Get started with an innovative approach to teaching history that develops literacy and higher-order thinking skills, connects the past to students' lives, and meets state and national standards (grades 7-12). Now in a second edition, this popular book provides an introductory unit to help teachers build a trustful classroom climate; over 70…

Political history lends itself to traditional patterns of teaching and learning in social studies such as students memorizing facts presented in lectures or textbooks. This article presents a recurring activity structure for teaching U.S. political history--Consensus Circle Presidential Rating (CCPR)--which requires students to read across…

Courses: Rhetorical criticism, public address, persuasion, public memory theory, argumentation. Objectives: Through analysis of public controversies about Confederate monuments on college campuses, students will: (1) explore the concept of "public memory," how groups of people form shared interpretations of the past; (2) examine how…

Scott Joplin (1868-1917) was an African American composer and pianist of singular merit and influence. Academic interest in Joplin has increased in recent years, leading to new discoveries about the composer's activities, yet teaching materials have not been updated at the same pace as 21st-century findings. Joplin was an entrepreneur, a…

Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange's photojournalist activism during World War II was a direct response to President Franklin Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 (EO 9066), which led to the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans in 10 camps across seven mostly western states. Approximately two-thirds of those imprisoned were U.S.…

The Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery is often presented as an exciting adventure story of discovery, friendship, and patriotism. However, this same period in U.S. history can be understood quite differently when viewed through an anticolonial lens and the Doctrine of Discovery. How might educators critically interrogate the assumptions that…

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 lesson plan is designed to help students understand and debunk myths and stereotypes about African American/Black women and their sexual lives. This lesson plan is intended for adult learners.

In "Take the Journey," author, historian, and educator James Percoco invites you and your students to the places where many events in American history happened. The Journey Through Hallowed Ground is a 180-mile National Heritage area encompassing such historic sites as the Gettysburg battlefield and Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello.…

James Loewen has revised "Teaching What Really Happened", the bestselling, go-to resource for social studies and history teachers wishing to break away from standard textbook retellings of the past. In addition to updating the scholarship and anecdotes throughout, the second edition features a timely new chapter entitled…

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…

The Transcontinental Railroad began laying track east from Sacramento, California, in 1863 and west from Omaha, Nebraska, in 1865; the two lines eventually met in Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869. One of the train towns, Ogallala, Nebraska, consisted of only a section house and water tank alongside newly laid track. Over the next few years, train…

Learn how to design history lessons that foster students' knowledge, skills, and dispositions for civic engagement. Each section of this practical resource introduces a key element of civic engagement, such as defending the rights of others, advocating for change, taking action when problems are observed, compromising to promote reform, and…

This article presents two lessons. The first one is "Carved in Stone: The Preamble to the Constitution" by Steven S. Lapham. In 1937, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissioned artist Lenore Thomas to create some sculptures for the planned community of Greenbelt, Maryland. Part of her work consisted of bas-relief friezes on the…

This article describes a lesson plan that encouraged the usage of digital tools to enhance inquiry as a key tool in teaching elementary social studies. The lesson revolved around a field trip to the home of Civil War Governor Oliver P. Morton (Centerville, Indiana). The active, investigative, and questioning nature of inquiry in social studies…