Group items tagged

"African American history stretches far beyond the confines of one month and the narrative litany of a handful of cultural heroes. Maybe you want to go beyond Martin Luther King, Jr., Frederick Douglass, and Jackie Robinson. What stories can you uncover beyond the headlining stories textbooks provide?"

The War Between the States was the pivotal event in our Nation's history. If you want only the facts about the conflict, any textbook will do. But if you want to understand the thoughts and emotions of the men who faced each other across the battlefield and those who waited for them at home, look to the poems and songs written during and after the War.

The Federalist Papers A nation without a national government. Nice way to cover fairly quickly but giving a decent look across more than papers 10 and 51

A concise look at democracy can be found at the most popular chapter of my free Internet Economics textbooks. http://www.textbooksfree.org/Economics_3_Basic_Characteristics_of_Capitalism.htm#VII._Political_Systems

Texas Freedom Network

Great article. I find myself everyday in the classroom wondering if my choice of content, my presentation of it, my choices of words, etc. leans to the left or the right. It's impossible to provide unbiased commentary, but I sure do try. Nothing is worse than a social studies teacher who insists on forcing their political views on students!

I hear you! I come from a background on the left, and sometimes quite suddenly when I'm explaining something to the class I'll hear my own voice and realise how partisan what I'm saying sounds. I found an excellent diagram of left and right ( http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/left-vs-right/ ) which I put up on the door so that at least the students might become more aware of the political spectrum and how it influences people's beliefs. Perhaps the best we can do is show the students how their political assumptions play out in their opinions so that as self-aware citizens they can at least make conscious choices... The right doesn't have much sway in education in Australia; I think the district board system over there in some areas (if you don't mind me saying...) gets hijacked sometimes by extremists by the looks of it. I've read some fascinating articles on how textbooks are approved in parts of the States which was quite surprising (the Intelligent Design debate I guess is an example).

This very useful site has been around for a while yet recently has updated its format and design. Excellent site for sources on American history.

Thanks for the link, David. Actually, the site now also has tons of world history content. See our Features on Chinese history, Indian history, Women's history, Islamic history, and more.

When teachers more broadly realise how many brilliant resources there are like this out there the days of the boring textbook lesson will be numbered!

You don't need a nook to make this work.

A very good example (I think) of how lms's (learning management systems - don't worry, I had to google it) such as Moodle or BlackBoard can be used with your history classes. Essentially every history teacher can take on the role of textbook writer, thus returning the teacher to the position of expert. And that's got to be a good thing! Well done Mrs Daniels. You're a trailblazer.

This group was too good to pass up bookmarking. It's a collection of over 2000 good-quality images of places and artefacts from the classical world. An ancient history teacher's dream. Why are people still buying textbooks?

What a great find! These are blogs where people post history resources, usually audio-visual sources. I'll never use a textbook again...

I keep plugging this bloke, but I've found these resources great for use in the classroom. He takes a 'flow' approach to history which the students respond well to. I've found it useful to edit and adapt the content in his resources, but they're MUCH better than your average simplistic textbook with 'exercises' at the end of the chapter. People don't learn in chapters.