Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

Daunted by teaching the Bill of Rights and its complex vocabulary to students? Middle-school teacher Christine Valenti explains how she introduces her students to the Amendments.

Teaching the Bill of Rights

In Teaching in Action

Turn your students into 'master chefs' by using learning menus that allow differentiated instruction.

Learning Menus: Textbooks a la Carte

In Teaching with Textbooks

Check out these sites for primary sources grouped into sets by topic, grade-level appropriateness, and other factors.

Primary Source Sets on the Web

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

Watch Smithsonian curator Barbara Clark Smith discuss John Smith’s Map of [...] »

Women's Suffrage Photographs

How did the women's suffrage movement use the rise of journalism to its [...] »

Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King Jr.

What connections do documents related to the Jackie Robinson Testimonial [...] »

Narratives of Slavery

One institution, two very different perspectives. An expert contrasts [...] »

A Close Look at the FDR Memorial

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

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

FDR's Fireside Chats

High school teacher Joe Jelen combines roleplaying and critical analysis—by [...] »

Causal Reasoning

The fictional Alphonse the Camel provides insight for one classroom.

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

Critically Analyzing Information Sources

This source from Cornell University's Olin and Uris Libraries includes [...] »

Making Sense of Oral History

Work with oral history interviews as historical evidence.

Teaching with Textbooks

Techniques for promoting historical inquiry

The Grammar of History Textbooks Part II: Questioning the Text

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

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 [...] »

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, [...] »