“Should be in the hands of every history teacher in the country.”— Howard Zinn James Loewen has revised Teaching What Really Happened, the bestselling, go-to resource for social studies and history teachers wishing to break away from standard textbook retellings of the past. In addition to updating the scholarship and anecdotes throughout, the second edition features a timely new chapter entitled "Truth" that addresses how traditional and social media can distort current events and the historical record. Helping students understand what really happened in the past will empower them to use history as a tool to argue for better policies in the present. Our society needs engaged citizens now more than ever, and this book offers teachers concrete ideas for getting students excited about history while also teaching them to read critically. It will specifically help teachers and students tackle important content areas, including Eurocentrism, the American Indian experience, and slavery. Book Features: An up-to-date assessment of the potential and pitfalls of U.S. and world history education. Information to help teachers expect, and get, good performance from students of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Strategies for incorporating project-oriented self-learning, having students conduct online historical research, and teaching historiography. Ideas from teachers across the country who are empowering students by teaching what really happened. Specific chapters dedicated to five content topics usually taught poorly in today’s schools.

Now in its fifth edition, Doing History offers a unique perspective on teaching and learning history in the elementary and middle grades. Through case studies of teachers and students in diverse classrooms and from diverse backgrounds, it shows children engaging in authentic historical investigations, often in the context of an integrated social studies curriculum. The premise is that children can engage in valid forms of historical inquiry—collecting and analyzing data, examining the perspectives of people in the past, considering multiple interpretations, and creating evidence-based historical accounts. Grounded in contemporary sociocultural theory and research, the text features vignettes in each chapter showing communities of teachers and students doing history in environments rich in literature, art, writing, discussion, and debate. The authors explain how the teaching demonstrated in the vignettes reflects basic principles of contemporary learning theory. Doing History emphasizes diversity of perspectives in two ways: readers encounter students from a variety of backgrounds, and students themselves look at history from multiple perspectives. It provides clear guidance in using multiple forms of assessment to evaluate the specifically historical aspects of children’s learning.

This work embodies the most thorough treatment yet made in this country of the subject indicated by the title. The book opens with what history is, the problem of grading history, and the question of aims and values. The aim of history teaching is "to make the world intelligible." Next, the subject of history in schools of Europe and the United States; then, the biographical approach and the study of social groups. Practical methods in making history real by using visualizations are discussed, along with textbooks and their use, collateral reading, the historical method, correlation, and examinations. The critical chapters--dealing with the meaning of history, with the materials of history, with the aims and values of history-teaching, and with the grading of history--are models of clear, logical thinking expressed in simple but concrete language.