"Americans," historian Richard White often reminds his audiences, "prefer celebrating to remembering history." The landscape of the United States is populated with local, state, and national sites, house museums, working farms and other places of collective past that are deemed of historic significance. Many of these sites do…

Decades of research into which instructional strategies are successful in K-12 history and social studies conclude that having students write is extremely important. Effective writing assignments--whether a 3- to 5-paragraph essay, a longer term-paper-style assignment, or even a fictional short story based on a historical period or event--require…

This article presents a social studies unit plan taught to fifth graders in a gifted resource class that infuses technology into student-centered activities. The unit demonstrates how the teacher and students were able to use the technology to learn about life during the Klondike Gold Rush. The goal of the unit was to show how the Klondike Gold…

A Quest is a treasure hunt-style poem in which the writers lead the visitor to special places on the property. The poems have movement clues to take the visitor from place to place and educational clues that teach about aspects of each property. The writing experience allows students to research unique features of a local property, demonstrate…

A local focus for Bicentennial activities is emphasized. (DE)

Examples of how oral history can be used in the secondary classroom are provided.

Slide presentations on California history which use five slide projectors simultaneously are described. (DE)

The author describes teaching eighth-grade students about the civil rights movement. Teachers used photographs of students in the 1950s as a central theme of their unit about the U.S. civil rights movement. Using these photographs as a learning tool inspired the students to be engaged in history. At the end of the unit, students were able to…

This document consists of six lesson plans and primary source materials on the history of black people in the Illinois cities of Bloomington and Normal. The plans were developed for the Bloomington-Normal Black History Project which concentrates on recovering and recording the history of blacks in those two cities. These pilot editions are…

Three innovative approaches for teaching California history are described. (DE)

Two graduate level interdisciplinary courses in industrial archaeology are described. (DE)

The author describes a California studies course that integrates history, geography, culture, and current events. (DE)

A secondary level course in which students utilize the records contained in one city school building as a basis for investigating the historical development and present condition of the community served by that school is described. (Author/DE)

Suggestions are made for the successful incorporation of museum materials in instruction focusing on women's history in the United States. (JH)