Examining documents in the classroom related to an 1885 case filed by four African American sisters challenging segregation on a steamship can springboard into an interesting debate about civil disobedience and peaceful protest.

Decades of curriculum research have uncovered a persistent trend: white people are depicted as dominating the history of the United States, whereas communities of color and their experiences are omitted or misrepresented in social studies textbooks and curriculum standards. The message the resulting curriculum sends to children is that the United States is a country of white people, and people of color have little or no place in it. The author presents silenced-yet-powerful stories of three Americans—girls of Indigenous, Chinese, and Mexican ancestry—who fought for equal education in America…

The Inquiry Design Model offers an instructional framework that enables students to exercise control and agency in their social studies inquiries.

Learning the early history of U.S. government is often confusing for middle school students. In this article, the author describes the use of the book We the People and the President to give seventh-grade students a deeper understanding of government

This year’s award-winning Carter G. Woodson books present stories about an African American World War II soldier and artist, a Mexican American community’s fight against segregation, and a book about the wrongfully accused Scottsboro boys.

The three approaches to teaching about the legacies of nuclear development outlined in this article can advance students’ critical literacy skills as they analyze artifacts of popular culture.

The featured document from a parade to celebrate the Constitution can serve as an engaging entry point into a lesson about the founding document and the campaign for ratification in 1788.

The U.S. government document issued during World War I to a German immigrant and Civil War veteran can launch a classroom exploration of federal policies on national security and the rights of immigrants.

The examination of the two featured pages of a 1921 House anti-lynching report can facilitate an engaging inquiry into the continued absence of a federal lynching law as well as historical efforts by lawmakers and civic groups to promote justice and change.