Teachinghistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

Teacher Eva La Mar's third graders become historians, writers, and videographers as they explore a community site.

Geo-Literacy Project: Students Explore Their World

In Teaching in Action

Is reading a piece of historic literature once enough? Not if you want to get the most out of literary sources.

Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener"

In Examples of Historical Thinking

Introducing your students to primary sources for the first time? Watch fourth-grade teacher Marty MacKenzie guide her students through analyzing John White's drawings of the Powhatans.

How to Introduce Students to Primary Sources

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

Narratives of Slavery

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

Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King Jr.

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

Japanese American Internment: Executive Order 9066

How did the World War II internment of Japanese Americans happen? Historian [...] »

Intertextual Reading of Two Primary Documents

A student demonstrates thinking aloud reading two documents.

John Brown's Body

Chandra Manning discusses the song “John Brown's Body,” and how music can be [...] »

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

Reading and Thinking Aloud to Understand

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

What Does It Mean to Be an American?

An 8th-grade teacher asks: Was early 20th-century America a "melting pot" or [...] »

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

Making Sense of Oral History

Work with oral history interviews as historical evidence.

Making Sense of American Popular Songs

Don't overlook song as a way of understanding the past.

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 [...] »

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, [...] »

Opening Up the Textbook

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