Teaching U.S. History Thematically

This book offers the tools teachers need to get started with an innovative approach to teaching history, one that develops literacy and higher-order thinking skills, connects the past to students’ lives today, and meets Common Core State Standards (grades 7–12).

The author provides over 60 primary sources organized into seven thematic units, each structured around an essential question from U.S. history. As students analyze carefully excerpted documents—speeches by presidents and protesters, Supreme Court cases, political cartoons—they build an understanding of how diverse historical figures have approached key issues. At the same time, students learn to participate in civic debates and develop their own views on what it means to be a 21st-century American. Each unit connects to current events and dynamic classroom activities make history come alive. In addition to the documents themselves, this teaching manual provides strategies to assess student learning; mini-lectures designed to introduce documents; activities to help students process, display, and integrate their learning; guidance to help teachers create their own units; and more.

“Full of thought-provoking questions, engaging primary source documents, and an impressive array of classroom activities, this is a must-have resource for history teachers looking to stay relevant in our modern learning landscape.”
—Diana Laufenberg, lead teacher and executive director, Inquiry Schools, Philadelphia, PA

“A useful resource for novice and experienced history teachers, social studies teacher educators, homeschooling, and community educators. I am excited to use it in my college classes; this is required reading!”
—LaGarrett King, University of Missouri

“A remarkably thoughtful and engaging aid to teaching U.S. history. Using carefully chosen primary documents, Metro raises pointed questions that will help teachers and students alike wrestle with the place of the past in the present.”
—Jill Lepore, Harvard University