Teaching about slavery entails teaching about the archive. Punctuated with silences, scattered with compelling details, and laden with descriptions that oscillate between racist, harrowing, and heartbreaking, runaway ads provide a glimpse into the lives of enslaved people. The details embedded within them--or omitted from them--can also provide…

The methods of teaching history in grades 6-12 have changed over the last few years to be more interactive and collaborative. More and more, teaching and learning revolves around an essential triad of inquiry, primary sources, and literacy in a collaborative classroom environment. "Teaching History Today" is about placing inquiry,…

During the past decade, interest in chocolate and its history has increased significantly. Following on this trend, a vast number of books dealing with chocolate have appeared in different publishing venues, both academic and nonacademic. Similarly, some instructors have included units that study the commodity or, in some rare instances, have…

As early as the mid-1970s, William H. McNeill, the father of modern world history scholarship, warned that the pervasive tendency for faculty to pursue ever-narrowing specializations, combined with a widespread distaste for teaching survey courses, will be history's undoing. In his mind, without concerted pedagogical attention aimed at both…

Teaching about sexual violence in the past is likely to solicit emotional reactions from students, including the potential for them to share their own personal histories related to the topic. According to statistics compiled by the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN, 2020a), university students are a particularly vulnerable population;…

Historians have long appreciated the value of the U.S. Census as a source of statistical data for studying nineteenth- and twentieth-century American history. However, in ways that many other primary source documents do not, the census reflects and addresses social, political, and economic issues on national, state, and community levels…

This article describes a unit-length project involving students in the analysis of how public memory is shaped by multiple factors and functions persuasively to influence one's understanding of historical events. This project was designed for an upper-division undergraduate course in Rhetoric and Public Memory, but could be adapted for use in…

Latitude and longitude are foundational concepts for geography education, yet they are typically poorly understood by students and receive indifferent attention from instructors and publishers' materials. Social studies teachers can take advantage of increasingly ubiquitous geolocating devices such as Global Positions Systems (GPS) to provide…

This book is provided as a guide, encouragement and handbook for faculty to introduce digital media in language they can understand and provide strategies and activities they can quickly assimilate into their teaching. The authors are excited that more people will be able to benefit from the powerful help and guidance contained in this book. This…

What are the most effective methods for teaching writing across grade levels and student populations? What kind of training do teachers need to put research-validated methods into practice? This unique volume combines the latest writing research with clear-cut recommendations for designing high-quality professional development efforts. Prominent…

Lewis, Clark, and the Corps of Discovery traveled westward from 1803 to 1806; therefore, the bicentennial of the expedition is being celebrated from 2003 until 2006. Students and teachers celebrating the bicentennial and Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase in 1803 can use social studies classes to help them connect with their community and to reach a…

"Time, Place, and Play," is a short phrase, but is summarizes three very big concepts--history, geography, and culture--that are part of the elementary social studies curriculum. This article relates the story of how twenty-five elementary and middle school teachers, meeting over several weeks in a university class, designed a unit of study on the…

Today's students are generally accustomed to seeing timelines of events, lists of names, and bulleted items, yet they lack an understanding of the complexity of historical analysis. Learning to read historical information from charts, for example, teaches students to evaluate the significance of change. Comparing related primary sources can…