This study investigates how 19 third-grade students developed their understandings of enslavement during a six-week social studies inquiry. Using Teaching Tolerance's key concepts as my analytic framework, I analyzed the students' pre- and post-concept maps and classwork to understand their learning. The findings show that students conceptualized…

Suffrage leader Alice Stone Blackwell wrote in 1914 that "the struggle has never been a fight of woman against man, but always of broad-minded men and women on the one side against narrow-minded men and women on the other." Carrie Chapman Catt agreed, writing that the enemy of suffrage was not men, but resistance to change. How many…

In 1971, the state of Texas enacted a legislative requirement that students at public institutions complete two courses in American history. With that mandate in mind, the Texas Association of Scholars and the National Association of Scholars' Center for the Study of the Curriculum proposed to determine how students today meet the requirement, and…

History teachers may well feel challenged with the task of bringing women into their American West curriculums due to the great diversity of women in the West during the nineteenth century. At the same time, the past thirty years or so have produced a plethora of monographs, articles, and primary source collections on women in the American West.…

Scholars often define historical reasoning as constructing defensible interpretations of past events. Drawing on critical theory, this article suggests that it also entails consciously framing one's topic of inquiry. The article examines an instructional unit that aimed to foster this expanded view of historiography. Forty students, ages 14-15,…

"Teaching History to Adolescents: A Quest for Relevance" is an exploration of research, ideas, trends, and practices for educators who teach American history to adolescents from the middle grades through high school. Higher education faculty in history and professional education will also find the book germane to their work. Topics within the…

Preparing to teach a course outside one's field of specialty or even continental comfort zone provides a unique if somewhat daunting opportunity. With Western Civilization classes as the author's teaching experience for entry-level college courses, she approached teaching "The United States Since Reconstruction" with some trepidation. However,…

Unfortunately, many students, are failing to learn history. Fifty-seven percent of high school students scored "below basic understanding" on their knowledge of United States history. Interestingly, less than half of the students were familiar with Patrick Henry, the War of 1812, the Marshall Plan, or the Great Society. Perhaps the time…

Discusses resources that can be used in an Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. history course, including a series of textbooks, supplemental readings, projects, Document-Based Questions and essays from earlier AP examinations, Internet and multimedia resources, and students and their families. (CMK)

Classifies types of photographs, describing which are most effective in social studies and history instruction. Explores problems in textbooks' use of photographs. Outlines a six-step question model to help students make inferences when analyzing photographs. Develops three lessons using historical photographs to discover more about a photo's time…

This publication was prepared to help college students better understand the significance of the 1980 census. It consists of four parts. Part I discusses the history of U.S. census taking, introduces the Census Bureau as an organization, and examines the planning and administration of the decennial census. Part II provides an overview of census…

This study is one of several examining the history and background of instructional technology in American education. The period, 1650 to the end of the 19th century, was chosen rather arbitrarily to cover technological developments other than conventional audio-visual devices involving photography and sound techniques. Material in this report is…