Teaching California offers schools and teachers classroom-ready resources designed to engage students in exciting and inspiring investigations of the past.
The California Historical Society (CHS) worked with the California History-Social Science Project (CHSSP) to create Teaching California, an innovative and free online resource of instructional materials to support the implementation of California’s History-Social Science Framework. Funded by a grant from the California Department of Education and made for teachers in classrooms across the state, this program is designed to improve student reading, writing, and critical thinking, while inspiring them to discover the past.
Why Teaching California
The inspiration for Teaching California came from K-12 teachers who were excited by the changes brought on by the new Framework (adopted by the State Board of Education in 2016), but lacked the appropriate resources to implement its instructional approach within the curriculum. Needed resources included more access to engaging and relevant primary sources, organized to specifically (and easily) address the inquiry-based instructional model the Framework outlines. At the same time, CHS was looking for ways to increase the access and use of our vast California archival resources in the classroom.
Go to News & Events for more information on the creation of Teaching California.
Teaching California was developed by the California Historical Society and its partner, the California History-Social Science Project, two organizations dedicated to improving students’ understanding of the past and promoting inquiry, engagement, evidence-based interpretation, and student literacy.
This project required collaboration among archivists, librarians, historians, and educators. Diverse areas of expertise among the project’s core team helped develop Teaching California resources into powerful and dynamic pathways to learning, and we are excited to keep this unique process part of our continuing effort to make primary sources available to teachers.
The California Historical Society, founded in 1871, is a nonprofit organization with a mission to inspire and empower people to make California’s richly diverse past a meaningful part of their contemporary lives.
The California History-Social Science Project provides teachers professional learning and curriculum development. Part of the California Subject Matter Projects, our statewide network of scholars and K-12 teachers work collaboratively to meet the needs of English learners, native speakers with low literacy, and students from economically disadvantaged communities.
About the History-Social Science Framework
Teaching California helps teachers and school districts implement California’s History-Social Science Framework. CHSSP served as the primary writer of the Framework, which outlines an instructional approach that promotes student-centered inquiry and encourages students to develop clear and persuasive arguments based on their own interpretations of the past using relevant evidence. The Framework details how educators can teach history-social science to students, while at the same time help to develop student proficiency in English, as outlined in the Common Core and English Language Development Standards.
The instructional materials, or Inquiry Sets, focus on investigative questions from the History-Social Science Framework. Each Inquiry Set includes a collection of sources, historical background and context for the topic, and teacher and student source notes. One literacy strategy, directly related to a source within the Inquiry Set, is provided as an example of how history-social science teachers might approach reading, writing, listening, or speaking in the classroom.
These Inquiry Sets are intended to give teachers a strong start in making instructional choices aligned with inquiry questions from the Framework. Teachers may use these sets in their entirety or pick and choose which sources best suit their students’ learning objectives.
Contributors
California Revealed is a California State Library program that partners with public libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other heritage groups across California to digitize, preserve, and provide online access to primary sources documenting the state’s history, art, and cultures. Drawing on the strengths of an expansive collection featuring primary source materials from over 330 partner organizations, all freely accessible for education and research, California Revealed has developed a series of Teaching California Curated Themes to supplement several of Teaching California’s Inquiry Sets.
Teaching California is proud to include content from over 60 collections in California and across the US:
- Automobile Club of Southern California
- Biblioteca comunale dell'Archiginnasio, Bologna
- Black Gold Cooperative Library System
- California Digital Newspaper Collection, Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research
- University of California, Riverside
- California State Archives
- California State Library
- California State University, Dominguez Hills Department of Archives and Special Collections
- California State University, Los Angeles
- California State University, Northridge
- California State University, Sacramento, Department of Special Collections and University Archives
- Chapman University Archives and Special Collections
- Comune di Bologna Istituzione Biblioteche
- David Rumsey Map Collection
- Hoover Institution Library and Archives
- Ilka Hartmann
- Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia
- Library of Congress
- Liz Mangelsdorf
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art
- Los Angeles Public Library
- Los Angeles Times
- Mariner's Museum and Park
- Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park
- Mission Santa Ines
- National Anthropological Archives
- National Museum of African American History and Culture
- National Museum of American History
- National Museum of the American Indian
- National Park Service
- National Portrait Gallery
- New York Public Library
- Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library
- Oakland Museum of California
- Oakland Public Library, Oakland History Room and Maps Division
- ONE Archives, National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries
- Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology
- Prelinger Archives
- Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
- San Francisco State University, Labor Archives and Research Center
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Society of California Pioneers
- Stanford Libraries
- State Library of Massachusetts
- Sylvia Mendez
- The Bracero Archive/ Smithsonian National Museum of American History
- The British Museum
- The Claremont Colleges Library
- The Cultural Conservancy
- The J. Paul Getty Museum
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, San Francisco
- UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library
- UCLA, Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library
- United States Senate
- United Students Against Sweatshops
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries
- University of Oregon Libraries
- University of Pittsburgh, Archives & Special Collections | University Library System (ULS)
- University of Southern California, California Historical Society Collection
- University of Southern California, East Asian Library
- University of Southern California, Jerry Berndt Collection
- Virtual Jamestown, UVA Digital History
- Yale University Art Gallery
Homepage banner image citations: (Left) Del Valle family picnic, Rancho Camulos, Ventura County, California Historical Society, (Center) Two Rosies, Labor Archives and Research Center, (Right) Buddhist temple, Terminal Way, Terminal Island, California Historical Society