Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

Tour Monticello with TAH teachers and learn about the history behind Thomas Jefferson's home.

Touring Monticello

In Examples of Historical Thinking

Use autobiographies to deconstruct views of slavery and historical heroes.

Frederick Douglass's Autobiographies

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

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

Creative Memo on Lay's Products

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

A Close Look at the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial

Historian Christopher Hamner engages educators in close questioning of the [...] »

Women's Suffrage Photographs

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

Japanese American Internment: Ansel Adams Photos

If the U.S. interned you and your family, how would you respond?

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

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

Teaching Strategies for Museums: Graphic Organizers

Eighth-grade teacher Amy Trenkle keeps students on-task before, during, and [...] »

Prologue to Studying the Emancipation Proclamation

An 8th-grade class analyzes letters about the Emancipation Proclamation.

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

Analyzing Composition in Paintings

Incorporate art into lesson plans with this resource from The Metropolitan [...] »

Bringing History Home’s SOCC Analysis Technique

Explore the SOCC analysis technique with this great website.

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 [...] »

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 [...] »