Five years ago, during my first year of teaching Advanced Placement U.S. History in Leesburg, VA, I created a final exam for my students that I hoped would change the way they thought about monuments and memorials.

For the students to fully execute this project, they first had to understand the purposes of monuments and memorials. We spent two days reading materials that discussed the goals of monuments and memorials. Students also read an article from the Washington Post Magazine that detailed a failed attempt to build a monument on the National Mall. The third day we watched History Channel videos on the presidential monuments and war memorials and critiqued the information that was presented on each. After our discussion on the videos was completed, I introduced the students to the final exam project.

The project was to create a 45-minute tour of a monument or memorial in Washington, DC. Each year, I pre-selected 15 monuments and memorials that were in walking distance of each other. I divided the students into groups of three or four and gave them five class days to plan the tours and accompanying brochures. Each tour and brochure had to explain the purpose of the monument and memorial and help visitors understand its role in history. Both the tour and the brochure had to use at least one primary as well as one secondary source for the information presented.

The students also had to create an activity that reinforced the information they presented to the audience. This activity had to be something that everyone could participate in and that incorporated the sources from the tour the group presented. I purposely did not give much guidance on the activities beyond emphasizing the need for primary and secondary sources. I wanted students to create their own activity that they believed helped to explain the monument or memorial to the group.

Throughout the year in my classroom, we had worked with primary and secondary sources, which prepared students to work with sources on their own for this project. To the students, primary and secondary sources are generally items that they use for research purposes—not incorporate into an active event like a tour—so this stretched their understanding of how to use sources and of how to create historical meaning.

I made sure that there were no duplicate groups and that students had plenty of resources available to use. Before assigning the project, I made a trip to the National Park Service Ranger Station in Washington, DC, to pick up brochures on individual monuments and memorials and a trip to my local library to take out books on the monuments and memorials. (It was near the end of the school year, so computer labs and the school library were in high demand).

The sources and books ranged from children's books and nonfiction sources to historical association publications. When the students were researching for their tours, I wanted them to have a mix of sources available so that they could create a unique tour.

I researched each monument and memorial to make sure they had primary and secondary sources available that the students could find through the different National Park Service websites. I explained, though, that the primary and secondary sources did not have to be just about the monument and memorial—they could be from a spectator, newspaper, fundraising committee, or a schedule of opening day events. I wanted the students to realize that primary and secondary sources of a historic site are not just the building plans but anything that deals with the site!

When the students were researching, finding, and printing their sources, they analyzed sources in terms of usefulness for the tour and accessibility for the audience. Many found that the primary sources they selected allowed them to weave a story into their tour. I didn't have any guiding activities for their primary/secondary sources so the students had to analyze and synthesize the information on their own.

I was nervous to let the students go like this, but I knew they had to do the analysis on their own to be able to speak intimately of the monument or memorial on their tour. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial group did this with ease. Although they were excellent students in my class, they had not been comfortable with primary source analysis in our previous in-class activities. The group began by searching for only primary sources dealing with the building of the monument, letters from veterans, legislation in Congress, and the plans from Maya Lin.

I kept encouraging this group to look through the books I had checked out from the private library, but they were determined to sort through what they had found online and in journals in the school library. The group took the approach of observing the materials, seeing who wrote them, finding bias, and trying to connect the sources all together. They were able to find a common thread between all the sources but they were still missing a piece that would connect the audience to the memorial personally.

When the students finally started going through the public library material, they found a book that changed the focus of their tour. The book was Offerings at the Wall: Artifacts from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. One student made a decision—she was going to let the offerings (primary sources left behind at the wall) take the lead. The group laid their sources out on a desk. They had photocopied offerings that they liked from the book and placed them with the other primary sources they had collected to construct a narrative for their tour. This was an extremely effective way to demonstrate the connection between the memorial and its visitors.

I collected the brochures the students created before we went on the field trip to Washington, DC. I did this for two reasons: one, so that I had time to grade the brochures, and two, so that the students could not rely on their brochures to present the tours. I didn't want them to just walk through the sites using their brochures; I wanted them to add to them with additional information that they had found through their research.

