Blog Table of Contents

Hello and welcome!

Important Note: since I wrote most of these posts back in 2014-2015, many of the links in these posts are broken. I am working to fix them (albeit slowly). So if you find ones that I haven't fixed yet, reach out to me on LinkedIn or message me here on Substack and I can help you.

Most posts below contain links to assignments and lessons I have created or adapted from other teachers, as well as links to other websites with great stuff, so if you're in a rush, just skim through to get to the links. Some posts list them most at the end.

See also posts I wrote for Middleweb.com. My current work can now be found on Substack.

MY UNITS IN U.S. HISTORY & CORRESPONDING POSTS

Beginning of the Year/First Day/Why Study History?/Why what we do matters

• The first day: Why study history?
• A Passion for History: the Key to Great Teaching
• Lesson ideas: September 11, History & Memory
• The Last Day of School
• The Responsibilities of History Teachers in Difficult Times
• Teaching US History and the Common Core: Content or Skills?

Columbus/Contact and Colonial America

• Teaching Columbus
• A Method for How to Plan a Unit Using Essential Questions: Colonial America
• Teaching about Colonial Slavery
• The Rise of Political Independence in the North American Colonies
• Do Dates Really Matter? Historical Thinking & the French and Indian War

American Revolution

• Lesson Ideas for the American Revolution
• Ideas for Teaching the Declaration of Independence: Text, Storytelling and Long-term Signficance

Constitution

• Constitution Day: A Plea about How NOT to Teach the Constitution
• How to organize a Constitution Unit
• Teaching Ideas for the Constitution: Getting Students to READ the Constitution
• Using the Constitution & Current Events to Understand Federalism
• Ideas for Teaching about the Constitution: Representative Government
• Ben Bradlee, Freedom of the Press and the Digital Age - I wrote this after reading the obituary of Ben Bradlee, the former editor of the Washington Post. There are ideas here and resources for teaching about freedom of the press and some things about social media and elections.

The New Nation/Early National Period

• The New Nation: the Problems & Pitfalls of a Challenging Period in American History and Using George Washington's Farewell Address to Help Frame the Unit - This post includes a unit plan overview. The beginning of the post talks about the problem of getting students to "relate" to history.
• Teaching about slavery BEFORE the Missouri Compromise
• The Market Revolution: Moving towards an Industrial Economy
• Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ebola and U.S. History - while this post was perhaps more relevant last year in response to the outbreak of ebola in West Africa, the connection to the early 19th century and slavery is relevant whenever you teach about slavery during this period.
• The Challenges of the "Indian Problem" for Andrew Jackson... and for History Teachers

Antebellum America

• Seneca Falls, the Women's Movement, and Tying It All Together with Essential Questions
• see also the post above about slavery 
• On to the Civil War... - the first paragraph of this post explains why I don't have more posts about this enormously important period in U.S. history. (Just got too busy).  

The Civil War & Reconstruction - 

I apologize that I don't have posts on the Civil War. Someday. But check out all the usual great resources: SHEG (Stanford History Education Group), GilderLehrman.org, and Digital History.  

• No Villain, No Idiot, No Saint: Thinking about Ferguson and Teaching Reconstruction
• Reconstruction, continued: Lesson Ideas, Links, Documents & Essential Questions for Reconstruction Unit
• Reconstruction: THE topic for our times?

 Industrial America, 1865-1900

• How to Handle the Post-Civil War/Reconstruction Period - this post contains a unit plan for the period.
• Biography and History, Rockefeller and Carnegie: Telling Stories to Grapple with Big Questions
• Immigration Today, Immigration Then - one of my briefer, less complete posts. But some stuff on late 19th century immigration, the anti-immigrant feeling that came about as a result, and current immigration statistics that help students put historical immigration into context.
• Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Another Famous Act of 1965: Immigration Since 1965 - this post does not cover the period 1865-1900, but if you like to spend a lot of time on immigration, you might want to take that "storyline" up to the present. This post could be useful for that approach. And it's a good way to squeeze in a really important aspect of U.S. history that often gets forgotten or lost in the curriculum as it is rather full with Civil Rights and Vietnam in the 1960s.

U.S. on the World Stage: Foreign Policy, 1890-1920

• The U.S. Enters the World Stage: Shift in U.S. Foreign Policy, 1890-1920 - This post describes how to not only introduce a unit on this topic & time period, but how it fits into a broader understanding of foreign policy throughout the 20th century.
• Realism & Idealism in U.S. Foreign Policy - a continuation, really, of the above post. Describes how to teach students ways to evaluate the criteria US policy makers use in foreign interventions and war.
• The Annexation of the Philippines: An Abberation in U.S. History?
• World War I

The Progressive Era

• Second Semester & the Importance of a Good Syllabus: How to Help Students Find Meaning in U.S. History - In addition to the description implicit in the title of this post, there is info here about how the Progressive Era fits into the 20th century as a whole and planning out the second "half" of US history (20th century to present).
• Progressivism: Big Ideas for Beginning Your Unit - touches on overall issues/themes of Progressive Reform
• Progressivism Continued: One way to Tame the Tyranny of Coverage...Plus, a few thoughts on Paris - This post looks at how I have taught the Progressive Era in the past, specifically how to avoid covering every little law and reform that was implemented. Plus there's some thoughts about the shootings that took place in Paris because that had just occurred when I wrote the post.
• "A Steam Engine in Trousers:" Teaching about Theodore Roosevelt
• The Progressives and the Environment: the Beginning of the Conservation Movement
• Black Migration to the North
• W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington and Black Americans during the Progressive Era - This post is not just about DuBois and Washington. Also includes stuff on Langston Hughes, the NAACP, Ida B. Wells, lynching and African American history in general. 

