Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

Watch Briana Zavadil White introduce teachers to portraits of inventors and presidents from the 19th century.

National Portrait Gallery: Teaching with 19th-Century Portraits

In Examples of Historical Thinking

Video screencap, Organize Your Thinking to Critically Analyze Text, 27 Feb 2012

Discover the multiple strategies 5th-grade teacher Jennifer Brouhard uses in her classroom to promote student understanding of historic texts.

Organize Your Thinking to Critically Analyze Text

In Teaching in Action

What can a photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 reveal? Donald A. Ritchie looks at the people captured in this photograph.

The Election of 1932: Photographs of FDR

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

Reading Place with the National Building Museum

What does architecture say about the past and the present? TAH teachers [...] »

Visiting the George Mason Memorial

How can you get teachers thinking about monuments and memorials as secondary [...] »

Smithsonian American Art Museum: "Westward the Course of Empire"

Watch Suzannah Niepold guide TAH teachers through analyzing the differences [...] »

Seeing (and Engaging in) Historical Thinking: A Tutorial

This interactive tutorial models a four-step process for analyzing [...] »

Women's Suffrage Photographs

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

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

Causal Reasoning

The fictional Alphonse the Camel provides insight for one classroom.

Recreating the Cuban Missile Crisis

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

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

Teaching with Monuments and Memorials

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

Transform film from a source of entertainment to a piece of historical [...] »

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 [...] »

Learning Menus: Textbooks a la Carte

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

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 [...] »

The Grammar of History Textbooks Part II: Questioning the Text

Turn your textbook into a conversation by scanning its language for biases [...] »