Art can be of great benefit for students to learn about history. This article presents results of a three-year research project at the university level on the use of specific examples from the arts for a variety of courses in U.S. and European history as well as a course on history methods. All the examples used consisted of images (painting and…

In this article, the authors trace their writing instruction through the 2016-2018 school years. They begin by describing how they framed the foundations of historical work and the importance of this framing for the later production of historical narratives. Then, the authors discuss how they integrated traditional literacy instruction with…

World history education as a type of cultural production has expanded globally in the past thirty years. This article surveys world history as a component of curricula in universities, colleges, and precollegiate schools in several parts of the world. The author argues that teachers and scholars in the United States pioneered this field and that…

While the move away from the Western Civilization survey and towards the World History course was done with a sincere desire to blunt or end the Eurocentric historical narrative, for a variety of reasons, the narrative and its anti-Muslim bias has persisted, especially in the textbooks. The process of grafting additional narratives onto the core…

History departments at many colleges and universities offer upper-level courses that focus upon the craft of the discipline. These stand-alone methods classes often lack the specific time period and geographic region that typically anchor history curriculum. Although most graduate programs in history provide in-depth exposure to historical theory,…

Historical thinking, a term that encompasses a diverse set of definitions and competencies, calls on students to replicate the work and cognitive processes of historians by analyzing and interpreting evidence and making logical conclusions based on this evidence. Given this emphasis on discipline-specific skills, "sources" (especially…

In this article, the author details an undergraduate senior seminar titled "History and Literature," for which the main project was a close reading of a big book: Victor Hugo's Les Misérables (1862). Despite reservations about the style of the material, the "great books" approach to teaching, and the challenge of compelling…

While standards and assessments demand that students be able to recall content information, planning guides direct teachers to prioritize the development of transferable skills and understandings, and scholars of education have spent the past century debating the purpose of history instruction without approaching consensus. The field is still…

Analytical reading and writing are embedded in a disciplinary approach to history instruction and present opportunities to extend students' literacy practices. U.S. educators and researchers have come to rely on the Document-Based Question (DBQ) to assess and develop students' historical knowledge and argument writing. However, this task has been…

Some historians still hold back from assigning literature out of concern for historical accuracy, but using fiction and popular culture is no longer unusual and, if anything, using novels may be seen as outdated in some circles. The author suggests that one way to reinvigorate the use of the novel when teaching history is to center a class on only…

Efforts have been made among scholars from Japan, South Korea, and China since the 1980s--on both private and state initiatives--to narrow the gaps in their historiographies and to cultivate mutual understanding. This article offers an extensive discussion of the author's history project, "A Student Project of Writing a Common History…

The purpose of this article is to give the history teacher who is interested in or passionate about music--but nervous about transforming that passion into a useful classroom lesson--some resources, tools, and ideas to begin incorporating music into their teaching. It will focus on what is arguably the most difficult musical genre to teach with:…

This article offers a case study on the history of the tattoo in the United States and the rise of American imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century. It models how high school history teachers can use the tattoo to teach about the rise of American imperialism. It also illustrates the author's primary argument: American imperialism fueled…

In this article, the authors detail a curriculum unit used by Ms. Brown and a second English Language Arts (ELA) teacher, Ms. Smith, with their high school students. The unit centered on a comparative genocide framework developed by the Comparative Genocide Project at Arizona State University. The framework detailed seven key themes common across…

In particular, the study of history--its scope, reliance on analytical narrative, and methodology of tracing change and continuity over time--provides for an exchange of meaningful narratives. As historians Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier argue, "All cultures, all peoples, tell stories about themselves, and it is these stories that help…