Teaching Resources

Secondary Education

National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies "The realities of global interdependence require an understanding of the increasingly important and diverse global connections among world societies. This theme prepares students to study issues arising from globalization. It typically appears in units or courses dealing with geography, culture, economics, history, political science, government, and technology." National Standards

Historical Thinking Matters HTM has an excellent short video on what historical thinking is and why it is important. It is a handy reference for teachers and can be shown to students as well. The site also has lesson plans and teaching materials designed to foster students’ historical thinking skills. Recommended Website

Beyond the Bubble Stanford History Education Group’s thought-provoking site on history assessments. The site has a series of “History Assessments of Thinking” that “gauge historical thinking in easy-to-use, classroom-friendly ways.” Recommended Website

Teachinghistory.org “Teachinghistory.org is designed to help K–12 history teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom. With funding from the U.S. Department of Education, the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) has created Teachinghistory.org with the goal of making history content, teaching strategies, resources, and research accessible.” Recommended Website

Center for History and New Media The Roy Rosenzweig Center is an educational resource for K-12 educators. These resources use datasets and visualizations to produce historical narratives. Recommended Website

Teacher.org Social Studies Lesson Plans Browse Teacher.org's comprehensive social studies lessons developed by educators from the United States. Recommended Website

Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) The Foreign Relations of the United States series is the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions that have been declassified and edited for publication. This digital version is a project of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. Documents

Digital Public Library of America The DPLA houses millions of primary sources, such as images, audio, texts, and videos, that educators can integrate into their lesson plans. Documents

Presidential Papers Explore the APP's comprehensive sources of presidential documents, including messages and papers of the presidents, as well as data involving midterm elections, first ladies, press briefings, and administration policy statements. Documents

Teaching American History TAH is a free resource that provides teachers with programs, primary sources, and discussion that can enhance classroom instruction on topics related to America's founding principles. Documents

Library of Congress Browse through the resources of one of the largest libraries in the world. The Library of Congress has a reservoir of primary sources, including films, audio recordings, maps, manuscripts, and photographs that can be incorporated into classroom instruction. Documents

Chronicling America Newspapers Explore millions of digitized newspaper pages contained in Chronicling America's database. These newspapers span from almost every U.S. territory and state, from their founding until 1963. Documents

Picturing U.S. History Picturing United States History not only provides visual materials to educators, but also lectures, essays, and classroom lessons that can be used for classroom instruction. Documents

Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations