Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

What can an inventory tell you about daily life in Delaware in 1804? Curator Barbara Clark Smith asks this document four questions.

1804 Inventory

In Examples of Historical Thinking

painting, George Washington, 1817, John Trumbull, Flickr CC

This website by the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery will help students analyze artistic works.

George Washington, A National Treasure

In Using Primary Sources

How does the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial in Washington, DC, depict Grant and the Civil War? Historians Christopher Hamner and Michael O'Malley take a look.

Ulysses S. Grant Memorial

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 [...] »

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

Monticello: Jefferson's Experiment

TAH teachers get an introduction to Monticello as Thomas Jefferson's ' [...] »

Women's Suffrage Cartoon

How does a political cartoon use popular beliefs about women to make its [...] »

Daily Objects, 19th-century America

With the advent of industry and western expansion, U.S. businesses mass [...] »

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

FDR's Fireside Chats

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

Prologue to Studying the Emancipation Proclamation

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

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

Making Sense of Oral History

Work with oral history interviews as historical evidence.

How to Read a Landscape

Discover historic landscapes with this guide to reading the land produced by [...] »

Teaching with Textbooks

Techniques for promoting historical inquiry

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 [...] »

Building a Conversation between Textbooks, Students, and Teachers

Class discussion and personal inquiry builds an interactive relationship [...] »

Opening Up the Textbook

Make the most of your textbook—engage students in close reading and analysis [...] »