Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

Use autobiographies to deconstruct views of slavery and historical heroes.

Frederick Douglass's Autobiographies

In Examples of Historical Thinking

What meanings does the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC, have? Historians Christopher Hamner and Michael O'Malley try to answer this question.

World War II Memorial

In Examples of Historical Thinking

Marginalia, CHNM

Show your students how to challenge the authority gap between the textbook and themselves.

Questioning Textbook Authority

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

Women's Rights: Sarah Bagley Letters

What do these letters from a women's rights activist reveal about social [...] »

Intertextual Reading of Two Primary Documents

A student demonstrates thinking aloud reading two documents.

Touring Monticello

Tour Monticello with TAH teachers and learn about the history behind Thomas [...] »

Women's Suffrage Photographs

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

FDR's Fireside Chats

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

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

Prologue to Studying the Emancipation Proclamation

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

Teaching the Bill of Rights

Daunted by teaching the Bill of Rights and its complex vocabulary to [...] »

Using Primary Sources

Strategies for analyzing primary sources

Thinking Like a Historian

Learn how to teach your students historical thinking with this informative [...] »

The Civil War in Art: Teaching and Learning Through Chicago Collections

Integrate these two guides into your curriculum to help students develop [...] »

Teaching with Textbooks

Techniques for promoting historical inquiry

The Grammar of History Textbooks Part II: Questioning the Text

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

Using Historiography to Analyze the Mexican-American War

Allow students to see that history as we know it is interpretation, [...] »

Building a Conversation between Textbooks, Students, and Teachers

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

Learning Menus: Textbooks a la Carte

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

Opening Up the Textbook

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