Hello! I am a history teacher located in Massachusetts and teach 11th grade world history. In my district/state this consists of post World War II to present world and US history. I have yet to find a textbook that covers this era alone… They usually will also have reconstruction, World War I, World War II, etc., and the relevant sections needed for what I teach are minimal. I am looking for a high school appropriate textbook (not too complex) that covers this well. Recommendations???

Thanks!

My observation is next week and I am making a station activity that ties up a week and a half of studying apartheid, the civil rights movement, and the women's rights movement. My essential question is "What causes political & social changes in a society?" and the answer to that is:

1. Oppression and Injustice
2. Leadership and Organization
3. Grassroots Activism and Collective Action
4. External Pressures and Alliances
5. Legislation and Institutional Change

I need primary source examples of oppression (think images, cartoons, shorter witness statements, charts) to use for my first station that explores this topic. I tried googling resources, but can only find pro-civil rights sources. I think google probably has this topic filtered to stop people from encountering terrible stuff, but this is an important part of the process of political change.

Hi everyone, I am a first year teacher teaching 20th century U.S history. I am wondering if anyone has any materials or activities they have done about 1950's society? It seems like there are a number of topics to cover. This will be a 1 day (70 min class) lesson so I do not have a ton of time to cover everything in much detail but think it is important to highlight some things. Some ideas I have are analyzing some ads on gender roles, American Dream, or suburban life. Watch clips of I Love Lucy or Leave it to Beaver. But there are a number of Civil Rights issues I would like to cover to set up our civil rights unit so I am going back and forth. Any help or advice is appreciated!

My father is a huge Churchill fan and general history buff. We’ve talked about a father son trip to England (from US) as well as going to see Normandy where my grandfather was in WWII.

I think my father would really appreciate the opportunity to meet and discuss history and Churchill in greater detail than what we could likely find from any tourist group. I’m reaching out here in hopes there may be some sort of scholar or professor who lives in England and would be willing meet or help gain access or insight to more unique and special aspects of history. If anyone has any suggestion it would be appreciated.

Hi everyone! With the holidays around the corner, and because we have two weeks off from school, I’m giving my students a movie assignment to complete over break and have several films on the list. This list was stolen from my coworker but I want to give the kids more options. Any good recommendations? For context I teach a 10th grade global class so anything global related (staying away from US) is helpful. Im not a movie person and im definitely not a history movie person (i chose Barbie over Oppenheimer) so looking for help from you lovely people. I have attached a list below of the movies already added. Thank you!!! 1917, Midway, Schindler’s List, Dunkirk, Suffragette, Bridge of Spies, Unbroken, Victoria & Abdul, Darkest Hour, The Zookeeper’s wife, Hacksaw Ridge, I’m going to show Hotel Rwanda in the Spring

So I read the dear America book series and a lot of them mentioned sewing things like important papers and even coins into their skirts, was this a common practice? I've never heard of it, and how practical is it? Like I can't imagine what it looks like because the books never describe it! I looked it up but didn't get much of an answer.

Often times I can get science and math students into history by making it into a problem to solve or focusing on the scientific method behind historians. But I'm woefully unable to connect historical content with artistic students.

So I'm wondering if any of you have types of activities or even just buy in angles for artistic students?

Here are some things that I've tried:

One lesson per unit examining the artwork of the era.

Allowing students to make a storyboard instead of a timeline / summary

Having students find or create songs or song lyrics that might relate to or even be about his historical events (crazy hard)

But the fact of the matter is I can't really find a great way to get students into history who loved the arts. any thoughts?

Traditionally, American History A goes from the Pre-Columbian Era through the Civil War, and American History B is Reconstruction to the Modern Era. If you have trimesters or whatnot, your mileage may vary.

Here in Minnesota, we have to implement new social studies standards starting in the 26-27 school year. American History's standards have been broken down into nine "eras."

After wrestling how I want to reorganize my class, I thought I could do four eras for one semester and five eras for the other one. With the way the calendar works, it seems like it would be easiest to wait on the Civil War (Era 5) until the beginning of Semester 2.

