PBS Teachers, a multimedia site of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) for preK–12 teachers, developed Access, Analyze, Act: a Blueprint for 21st-century Civic Engagement. This Curriculum Guide and Web Resource discusses how to use online platforms to engage students and help them develop critical thinking skills. Explore other election related resources you can use immediately here.

This website shows a 4th-grade teacher in action teaching a lesson on John Smith's 17th-century map of Virginia. Source Analysis, a feature created for the Teaching American History grant Foundations of U.S. History: Virginia History as American History, has three sections focused on analyzing and teaching this primary source: scholar analysis, teacher analysis, and classroom practice. More...

Primary Source Documents: How do I bridge the language barrier? Don’t be shy about using an excerpt from a document like James Otis' speech on the Writs of Assistance rather than the entire speech. While many of us cringe at cutting rich historical documents for our students, it is a necessary step if we are to actually use them in our classrooms. Read more or ask your own question here.

In 2005, Susan de la Paz published Teaching Historical Reasoning and Writing: A Classroom Intervention, one of the few experimental studies that investigated teaching for historical thinking in real classrooms. The study was part of a Teaching American History grant and involved 70 eighth graders, including 11 with learning disabilities. Their final essays were significantly better than those of 62 control students who did not have the curriculum. More...

What should Teaching American History (TAH) evaluations evaluate? Of course, the most obvious answer would be the success of the programs. But what constitutes success? This is a much more challenging question. Bruce VanSledright from the University of Maryland, College Park, explores the ins and outs of TAH evaluation here.

The American Historical Association invites history and social studies teachers to come to the 123rd Annual Meeting in New York City, NY, in January 2009. Educators can pick from over 200 sessions, including a day-long workshop for history teachers on Saturday, January 3, with luncheon speaker Sam Wineburg, and special teaching sessions. More...