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 speeches of Sojourner Truth and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper differ? Historian Carla Peterson examines documents for answers.

Abolitionist Speeches by African American Women

In Examples of Historical Thinking

Ninth-grade teacher Jamie Kimbrough asked her students to stand in Kennedy's shoes. How did they decide to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Recreating the Cuban Missile Crisis

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

Women's Suffrage Photographs

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

Ulysses S. Grant Memorial

How does the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial in Washington, DC, depict Grant and [...] »

Cherokee Law of Blood

A Cherokee Nation Supreme Court document reveals the fluidity of racial [...] »

1853 Daguerreotype

What does an 1853 daguerreotype have to say? Plenty, says Frank Goodyear, [...] »

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

Teaching Historical Interpretation through Planning Documentary Films

Watch this 9th-grade teacher lead his class in planning, writing, and [...] »

Reading and Thinking Aloud to Understand

Two practices help students to make sense of primary source documents on the [...] »

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

Making Sense of Documentary Photography

Textbook illustrations are often overlooked as historical evidence.

Making Sense of Letters and Diaries

Source and approach letters and diaries with historical thinking.

Teaching with Textbooks

Techniques for promoting historical inquiry

Questioning Textbook Authority

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

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, [...] »

Learning Menus: Textbooks a la Carte

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

Children’s Voices from the Civil War

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