This manuscript presents findings and implications from a multiple case study of how teacher candidates in secondary and middle childhood programs learn specialized knowledge, skills, and expertise from disciplinary experts in content courses and enact practices of disciplinary literacy in field placements. An expert-novice framework was employed…

At the turn of the 20th century, Pink Teas (alternately known as "suffrage teas") were held by women who championed women's right to vote. In this article, the author provides historical background on Pink Teas and ideas of how to teach about them in the elementary classroom.

This article builds on existing research on cross-curricular methodology and outlines a teaching technique that integrates presidential history during physical education class for middle school students.

In a post-truth world, it is imperative for educators to help students sift through the various views of both historical and current events. Critical race theory (CRT), a controversial theoretical framework directly critiquing white supremacy and incorporating the histories of historically marginalized communities, is a useful tool for helping…

Peter Conolly-Smith, a history professor at Queens College, uses the textbook "The American Promise," since 1998, and now in its seventh edition. He has been using this book for twenty years, and it has accompanied him from one school to another, providing the backbone of his post-1865 survey course. The relationship he has developed…

This article examines representations of imperialism, anti-colonial nationalism, and decolonization in US textbooks for American and World History courses between 1930 and 1965. Broadly speaking, 1930s and early 1940s texts lauded imperialism and associated European colonialism with American imperialist activities. Authors extolled the benefits…

National History Day (NHD), a non-profit organization based in College Park, Maryland, is widely known for the National History Day Contest, in which students conduct historical research and submit their projects at local and state levels, with top students invited to the National Contest. Participation in NHD demonstrates that students learn…

Social studies teachers have to design classroom instruction to prepare students to be future democratic citizens. This means that middle school students need learning opportunities to grapple with issues of racism in our country's past and present. In this article, I discuss a six-day research project implemented in a sixth-grade U.S. history…

A teacher describes how a team of educators from two elementary schools in Massachusetts used the Next Generation Science Standards to create a social history curriculum focused on depth--and story--instead of isolated facts.

Despite growing interest in culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP), little research has examined its effect on student performance. In this article, we place CRP in a sociohistorical context and document how one intervention, Fresh Prep, draws on CRP to engage and instruct high school students identified as high risk for not graduating. Using a…

According to John Adams, the real American Revolution occurred "in the minds and hearts of the people" long before the armed conflict ever began. This shared anti-British sentiment in prewar colonial America was largely fostered by committees of correspondence. Formed a decade before the revolution, the committees were the first…

What should U.S. schools teach about U.S. actions abroad when students in the classroom have varied or conflicting memories, ideas, and experiences? Should schools teach the dominant narrative of U.S. benevolence and innocence in world affairs so as to instill patriotism in children? What kind of patriotism are we concerned with here? Or should…

The digital world has unhooked information from authority and created a post-truth ethos, yet it also allows for access to the building blocks of deliberative democratic discussions: sources, evidence, and databases. This article describes an approach to teaching the American history survey utilizing primary source databases as the students' main…

Sam Pullan explains how a chance encounter has helped him to improve his introduction to the modern themes and founding documents of US politics. Working with a professional historian whom he met, by chance, over dinner, he was able to produce lessons at the cutting edge of subject knowledge to grab the attention of his Year 11 pupils. This…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Student Voice." Contents include: (1) How Can We Address a Problem that We…