Examining the political activism of high school students provides a window to fully understand the rich history and resistance of young people of color from South Central Los Angeles who blazed the trail in many crucial battles during the civil rights era. Researching John C. Fremont High School's history shows that the high school reflects a…

"Why do people hate history classes?" That is a common question that the author, like countless other history instructors, poses to his students on the first day of class. From a recent survey of the author's "Introduction to Asian American History" course, which the author has taught at the University of California, Los…

There is a general perception that methods courses are not as interesting as upper-division content courses. The author admits that they were among those who believed this. In this essay, the author explains how they used backwards design to structure the "History Research Methods" course and how they scaffolded assignments throughout…

As a Social Studies teacher and LGBTQ+ educator, the author has explored and critiqued the shortcomings of inclusion in education, especially by exposing curricular patterns that neglect or oversimplify the identities of queer individuals, if not erase them altogether. Through leading workshops, the author has learned about the challenges faced by…

"Isn't this just common sense? I don't see the point of having to read this," a student in a pre-service introductory methods class groaned. In another class, a student questioned why so much space in an article was devoted to race, stating that it seemed unnecessary and was "common sense." While the pre-service teachers…

The purpose of this article is to discuss the opportunities and challenges of using students' personal narratives of the past as a vehicle and catalyst for learning history. The point of departure is a research project entitled "My Historical Backpack," conducted at Örebro University in Sweden since the fall of 2016. The project is a…

It was a quest that began over three decades ago when the author began teaching at the Owen Sound Collegiate and Vocational Institute (OSCVI) in 1984. The school had a long, storied history dating back to 1856 when it first opened its doors to students from Owen Sound and the surrounding area. As a teacher of a survey course in Canadian history…

Teaching about slavery entails teaching about the archive. Punctuated with silences, scattered with compelling details, and laden with descriptions that oscillate between racist, harrowing, and heartbreaking, runaway ads provide a glimpse into the lives of enslaved people. The details embedded within them--or omitted from them--can also provide…

Movements have been the driving force of social change through most of human history. Yet despite the important impacts that movements had in the past that led to a more just present, most Americans generally hold low opinions of movements. The authors see this as a major failing of history education. The authors argue for a need to center the…

A pioneer for women's rights and a prominent pop culture icon in a striking white collar, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is best known for her work on the bench; her fiery dissents and scathing arguments are legendary. Ginsburg's legal work in the 1970s marked a major advancement for women's rights, driven by the novel legal strategy she developed to…

In this article, the author describes their class, titled "The World in A Year: A Global History of 1948," that was created to give students exposure to a set of events that, when scaffolded strategically, highlighted themes and processes featured in most global history courses: imperialism, environmental change, social hierarchy,…

Food is perfectly positioned to link students' lives to the deep and broad historical forces around them. Like everybody else, students procure and consume food on a daily basis, use it to mark special occasions, share it with friends, enjoy or dispute it with families, all perhaps without ever considering its potential for historical analysis.…

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…

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,…

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…