The most professionally useful organizations to join:
1. National Council for the Social Studies ( www.socialstudies.org
)
2. Organization of American Historians (if you teach American History) ( www.oah.org
)
The OAH Magazine of History and their conferences place much more emphasis on the secondary
teacher than other professional history organizations.
3. Your state Social Studies Teacher organization (in SC, www.sccss.org
)
Annual conferences are a valuable inspiration!
4. Christian Educators Association International ( www.ceai.org
)
This is for Christians in non-Christian schools. They run conferences and provide some resources to
Christian educators.
5. When applying to a school district you’ve never been to before, go to www.schooldigger.com
to do your homework BEFORE your interview. You will find all the important stats about the district
and school.
Professional cyber-networking communities to join:
H-Net: http://www.h-net.org/lists/
Sign up for an unlimited number of listservs where you enter into conversation with scholars from all sorts of fields you might be teaching. They are mainly content focused, but some are methodological, like there is one for “Teaching High School History and Social Studies” and one called “Teaching and Learning History.”
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/
Create your profile, and join the “History Teachers” group. Like the two listservs above, you will be able to post any history teaching-related question to your network of friends for feedback.
Professional secondary Social Studies teaching e-newsletters to stay informed about your career:
About.com: http://712educators.about.com/
From this page you can sign up for Melissa Kelly’s e-newsletter about teaching in high school. It contains a wide range of practical ideas and tips for handling things from assessments, to discipline, to lesson planning ideas.
NCSS Smartbrief: http://www.smartbrief.com/news/ncss
Twice weekly you receive a selection of articles about current event in Social Studies teaching. VERY interesting.
Websites for Global History teachers:
(sign up for free e-newsletters or visit these sites frequently.)
Der Spiegal : http://www.spiegel.de/international/
From this page you can sign-up for e-newsletters from this leading German newspaper.
New York Times : www.nytimes.com
The nation’s leading newspaper, especially for world news coverage. At least check their website regularly, if you don’t sign up for their free emails of the headlines.
Economist : www.economist.com
World class reporting of world news, including unique perspectives on U.S. news. At the bottom of the homepage click on “newsletters and alerts”, then on the right of the next page click on “How to sign up for newsletters and alerts.”

British Broadcasting Company: www.bbc.co.uk
At the bottom of their homepage you can click on “E-mail news” to sign up for their free emails. They have great coverage of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. You can get emailed headlines covering just certain regions, so a great tool if you’re teaching Global Studies & need to keep current.
World Press Review : www.worldpress.org
This is a MUST in order capture the “voice” of the press from places like Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Subscribe to the magazine if you can, or you can get the free online newsletter. This source translates news stories from the magazine and newspapers of the world into English.
The Jerusalem Post : www.jpost.com
Israel’s largest circulation English-language newspaper.
Al Jazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/
A prominent, independent, English-language Arabic newspaper.
For a Christian Perspective on the News
The World: www.theworld.org
The website for the public radio program of the same name. The run a Monday-Friday 60 minute news show on news from around the world. Check your local listings or listen to the podcasts on the website.
The Christian Post: www.christianpost.com
Sign up for daily newsletters from this website. You will learn of news of interest to religious people that NO
ONE else is reporting!
Christianity Today: www.Christianitytoday.com
News and thoughtful commentary on culture and world events from a Christian perspective. Offers free enewsletters.
Miscellaneous Professional Development Organizations
National Council for Economic Education: www.councilforeconed.org
If you end up teaching Economics, join this group.
South Carolina Center for Teaching about Asia (at Furman): www.furman.edu/sccta
If you have to teach Global Studies, this center offers seminars and travel opportunities for teachers to strengthen their knowledge about Asian countries.
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History: http://www.gilderlehrman.org/
They have primary source documents on their website, but they also run seminars for teachers and have several other resources for teachers.
Facing History and Ourselves: http://www.facinghistory.org/
You MUST attend one of their summer seminars if you get the chance!! It was probably the single most significant professional “continuing education” experience I ever had, in terms of its impact on my thinking about my content, and how I actually taught.
Council on Islamic Education: http://www.cie.org/index.aspx
They sponsor workshops for teachers and have lesson plans and other resources. Their material is designed to present Islam in a positive light.
National Center for History in the Schools: http://nchs.ucla.edu/
Housed at UCLA, they publish helpful history teaching materials.

