The case studies in this book describe the decisions and plans and the problems and possibilities middle and high school history teachers encountered as they ratcheted up their instruction through the use of big ideas, which offered both teacher and students opportunities to explore historical actors, ideas, and events in rich and engaging ways.

Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 The Evolution of a Big Idea: Why Don't We Know Anything About Africa? Chapter 3 Defining Success with Big Ideas: A New Teacher's Growth and Challenges Chapter 4 From the Holocaust to Darfur: A Recipe for Genocide Chapter 5 How I Learned To Stop Worrying about the Test and to Love Teaching Students to Write Well Chapter 6 Big Expectations: Big Ideas in Honors and Inclusion Chapter 7 Big Ideas: A Methodology to Engage Students Chapter 8 Reconstructing Reconstruction and History Chapter 9 Big Ideas and Ambitious Teaching: A Cross-Case Analysis Chapter 10 Implications

In Teaching History with Big Ideas, coeditors S.G. Grant and Jill Gradwell have compiled a series of powerful cases of ambitious teaching that highlight the challenging, complex, and messy world of working in a high-stakes testing environment. The cases cover a range of topics and experiences, different students, different contexts. Yet all of these teachers provide fascinating insight into their journeys as teachers, how they've thought about using big ideas in social studies instruction, and how they make sense of working in diverse contexts that all seem to value test scores, albeit in different ways. . . . This book clearly highlights how scary it is to move away from teaching to the test, but how rewarding and powerful that decision can be.