Best Practices | TeachingHistory.org

Welcome to Best Practices

High school students use primary sources to question their textbook's narrative on the My Lai massacre.

Opening up the Textbook: Voices from My Lai

In Teaching in Action

This interactive tutorial models a four-step process for analyzing historical sources.

Seeing (and Engaging in) Historical Thinking: A Tutorial

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

Smithsonian American Art Museum: "Acehlous and Hercules"

Analyzing a massive primary source? Divide it up! Teachers at the [...] »

Creative Memo on Lay's Products

Potato chip marketing—how a luxury item became an everyday U.S. food.

Ford's Theatre: Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

Ford's Theatre Society's Sarah Jencks leads teachers through Abraham Lincoln [...] »

Smithsonian American Art Museum: Close Observation

Close observation and an inquisitive mind are all the tools you need to [...] »

An Introduction to Historical Thinking and Reading

Watch this flash movie for a peek at how historians read and question [...] »

Teaching in Action

Teachers demonstrate promising teaching practices

FDR's Fireside Chats

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

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

Primary Source Sets on the Web

Check out these sites for primary sources grouped into sets by topic, grade- [...] »

Why Historical Thinking Matters

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

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 [...] »

Learning Menus: Textbooks a la Carte

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

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 [...] »