Thomas Nast Cartoon

Today, we accept paper—and electronic—money as a fact of life. Historian [...] »

An Introduction to Historical Thinking and Reading

Watch this flash movie for a peek at how historians read and question [...] »

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Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

Integrating Language Arts and History

Elementary teacher Karen Eanes hooks her students with engaging historical [...] »

Using Maps as Primary Sources

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

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Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

Media Analysis Tools

These worksheets from the Library of Congress help students analyze primary [...] »

Picturing America

Analyze art in the classroom with these resources from the Picturing [...] »

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Teaching with Textbooks

Techniques for promoting historical inquiry

The Grammar of History Textbooks, Part I: Language Analysis

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

Questioning Textbook Authority

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

The Grammar of History Textbooks Part II: Questioning the Text

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

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, [...] »

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