TeachingHistory.org is an excellent source of lesson plans and other materials useful in teaching US History. Visitors to TeachingHistory.org will find resources appropriate for students in elementary school, middle school, and high school. One of my favorite resources from TeachingHistory.org is their historical thinking posters.

TeachingHistory.org’s historical thinking posters are interactive displays that guide students through the process of examining and thinking about history. There are two interactive posters available. The poster for elementary school is called Doing History is Like Solving a Mystery. The poster for high school students is called History is an Argument About the Past. Both posters include images of primary sources. Clicking on the images in the posters opens a series of guiding questions.

Screen capture of poster, visit TeachingHistory.org for the interactive poster.

Applications for Education
These interactive posters could serve as a good introduction to the research process. What I like about the posters is that they’re not focused so much on “how to find things” aspect of research but rather on the process of investigating and digging into what you have found. In other words, these posters could help students ask better questions that then help them search for things they might have otherwise ignored.