Describes student development and production of a documentary film honoring local Vietnam veterans. Suggests that forming partnerships for learning is beneficial and successful and that using modern technology is the key to student motivation. Recommends student involvement in instructional television as a means of inspiring learning activities.…

Suggests that educational researchers can strengthen history education by promoting educational equity and access to students not motivated by traditional approaches to teaching history. Discusses changes being considered for history education. Explains that some students may interpret primary sources or relate them to historical trends through…

Discusses changes in history textbooks and historical research during the past three decades. Asserts that popular history and social history are emphasized much more than in the past. Recommends that teachers experiment with new ways of teaching history, including using photographs, music, and other primary sources. (CFR)

Illustrates how U.S. history and geography teachers can locate supplementary materials for teaching about immigration using the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) database system. Cites 11 documents containing units of study, lesson plans, and class activities. (NL)

Provides background information for two Supreme Court decisions that can be used to teach the concepts of due process and student rights. Lists vocabulary and suggests document analysis and student research activities. Includes a copy of the Goss v. Lopez decision and explains how school systems are required to provide students a minimum of due…

Maintains that most history teachers perpetuate the stereotype of the Puritans of colonial history as a dour, austere, intolerant group. Contends that recent historiography indicates that the Puritans laughed, treated Native Americans and African Americans with respect, and enjoyed music and other cultural pleasures. (CFR)

Contends that the typical approach to immigration in U.S. history may not be interesting or exciting to students. Describes an interdisciplinary program using primary sources and computer databases to encourage student participation and enhance academic achievement. Includes three appendices with information and raw data used in the program. (CFR)

Presents a lesson plan based on primary sources about the home in which William Howard Taft was born and grew up. Provides student objectives, instructional procedures, and suggested student activities. Includes two documents, two map exhibits, three student readings, and two photographs. (CFR)

Argues that active learning should be the goal of every teacher. Contends that this can be achieved through the use of cooperative learning, attention to learning styles, and hands-on strategies. Includes a lesson plan utilizing audiovisual aids. (CFR)

Presents a lesson plan built around the life and career of Anna Kingsley. Kingsley was an African slave who married her former owner, acquired freedom, and became a prosperous businesswoman and landowner in the Spanish colonial territory of Florida. Includes reproductions of primary source documents. (MJP)

Describes a teaching unit composed of two Web-based activities which draw upon authentic, primary sources available on the Library of Congress American Memory Web site (http://memory.loc.gov). Discusses the problem-based learning framework, the "prompt," links to selected information sources, and testing the unit. (AEF)

Focuses on the use of primary sources to help students learn about children from the past. Offers resources and teaching ideas on topics such as children living during the frontier, the American Revolution, the U.S. Civil War, slavery and civil rights, and immigration. (CMK)

Advanced Placement social studies courses are being used more and more to improve the credentials of college applicants. Those teaching these courses are under increasing pressure from parents and school administrators to allow more and more students to take the AP courses and to improve the AP scores of students. The present standards movement…

The pedagogic value of using archival holdings for the teaching of history has long been appreciated. Using primary sources in the teaching of history transcends the rote learning of facts and figures. It encourages critical thinking skills, introducing students to issues of context, selection and bias, to the nature of collective memory and to…

This essay aims to provide beginning and experienced history teachers as well as history teaching methods professors with a helpful strategy designed to improve students' knowledge of historical content and competence in historical thinking. It introduces a systematic approach to the use of primary sources which emphasizes the "doing" of history,…