The 1920s 

• The Roaring 20s and Its Dark Side - yes, stuff here on the fun stuff. But also ideas for teaching the rise of the KKK, immigration quotas, Henry Ford, prohibition, etc.

The Great Depression and the New Deal

• Do's and Don'ts for Teaching the Great Depression and the New Deal

World War II

• Some Thoughts on Class Participation, Role Play and How to Approach World War II in a U.S. History Class
• Could the U.S. Government Have Done Something to Stop, or at Least Minimize, the Holocaust?

Post WWII Cultural Change

• Spring, Social History and Suburbia: Teaching about Social Change in the 1950s

The Cold War

• The Cold War Today: Connecting Past and Present - ideas on the unit in general, McCarthyism, Cuba and connecting the Cold War to the present even now that the Cold War is technically "over"
• To Lecture, or Not to Lecture: That is the Question ...along with Some Ideas for Teaching the Cold War - lesson on what caused the Cold War and lesson on the Korean War

The Modern Civil Rights Movement

• The Top 8 Mistakes Teachers Make When Teaching the Modern Civil Rights Era And a Few Suggestions on How to Fix Them
• History = One of the Humanities Thoughts on Making History More Interdisciplinary And Using Poetry and Music to Teach about the Civil Rights Movement as an Example
• History & the Movies: Selma
• Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Another Famous Act of 1965: Immigration Since 1965

Vietnam

• Vietnam
• Another great resource for teachers. . . and more on Vietnam

Post Vietnam and the 1970s

• How to End the Year... Making Sense out of the Seventies to the Present
• Lesson Ideas: September 11, History & Memory

Other topics:

Homework

• Thoughts on Homework in the History Classroom
• More Thoughts on Homework in the History Classroom

Using Film in History Class

• History & the Movies: Selma
• Pass the Popcorn: the Use and Abuse of Film in History Class

Culture/History Wars, Controversy about Teaching U.S. History

• Patriotism for grown-ups
• What Gets Lost in the Controversy over the New APUSH Framework

Current Events

• Using the Constitution & Current Events to Understand Federalism
• Tips for Teaching about Current Events in US History Class
• Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ebola and U.S. History - This post is a good example of how to make a connection to a current topic in the news. While the outbreak of 2014 is no longer current in the U.S. news cycle, it is still a problem in West Africa. This doesn't mean that you have to teach about it, but it may give you an idea about how to connect other things. 
• No Villain, No Idiot, No Saint: Thinking about Ferguson and Teaching Reconstruction

Approaches to Teaching History/Issues History Teachers Face

• A Passion for History: the Key to Great Teaching
• History = One of the Humanities. Thoughts on Making History More Interdisciplinary And Using Poetry and Music to Teach about the Civil Rights Movement as an Example
• To Lecture, or Not to Lecture: That is the Question ...along with Some Ideas for Teaching the Cold War 
• Some Thoughts on Class Participation, Role Play and How to Approach World War II in a U.S. History Class
• How Do We Teach about History's Tragedies? - This is a post I did for another blog, Middleweb.com, but I really like it and think it applies to U.S. history teachers, whether you teach middle school or high school.
• The New Nation: the Problems & Pitfalls of a Challenging Period in American History and Using George Washington's Farewell Address to Help Frame the Unit - While most of this post is about the specific content, the beginning of the post talks about the problem of getting students to "relate" to history and the problem of depth vs. breadth in unit planning.
• Teaching about slavery BEFORE the Missouri Compromise 
• The Challenges of the "Indian Problem" for Andrew Jackson... and for History Teachers - why teaching about U.S.-Indian relations is complicated.
• Now That It's Summer...What to Read? - summer reading, professional development.

African American History

• Teaching about Colonial Slavery
• Teaching about slavery BEFORE the Missouri Compromise 
• No Villain, No Idiot, No Saint: Thinking about Ferguson and Teaching Reconstruction
• Black Migration to the North
• W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington and Black Americans during the Progressive Era - This post is not just about DuBois and Washington. Also includes stuff on Langston Hughes, the NAACP, Ida B. Wells, lynching and African American history in general. 
• See also the posts above under "Civil Rights"
• Reconstruction: THE topic for our times?

Unit Planning, Lesson Planning & Essential Questions

• The New Nation: the Problems & Pitfalls of a Challenging Period in American History and Using George Washington's Farewell Address to Help Frame the Unit - This post includes an example of how to plan a unit on the early national period.
• How to Handle the Post-Civil War/Reconstruction Period - this post contains a unit plan for the period 1865-1900.
• Second Semester & the Importance of a Good Syllabus: How to Help Students Find Meaning in U.S. History
• Progressivism: Big Ideas for Beginning Your Unit
• The 7 Things All Good Lessons Have in Common: A Checklist for History Teachers
• Some Thoughts on Class Participation, Role Play and How to Approach World War II in a U.S. History Class - this is a good example of planning a lesson around an essential question.
• The First "Half" of U.S. History: How to Get through Reconstruction by the End of the Year/First Semester - this post contains a calendar for planning out the first half of the course.

Importance of Biography

• Biography and History, Rockefeller and Carnegie: Telling Stories to Grapple with Big Questions
• "A Steam Engine in Trousers:" Teaching about Theodore Roosevelt
• Do's and Don'ts for Teaching the Great Depression and the New Deal (see the suggestions on FDR & Eleanor)

Miscellaneous

• Looking through the Trick-or-Treat bag for History: Ideas for Teaching about Halloween
• A Passion for History: the Key to Great Teaching
• Lesson ideas: September 11, History & Memory
• Now That It's Summer...What to Read? - summer reading, professional development.
• The Last Day of School
• Reading Aloud in History Class