Teaching high school history with picture books can enliven social studies content, advance students’ higher-order thinking skills, and help facilitate differentiated instruction.

Picture books often address complex topics and can provide a visually arresting approach for teaching secondary as well as special needs students.

This ninth-grade inquiry invites students to analyze arguments about banning certain books while also asking them to consider what makes a book worth reading.  

Rare or out-of-print children’s books such as the one featured in this article offer a unique glimpse into the early twentieth century and can be used to launch a lesson on urban culture in the Progressive Era.

The featured photographs, in conjunction with a New Deal-era report about Puerto Rico, can inspire a provocative classroom debate about the use of terminology, historical vocabulary, and the meaning of “progress.”

Investigating the iconic photograph of the flag raising at Iwo Jima in light of recent corrections to the roster of Marines pictured can spotlight for students the dynamic nature of historical interpretation.

Walt Whitman’s featured letter on the conditions at a Union army camp when he went in search of his wounded brother can serve as an engaging launch point for a classroom lesson on the Battle of Fredericksburg and the Civil War.

Teaching students about the history and patterns of authoritarianism can help bolster our own collective awareness of the vulnerability of democracy.

Papers of Ulysses S. Grant Now Online  In October 2017, The Library of Congress put the papers of Ulysses S. Grant online for the first time in their original format at https://www.loc.gov/collections/ulysses-s-grant-papers/about-this-collection/. The Library holds a treasure trove of documents from the Civil War commander and 18th president of the United States, including personal correspondence, “headquarters records” created during the Civil War and the original handwritten manuscript of Grant’s memoir— regarded as one of the best in history—among other items. The collection totals…

Students can learn a great deal about the economic, social, or strategic importance of a place when they examine maps, such as the featured 1910 Sanborn map of South San Francisco.