SPICE: Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education: http://spice.stanford.edu/
Housed at Stanford University, this program creates and sponsors many high quality teaching units and programs for those teaching about the non-western world.
Miscellaneous Teaching Resources (lesson plans, primary sources, website reviews, etc.)
National History Education Clearinghouse: http://teachinghistory.org/
“Designed to help k-12 teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. History education in the classroom.” This is a gold mine of virtually everything of interest to U.S. History teachers, from information on state standards to website reviews to lesson plans and more. They also offer a free e-newsletter.
Stanford History Education Group: http://sheg.stanford.edu/rlh
This site has many adaptable “Reading Like a Historian” lesson plans for U.S. and world history that are based on the latest research on how historians think. Truly excellent plans!
The Effective Educator: http://effective-educator.com/home/classroom-resources-for-teachers/ap-us-historyresources/ap-us-history-powerpoint-lectures/
50+ ready-to-use Power Points and 50+ lesson plans and other material for teaching U.S. History, especially AP, but it can be adapted.
Teaching History with Technology: http://thwt.org/
A great way to incorporate interactive technology into your instruction.
Asia Society: www.asiasociety.org
If you follow the “Education & Learning” tab you will find some interesting secondary school lesson plans. If you’re ever in NYC, visit their museum.
Movie jigs for American History: http://www.ethicsineducation.com/Movie%20Jigs.htm
This is a VERY useful site analyzing great movies about US history for the high school classroom. There is scene-by-scene advice on the appropriateness of these key films for the high school classroom, with suggested discussion questions.
Rubric Writing: http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php
Want some help writing a rubric? This is the site!
Federal Reserve Bank: http://www.ny.frb.org/education/highschool.html
If you end up teaching Economics, check out the resources of the Federal Reserve Bank on this website. But also check out the programs for teachers and students offered by the closest branch of the Federal Reserve, in
Atlanta (or Charlotte). Students hear about the Fed on the evening news, so they really should learn about what it is and does in school!!
History Matters: www.historymatters.gmu.edu
This is a portal that contains links to hundreds of American history-related websites that are rated for their content and strengths and weaknesses. A gold mine for U.S. History teachers.
Dr. Jonathan Watson’s History Links: https://profiles.google.com/jonathan.watsonhstory/about#jonathan.watsonhstory/about
Post-1877 U.S. History websites.
Avalon Project: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/default.asp
This is a primary source goldmine for all the most important political documents in western civilization.
Internet Modern Sourcebook: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.html
Although this portal tends to have some dead links, it has excerpts or complete copies of almost every conceivable important political and social document in western and non-western history.

This is the link to the page listing all the digital collections of the Library of Congress, and links to other online digitized collections. Humongous!
National Archives: www.DocsTeach.org
This is a website contains digitized versions of several documents held by the National Archives & Records
Administration. You are able to bookmark documents, and even use the website to design lesson plans.
Documenting the American South: http://docsouth.unc.edu
This is the ultimate website for digitized primary sources relating to Southern history, including emphases on religious and African American history.
BELIEVE Religious Information Service: http://mb-soft.com/believe/indexaz.html
This website has 7,000 footnoted articles on nearly every historic detail of Christianity. Quite well done! If you need to review any particular doctrine, the history behind a controversy or term, or anything, it’s probably on here . . . and all sides of the issue.
The site for anything on the Supreme Court!
Black Past: http://www.blackpast.org/
Tons of great primary sources and information on African American History.
World History and Genocide: http://bylochacon.com/Home.html
Post 1750 world history information. This is chock full of all sorts of useful information. Contains very useful reviews of books and films on a variety of post-1750 topics.
The Choices Program: http://www.choices.edu/index.php
This website is full of lesson plans about history and current events that are very useful and well done. This site is sponsored by Brown University.
US History Scene: http://www.ushistoryscene.com/
A website of lesson plans and digital resources prepared under the auspices of “top tier” university history departments.
Ultimate History Project: http://www.ultimatehistoryproject.com/about.html
A collection of articles on various subjects written by scholars. They are all free for the first two months after being posted, then they go behind a paywall, and all article over 2 months old can only be read if you pay the annual subscription of $25.00.
The Teaching Channel: https://www.teachingchannel.org/
See great lessons demonstrated.
Best of History Websites: http://www.besthistorysites.net/
A portal with annotated links to over 1200 history websites.
Digital History Reader: http://www.dhr.history.vt.edu/modules/us/index.html
Two sets of “modules” of primary sources with background information, key historical questions, and follow up questions and assignments. Designed for advanced high school history students and college survey classes. The modules cover United States and European history.
Edutopia: http://www.edutopia.org
This website reports on the latest K-12 educational practices that “work,” and are based on research.

Remember, all work-related expenses beyond 2.5% of your income are tax deductible, including dues paid to professional organizations, union dues, subscriptions to education-related publications, unreimbursed conference attendance expenses (only 50% for meals), and even, a percentage of your home internet bill. If 50% of your time online is for work-related purposes, 50% of your home internet bill is deductible. Also keep track of all the miles you drive for any school or professional function for which your school does not reimburse you. This mileage is tax deductible at the IRS’s constantly increasing rate, and this can add up quickly.