Which brings me to my original question: How blasphemous would it be to end the first semester with Westward Expansion and start the second half of the year with the Civil War?

I guess I'm asking Massachusetts educators specifically but I also value any advice from anyone! My specific question is, do you research the content you use to fulfill the state standards or is there some sort of master book you must pull from? If it is the former, any advice or resources you can recommend? This may be a silly question but just as I will tell my future students, it's important to ask these questions or you'll be clueless! Thank you and hang in there, we're aaaaaalmost to winter break!! (current para here)

Yesterday we had a curriculum meeting and one of the high schools in our district swears our students don't need ancient history in our world history course because they remember it from sixth grade. They can't get through everything they need to get through.

The second of three schools went along with them and our world history curriculum for sophomores will now start at at the medieval world.

My school (the third of three high schools) thinks it's ridiculous. We've never struggled completing the curriculum which goes from the beginning of civilization to just past WWII. The students also don't remember anything from sixth grade. I find it negligent to drop them into the medieval world without all the context of what came before.

I'm curious to know your thoughts on all of this, as well as where you start and end your curriculum.

Hi everyone I’m looking for this event game that I use as a simulation in my classroom. It involves students cutting pictures of vegetables and turning them in for a reward. It also involves them getting taxed by lords knights and kings. I had it on my old school computer but forgot to transfer it to my new school. Can anyone help or lead me to the right place?

Modern world history teachers: if you’re not having your students take part in some kind of Reign of Terror simulation, you’re completely missing out.

Cutting off the heads of my students (paper avatars), who couldn’t follow the rules of the Republic, was among the most enjoyable and cathartic activities I’ve ever done. This was my third year doing the activity and I’m disappointed in myself for not discovering it sooner.

If you’re interested, we did a variation on this activity: https://www.mtsd.k12.nj.us/cms/lib5/NJ01000127/Centricity/Domain/1084/Reign%20of%20Terror%20Simulation.doc

Admittedly, the students get more caught up in trying to figure out who the spies are, rather than just following the rules and living virtuously. And it can become disruptive in other classes. But it is really fun to read the list of charges against little Billy (who has been a thorn in your side the whole semester) before lopping his head off. Even better when the rest of the class is hooting, hollering and laughing with you. You can get clever and play some death metal in the background to help set the mood as well.

Cannot recommend enough.

(On mobile; apologies for any formatting issues.)

Hello! Any suggestions for lessons/materials about the Absolutist monarchs?

Thank you!

crowdsourcehistory.wordpress.com

Hi everyone!

I am in my last semester at in California getting my credential in Social Sciences and my friends and I have created this database for crowdsourcing lesson planning resources. My goal in this is to make sharing documents, images, historical records easier so we can plan better, more intriguing lessons.

Wanted to link it here in this sub in case anyone wants to utilize it or submit their own resources. It is all ran by me and most of the resources are submitted by me and my friends. Our program focuses on intersectionality and untold stories, so you will find a lot of unique resources and topics. It is organized by California standards of Ethnic Studies, U.S. History, Government and World History.

Let me know what you think and I hope at least someone can get some use out of this besides just my friends as we make our lesson plans for finals and start student teaching next semester.

Looking for any lessons or assignments on the rise of totalitarianism before WW2.

Thanks!

Can anyone help me wrap my head around the HRE. I’m struggling with creating a lesson around HRE and its relationship to the church. Any suggestion for high school world history?

6th grade Ancient World teacher here! I'm currently in my second year, and struggling a bit with lesson planning. My typical class structure consists of either taking guided notes, reading, or watching short video clips--then students get their assignment. I try to sprinkle in projects when I can, but my group this year is quite rowdy and reluctant to put forth any effort to complete anything.

I was wondering if there are any more effective ways of giving instruction that you all have found? I find that many "inquiry based" lessons are not successful with my group, whether it be for lack of trying or low ability.

