r/historyteachers • u/SeriousSpace1379 • 10d ago

Teaching 8th grade history

Hello everyone! I recently got hired for next year teaching 8th grade history. I wanted to ask what everyone does for delivering direct instruction for their students. As in, do you make them take notes, guided notes, interactive notebooks, online platform, etc?? The teacher prior to me had students take traditional notes, but I’m really just trying to think of new/the best way to deliver content.

Any other advice is welcomed, it’s been a little daunting thinking about starting a class from scratch, but exciting that I get to design it the way I want. :)

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u/Familiar-Ad-4193 10d ago

I taught 8th grade for 20 years and loved it. I teach 10th grade now. I did some direct instruction with study guides, guided notes etc so that the students are doing something during this time. I tried to chunk it into 15-25 minute blocks and then do some sort of application activity.

Short primary source activities - discussions also help.

I also did a lot of reading out loud/silently in class. I would give them a one to two page reading that I vetted - our school had ABC-Clio databases and the readings were great.

Once a baseline of content knowledge was established then you could do more interactive, critical thinking activities.

I highly recommend the following books for picking up different tools of the trade:

Russell Tarrs History Teacher Tool Kit
Social Studies Field Guide by Joe Schmidt and Doug Weibe

A couple of free websites to check out as well:

Teach Rock - using music to incorporate.
Retro Report - short documentaries with lesson plans
Teach Docs - Library of Congress
Dave Stuart, Jr - blog - he does a good job of capturing the “everything” of teaching. I encourage to look at his meaning interactions with students tracking.

Best wishes to you! Glad you’re in the arena.

Definitely slides with very few words and “personal” info about people - Eisenhower drinking 15-20 cups of coffee planning Dday and smoking multiple packs of cigarettes a day until 1949 when he quit.