The day we left for the trip, the students came prepared with props, primary sources, handouts, and prizes for their activities. Each student received a response booklet that they were to fill out for each tour. My questions in the booklet aimed at what the students learned and the strengths and weaknesses that they saw. I had my own grading rubric to use and the chaperones who came with me were also assigned rubrics to grade with so that I could reference them later.

The first presentation was the hardest for the students but once one group went, the rest were relieved and couldn't wait to present. I had high expectations for the tours and the students knew this. My secondary goal of this project was to impart my passion for historical sites and discussing them to the students, and I could see that my passion had passed on to several of the students.

For each tour, every student had to talk for at least 15 minutes (for groups of three, or 11 minutes for groups of four) and had to draw on one source in his or her portion. The groups that brought pictures or documents to hold or pass around to the audience were usually the ones that the other students enjoyed most.

The best part for all of us was the activities that went along with each tour. The students really went above and beyond in planning activities to review what they talked about. Many of the groups found additional primary sources for this portion. They would either do a card sort where you mix and match the picture to a person or you would have to put pictures in chronological order based on the building of the monument or memorial. Several students also planned scavenger hunts around their monument or memorial.

The activities were usually based on the size of the monument and memorial. For example, the Washington Monument usually had a matching activity due to the limited access to the monument and the structure of it. The 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial had a scavenger hunt based on the information on each plate since it was a smaller memorial with full access.

One memorial that invoked a lot of emotion for the students and for which students found primary sources easily is the National Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II by Union Station. This site is beautiful and the students really loved exposure to this piece of history. The site is dedicated to Japanese Americans' participation in World War II from military service to the internment camps.

The best tour site for a group of four was the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, which is divided into four sections. The World War II Memorial was good for a larger group because I could divide the students into the Atlantic and Pacific fronts.

To talk for 45 minutes about a monument or memorial is not easy if you do not know the information well. Having students base the tour on primary sources forced them to look in the past and find out about the monument or memorial as it was being built and presented to the public.

My overall goal was to expose students to the resources and history that surround them. These students may or may not go back to these sites, but they will remember their stories and the stories monuments and memorials can tell. A few, I feel, will return and be able to tell the people they are with a little bit about what they are seeing.

Veterans Day approaches! Last year, Teachinghistory.org introduced you to resources for collecting oral histories from veterans. Most of these resources still hold good—if you're interested in inviting a veteran into your classroom or leading your class in an oral history project, try History.com's Take a Veteran to School Day or the Library of Congress's Veterans History Project.

But what if you don't have the time or resources to arrange a speaker or manage oral history collection? What if your students are too young to appreciate a veteran's stories and their context? How can you honor the holiday and draw your students in?

How about teaching with monuments and memorials?

Everyone knows the Vietnam Veterans National Memorial, with its simple, iconic design, preserving the names of servicemen killed or missing in action. But what about the additions to the memorial? What prompted the creation of the two figural statues, The Three Servicemen and the Vietnam Women's Memorial? If you are far from Washington, D.C., your students can examine photographs (try Flickr Creative Commons for copyright-free images of many major memorials), read about the history of memorials, and draw their own conclusions.

What needs do the different pieces of the memorial fill? What do they say about Vietnam and its veterans? Who designed them? Who chose these designers? Where did the money to build them come from? When were they unveiled? What controversies have surrounded their design? Are there any special observances at these memorials on Veterans Day?

You could also look up other major DC memorials, built to remember very different wars and participants. Try the African American Civil War Memorial, District of Columbia War Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, National Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II, or the National World War II Memorial.

Or perhaps you'd like to engage students with material closer to home. Look around your town. Ask at your local historical society. What monuments and memorials does your area have? A memorial for the Civil War? Korean War? Vietnam War? World War II? When were these built? Why might your area have memorials for some wars but not others? Who maintains them? What do area residents think of them? How do they resemble or differ from other memorials to veterans from the same war? How and where is Veterans Day memorialized in your town? Are there any observations at these memorials?

High-school teacher James A. Percoco shares his own experience engaging students with memorials in this video, while 8th-grade teacher Amy Trenkle demonstrates teaching with monuments and memorials in action, in our blog, as she takes her class to visit the Columbus Memorial Fountain in Washington, D.C.

If you can't arrange a field trip to a memorial, but would still like to have students visit and analyze one, try designing an individual field trip (IFT) for students. James A. Percoco tells you how.