TLDR; Any other strategies for instruction outside of notes/readings for a group who can't handle the "fun stuff"?

Hi, I created a project that describes conflicts on an interactive historical map.

Main goals of the project:

• Help students understand historical context.
• Demonstrate events from different points of view.

I started by adding content about the Russian-Ukrainian war. For this, I used texts from Russian and Ukrainian school textbooks.

🔗 geoconflicts.org

I would greatly appreciate any feedback!

I’m a 9th year history teacher, this year I was assigned ethnic studies. I’m a bit lost as to what to teach in each unit or how to pace the course and the content in general. Someone in my department helped me make a course outline which is huge but I don’t feel like the best teacher when I don’t even know the content.

I am looking for resources to learn the material so I can teach it to the students. Or even other ethnic studies teachers to talk to about the class.

I am referring specifically to Midway, Second Battle of El Alamein and Stalingrad. How can I make an interactive activity that will address why these battles were significant?

I usually base my lectures on the analyses of particular sources I manage to find. In this case, I have so far found the statistics on Japanese and American industrial capabilities, as well as the number of sea vessels they had, which I can use to demonstrate the impact of the losses at Midway.

For other battles, I am searching and am a bit lost finding interesting or demonstrative sources.

I will be grateful for any help you may provide.

Hello yall I’m currently in my last semester of my credential program before student teaching. For my final in one of my classes I have to teach a lesson to a class at the school my professor teaches at. Originally it was supposed to be a 90 min lesson but we were just informed by my professor her school is changing their finals schedule last minute and now I will only have 35min to teach my lesson. It’s next Wednesday so I still have time and I am working on cutting down the lesson, but any advice for such a short lesson? It was for a 10th grade class and the lesson was on the Rise of Imperial Japan, covering the Perry expedition to the Meiji Restoration. Thank you for any help you can provide :)

Hi all, I’ve hit a bit of a dilemma today in making a new bulletin board. My class is in the thick of the Roman Empire right now, and I thought a fun way of displaying our class expectations with the “6 Tables of Class Law”, a take on the 12 Tables of the Roman Republic. I even made a classroom standard banner, with the eagle and our legion name (class number). I added the Roman fasces, because it seems to be everywhere in our textbook plus it’s a tie into our content.

However. After I put it up and took a step back, it looks Il Duce himself put it up. I removed the fasces, and put columns instead, but I’m still worried it looks like I’ll be seeing “local teacher arrested for Nazi imagery, claims it was Roman” on the news later.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I am about to graduate with a BA in political science at a CSU university and want to become a teacher in history or government. Can I bypass the CSET or do I have to take it?

Hi! I just inherited a classroom this week and I’m teaching 7th grade Civics and 6th grade US history. Does anyone happen to have any resources in Spanish and/or Russian? I have a couple students in each period who do not know any English and I’d like to have some references for them.

I did find a couple of good ones in Spanish, but I’m having a really hard time finding anything that is age appropriate in Russian.

In my social studies class I do a LOT of direct instruction. It works very well for the students who already like that sort of things but others either get distracted or just fall asleep. I don't want to move away from my direct instruction because it is a strength of mine and truly believe it's essential to this material. HOWEVER, I'm a gigantic nerd and hyper fixated on basically my entire curriculum. I can listen to a 4 hour lecture on a Saturday and consider that a Saturday well spent. Obviously, most of my kids are not to that level of obsessive interest. What do my fellow direct lecturers do to diversify what they are doing/facilitate discussion?

I teach a group of students that can get very rowdy very quickly if left unattended so I would love to just facilitate more directed discussion and talking because that generally gets students pretty excited without setting them up to go wild.

Any tips are welcome.

My school is understaffed to say the least, so my formal observation will be the one day of my choosing around the last two weeks of the semester. My classes are semester classes so they would have already taken the EOC. So I’m thinking give dates that I will doing the final test review and make it into a competitive game. Because I will have no more lessons left. Has anyone been in the situation? Or does anyone have formal observation tips?