This happy student became a finalist in the National History Day “exhibits” competition. Sixth graders on Springfield, IL, prompted a new “Race Riot Walking Tour.” Middle-school students in Ohio did award-winning local research on sundown towns for National History Day. A lawyer in DE researched the “Reverse Underground Rail Road” and got two new state historical markers erected to tell about it. You can too! So can your students!
Resources for Doing History
- The final lecture of Loewen’s lecture series, “Rethinking Our Past,” is largely about how and why to do history yourself.
- In Lies Across America the final essay, “Getting into a Dialogue with the Landscape,” and Appendix B, “Twenty Candidates for ‘Toppling’” suggest ways everyone – not just students – can and should get involved in making local history more accurate and more just. The revised second edition gives examples of people who have done so.
- Chapter 4, “Doing History,” in Teaching What Really Happened tells how to get students doing history.
- “Does My Town Have a Racist Past?” helps teachers and students do history on sundown towns.
- “How To Confirm Sundown Towns” is the simplest how-to article.
- Keith A. Erekson, “Putting History Teaching ‘In Its Place,’” suggests ways to interest students at any age in doing history themselves.