Still at a loss for resources? Search our Website Reviews for online exhibits and archives full of primary sources, or our Museums & Historic Sites database for sites in your area.

When I first started teaching a little more than 10 years ago, very few of my students knew why they were getting Columbus Day off. Now, I find a lot more know why they have the day off and have a pretty strong opinion as to whether or not it should be celebrated as a national holiday. I've enjoyed watching my students be able to express their opinions better and better throughout the years.

While my U.S. History state standards do not cover Columbus's voyages and exploration, I find it is a lesson worth teaching, and very timely with the holiday. As my students have grown in their knowledge and understanding of Columbus, I have had to change my lesson to contain more depth. One way I like to do that is by integrating a local monument into our discussion.

I start the lesson out by reading several chapters from Joy Hakim's A History of US, Book 1. The chapters talk about Columbus's character, his experiences, and effect on the "New World." While most of my students cite that Columbus shouldn't have a holiday because he didn't "find" anything new—that there were inhabitants living there already—they are unaware of the details of his encounters with Native Americans. They also do not know about the Columbian Exchange or Columbus's use of scientific knowledge to aid his survival.

After our reading, complete with guiding questions, I ask the students why we have memorials. Most say that it is to remember a person or an event. Here in DC, student examples range from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial to the Vietnam Wall. I tell them that we are going to go see a memorial to Christopher Columbus. I ask them what a 'symbol' is and work with the definition until there is an understanding among the students. We talk about how memorials and monuments convey their message through words and symbols. I tell the students that we are going to be looking at this memorial for symbols.

While the Columbus Memorial is only a few blocks from our school, and many of my students pass it twice a day, most do not know about it. Those that do, usually do because they had a sibling in my class in previous years.

After a quick reminder on memorial etiquette and general good behavior expectations, I have the students get their jackets, take a handout that I provide, and a pen or pencil. . . .and we're off!

The five-block walk to Union Station is quick, and as we come up to it, I can hear many of my students say that they know this memorial, but they never knew what it was about or who it was to.

I tell the students they have between 10 and 15 minutes to look at the memorial and to answer the questions on their paper. They may work individually or in small groups. I remind them to look for symbols.

The question sheet is not difficult, but it does make them look at the memorial. The questions on the sheet are:

1. What is your first impression of this monument?
2. Have you seen this monument before? If you have, did you know that it was a monument to Christopher Columbus?
3. What symbols do you see on this monument that give you clues to what Columbus did in his life? (List them here.)
4. Are there any words on the monument? If so, what are they?
5. Do you think anything is missing from this monument? If so, what? If not, what makes it complete?
6. Does this monument portray Columbus in a positive or a negative way? How do you know?
7. Do you think this is an appropriate monument? Why or why not? Give evidence (from our reading yesterday and from your own feelings) to support your answer.

I give them a few minutes to look and then I begin to circulate to see what they have come up with, what questions they have, and maybe to point out a symbol or two they may have missed.

After 10 or 15 minutes, I call them back together at the front of the memorial and I ask them to share what symbols they have found. Some of them include:

• lions (for the courage to sail into the unknown)
• the Native American (on one side of Columbus, to represent the New World)
• the European man (on the other side of Columbus, to represent the Old World)
• the bow of the ship (for his means of travel)
• the three flag poles behind the memorial (to represent the three ships he first sailed on)
• the medallion of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella on the back (in recognition of who he sailed for and who funded his expeditions)

The students really enjoy being able to share what they found. Some students believe that some of Columbus's crewmates should be added to the memorial because, my students say, he couldn't have done it alone. Some believe that goods from the Columbian Exchange should be integrated into the memorial. Others believe that chains, to represent the start of slavery in the New World, should be added.

Before we go, we always take a group photo.

Upon return to the classroom (my double block is almost up by this time), I ask my students to now write one complete paragraph, taking a definitive stand (no wishy-washy yes and no answers) as to whether or not Columbus should be celebrated with a holiday. Students may not state the day off as a reason for celebrating it. If time permits, I like to have a volunteer for each side of the debate share his/her paragraph. If we have run out of time, then I start my next class with this activity.

It's a great way for my students to think about the holiday, memorials in their community, and to evaluate history. It also provides a great gateway for me to use other memorials and monuments in my teaching as the year continues.