Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

With the advent of industry and western expansion, U.S. businesses mass produced dreams of affluence and progress.

Daily Objects, 19th-century America

In Examples of Historical Thinking

How do the buildings and artifacts at Mount Vernon reflect the lives of the people who lived and worked there? Educators explore the slave quarters and question what they find.

Slave Life at Mount Vernon

In Examples of Historical Thinking

Negative, "Schoolroom. Concho, Arizona," Russell Lee, Oct. 1940, LoC

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

Opening Up the Textbook

In Teaching with Textbooks

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

Abolitionist Speeches by African American Women

How do the speeches of Sojourner Truth and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper [...] »

Declaration of Independence

Historian Rosemarie Zagarri reads the Declaration of Independence closely, [...] »

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

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum: Personalizing History

Make large-scale historic events like the Holocaust personal with artifacts [...] »

FDR's Fireside Chats

Historian Allida Black analyzes FDR's April 28, 1935 Fireside Chat. What [...] »

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

Recreating the Cuban Missile Crisis

Ninth-grade teacher Jamie Kimbrough asked her students to stand in Kennedy's [...] »

Integrating Language Arts and History

Elementary teacher Karen Eanes hooks her students with engaging historical [...] »

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

Why Historical Thinking Matters

See this Flash movie for a peek at how historians read and question sources [...] »

Teaching with Monuments and Memorials

Every town has a scattering of historical markers and statues. Discover what [...] »

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 [...] »

Opening Up the Textbook

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

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 [...] »

Questioning Textbook Authority

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