In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, some who were unable to cope with the devastation and the failure to prevent them turned to alternative explanations as to how and why these attacks occurred. Coinciding with the growth of the internet, hyper-partisan news sources, and misinformation, a vast number of 9/11 conspiracy theories emerged…

This article charts the ways in which film has been included in history education over time and the research that has accompanied this. Through an analysis of historical development, current strands of educational research are realigned according to Epstein's theory of historical perspectives. Following this, the article presents a thorough…

Middle school students learned about their community when they created documentaries as part of a state bicentennial celebration. Students gathered multiple primary and secondary resources and worked with community members to interview them for their perspectives through video presentations as part of the inquiry process. Students work with local…

The emergence of digital technology provides new opportunities for teaching and learning in the history classroom. However, these new opportunities often require new skills to be learned by teachers and students alike. This article focuses on one such digitally oriented strategy, desktop documentary making, which empowers students to easily make…

This article describes how elementary preservice teachers used four documentary films to think historically about the United States Civil Rights Movement. The author situates the descriptive case study within research about historical thinking and documentary film, identifying the need for using documentary film to think historically in the…

This article evaluates the impact of extending a traditional written research paper into a digital documentary on students' perception and level of comprehension of a global sustainability issue. An adaptation of Moon's (1999) five-stage map of learning was used to assess the written and digital projects students submitted to a statewide…

Human rights are commonly conceived as more relevant to foreign policy than day-to-day living. Drawing on Eleanor Roosevelt's conception of human rights as beginning close to home, this article illustrates how human rights principles might inform everyday processes of schooling and learning to live together. It considers rights to, in and…

How can teachers effectively use documentary film to teach history, and toward what goals? This article addresses these important questions by: (1) exploring what we know about secondary teachers' practices with documentary film and secondary students' beliefs about documentary film as a source of knowledge about the past, (2) proposing a…

This article, discusses the rationale for using films, specifically docudramas, for teaching social studies and presents guidelines and resources for helping teachers to do so. Included are several Web resources that assist teachers in the selection and use of specific films to complement classroom instruction. The author has also incorporated the…

Students' understanding of history may be shaped less by their social studies teachers than by the powerfully ubiquitous, historically themed media images they passively consume outside of school. In this article, the author describes two strategies conducted during a classroom-based action research study designed to explore how historically…

Recommends that media presentations can be used effectively in the history classroom as images of reality. Suggests films and television programs and documentaries that can be utilized to show how movies play a role in shaping opinion and changing perceptions. (DK)

Outlines an introductory unit in which secondary students use an anthropological perspective to investigate how and why the automobile changed U.S. culture. Instructional materials include a video series, pictorial histories, daily procedures, learning activities, and suggestions for assessment. (MJP)