Resources for Teaching History Creatively
Here is a typical table from the US. Census for Indiana. Students may need a little help understanding it, but they can learn a lot from so doing. Help them find the overall population of “Negroes” in Indiana, compared to “Others.” What seems to be happening? Where are the African Americans? Compare, say, 1890, or 2020. Lots to think about, with the help of the book Sundown Towns and other parts of this website. And that’s just one table!
Samples from Lies My Teacher Told Me
- Read the Introduction
- Read the Table of Contents
He has several topics and can work with you for what you need.
Resources for Teaching with Lies My Teachers Told Me
- Someone invented a trivia game based on my research about the Nadir of Race Relations. They did a great job. Play it here!
- A wiki supplement to Lies My Teacher Told Me with many good questions, videos, and other resources for teachers.
- History Through Red Eyes: A Conversation with James Loewen [PDK International]
- Preface for Chinese Edition of Lies My Teacher Told Me proves too hot for Chinese publisher to handle.
- Sam Wineburg, Abby Reisman, and the Stanford History Education Group: Reading Like a Historian.
- Restoring the Past
- Digital History
- Zinn Education Project
- American History Websites
- Lee Formwalt’s Seven Rules for Bringing Life to the History Class.
- Loewen, “Afraid of the Past?”
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Loewen’s next book, Lies Across America, has short chapters that prove useful for high school students who are slow readers. Also useful is the “Young Readers’ Edition” of Lies My Teacher Told Me.
16 Very Short Articles on How to Teach History, for K-12 Teachers
The NEA (National Education Association) asked me to write a series of short articles for their members on how to teach difficult historical topics tied to race relations. These topics can be tough to teach because textbooks do a poor job with them, because they are sensitive issues, because current controversies (such as about Confederate monuments) mean parental emotions can run high, and for other reasons. However, glossing over these issues sends exactly the wrong message: that these topics are not important, just the opposite of the truth. I hope these essays will be useful to you.
Some of the essays are posted, in slightly different form, at the NEA’s website.
Introducing the Series
Essay 2: How to Teach Slavery
Essay 3: How to Teach Secession
Essay 4: Teaching about the Confederacy and Race Relations
Essay 5: Confederate Public History
Essay 6: Reconstruction
Essay 7: Getting History Right Can Decrease Racism Toward Mexican Americans
Essay 8: Problematic Words about Native Americans
Essay 9: How and When Did the First People Get Here?
Essay 10: The Pantheon of Explorers
Essay 11: Columbus Day
Essay 12: How Thanksgiving Helps Keep Us Ethnocentric
Essay 13: American Indians as Mascots
Essay 14: How to Teach the Nadir of Race Relations
Essay 15: Teaching the Civil Rights Movement
Essay 16: Getting Students Thinking about the Future
Teaching the "Great Explorers"
In K-12, students learn the pantheon of “Great Explorers”: Prince Henry the Navigator, Bartolomeu Dias, Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, etc. Soon most forget which explorer did what (except Columbus, who “discovered America”), but they do think of them as Great White Men, our forebears. Always, the question to be asked is, what did they do when they got there?
- Lies My Teacher Told Me About Christopher Columbus
- Lies My Teacher Told Me About Christopher Columbus selected as one of ten “Engaging & Informative Books About American History.”
- “Here is how one Advanced Placement U.S. History teacher approaches Columbus.”
“Native American Educator in Utah recommends Lies My Teacher Told Me as alternative treatment of ‘Explorers and Indians.’”
Visual U.S. History for Your Use in Teaching
Here Loewen has combined various visuals he used in his talks and workshops, for your classroom use. Many are in the public domain. Some I took, and I hereby make them available, rights free, though it would be nice if you credit “James W. Loewen” in any published or e-published use. They are grouped in a roughly chronological manner under several headings.
- PowerPoint of “Indigenous People and Explorers”
- PowerPoint of “Civil War and Reconstruction”
- PowerPoint of “Nadir and Sundown Towns”
- PowerPoint of “Civil Rights Struggle and Vietnam and Iraq”
- PowerPoint of “The Importance of High Expectations”
- Additional Photos Related to the Nadir of Race Relations and Sundown Towns
Teaching Slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction
- “Methods for Teaching Slavery to High School Students and College Undergraduates in the United States”
- The longest essay in Lies Across America, “No History To Tell,” tells what’s wrong with how most slavery plantations present their pasts. High school students can use it to critique their textbooks, as well.
- Using Confederate Documents to Teach About Secession, Slavery, and the Origins of the Civil War
- 5 Myths about Why the South Seceded
- The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader
- Loewen Reviews an Art Exhibit that Gets it Wrong
- Getting the Civil War Right
- Several short essays in Lies Across America can help students critique their textbooks’ treatment of the Civil War. All five essays on Louisiana supply a quick tour of how badly we discuss race relations in that important state.
- Baltimore’s Real News Network Interviews Loewen about When and Why Baltimore Put Up So Many Confederate Monuments and What To Do About Them Today
- Loewen Suggests Ten Questions Students Can Put To The Account Of Secession in The American Journey
Resources for Teaching World History
The focus of Lies My Teacher Told Me and Teaching What Really Happened is U.S. history, but two readings are particularly useful to teachers of world history:
- Chapter 7, “Why Did Europe Win?” of Teaching What Really Happened
- Lies My Teacher Told Me about Christopher Columbus, the standalone “poster book.”