Due to its direct approach and its detailed analysis of race, the "A More Perfect Union" (AMPU) speech makes for a likely primary source to be included in a lesson addressing Obama's racial significance. As social studies teacher-educators who draw from critical perspectives on race and racism, the authors hope to see Obama's speech used…

Although geographically rooted in the Southern United States, the U.S. poultry industry is best understood in a transnational, or even global, perspective that can be difficult to address in regionally bounded courses. In intellectual terms, the topic straddles a number of historiographic subfields that have steadily grown in recent decades. These…

Most people are familiar with television quiz shows that use such technologies as Audience Response Systems (ARS) and keypads known as "clickers." A similar technology has been available for teachers. Inserting questions into a PowerPoint presentation or running free-standing software, the class is asked to consider a question and select…

Many students assume that history has nothing to do with them and therefore is a waste of their time, so finding a way to get involuntary history students truly involved in a topic is always the most challenging aspect of teaching it. As passive listeners they will remember little; as active participants they will remember more and--in at least a…

The question, "What were the causes of World War I?," has become one of the classic historical debates of which there seem to be endless permutations. In the past 90 years historians, journalists, and politicians have offered many more or less rational explanations for the war. Although at least some of the usual "causes"…

Latin America, the most advanced of the underdeveloped regions of the world, is a perfect showcase for exploring the contradictions that come into play when the historical construction of gender clashes with economic practice. The history of modern Latin America shows that economic development can actually work to the detriment of women. The most…