Have you ever looked at catalogs and wished that you could find some classroom display materials that would stimulate a lot of thought and discussion about the nature of history itself -- instead of only about a limited topic such as the French Revolution? Have you wanted to find more mature display materials that would help your high school students feel that they are being treated as reasoning individuals nearing adulthood? If you are like me, you have decided that a lot of classroom displays for social studies are just too "elementary"-looking for high school students to appreciate. You have probably also longed for some permanent displays that could stay up all year and still be relevant every single day. The answer: Great Quotes about History These 48 famous quotations will stimulate thought and discussion even as they challenge students' preconceptions about what history really is, how it gets written, and why it can be interpreted so differently! I find my students looking up at them and studying them during pauses in instruction or when they have seat work to do. They also work as fantastic sponge and transition activities -- particularly if you print them out on a variety of different colors of paper. A great class starter is to challenge students to "find the orange quotation that most closely matches your view, and be prepared to explain why you agree with it." They can also be used as essay and debate topics, encouraging students all the while to do more than simply learn historical facts, but to reach a deeper understanding as to the role and purpose of history itself. Apart from any other instructional use, however, they make for a beautiful, relevant, and timeless set of classroom display materials -- these quotations are "evergreen" and will work well with any historical topic. WHAT YOU WILL GET IN THE ZIP DOWNLOAD FILE: Since teacher convenience and accessibility is a part of my whole philosophy, the full set contains: --a .pdf file to make sure that the pages will display as designed even if you lack the font I used --an editable .rtf file you can customize to suit yourself. I include this since you might want to add to the quotes as you see fit, change the font to an alternate you prefer, or switch away from black text if you have a color printer.

History and government never had it so good! These posters, each featuring a fascinating quotation from Alexis de Tocqueville, will help your students see fascinating aspects of the American character when it comes to issues of liberty and democracy. Instead of looking out into a sea of glazed faces, as is all too common in high school history and civics classes, get your students engaged and debating, using as a starting-off point one of the greatest students of American politics of all time -- even though he was a rank amateur! ABOUT ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE Alexis de Tocqueville was a Frenchman who traveled the United States during the early 1800s, writing down his observations about the American character -- particularly as it applied to freedom, politics, and government. His insights into the American mind were so profound that his great work, Democracy in America, is still studied today in both high school and college classrooms. De Tocqueville can be tough reading, however. With this set of classroom display posters and discussion starters, you can start having some great conversations with the whole class or small groups, but without wading through a lot of written material. Alternatively, these quotations can serve to reinforce and encapsulate the de Tocqueville selections your students may be reading! ENGAGE STUDENTS IN DISCUSSION These classroom display posters make for outstanding discussion starters about the nature of politics and democracy in the United States. All of the quotes are from Democracy in America, a ground-breaking work about the U.S. political landscape in the early 1800s. As you can see, de Tocqueville’s observations are still highly accurate and relevant today! ABOUT THESE DE TOCQUEVILLE POSTERS ----> Each poster is sized to fit onto an 81/2 x 11 sheet of paper so that teachers can use their usual classroom or personal printers to print them out ----> The thumbnails show four different border and font styles because you will get all of the posters in all four styles! ---->The download includes PDF files of all posters so that printing will be a snap. ----> The download also includes editable files (Microsoft Word .docx format) of all posters so that the entire Tocqueville classroom display set is completely customizable. Should you wish to change it to use your own fonts, colors, and borders, you'll have an easy way to do it. You can even add in additional great quotations if you like. ----> All posters are designed by default to use black lettering on a white background. This is so that teachers without color printers can produce crisp, clean posters. If you *do* have a color printer, however, it will be a simple matter to use a color font to jazz things up.