Don’t Keep Them In Doubt [high school US History]

Don’t Keep Them In Doubt is the new Tennessee History for Kids booklet that meets the 11th grade U.S. history social studies standards.

Click here to purchase copies and here for its teacher’s guide.

Don’t Keep Them in Doubt is meant as a supplement to whatever U.S. history resource the teacher is using. It was created to help teachers and students cover the Tennessee-specific items in the high school U.S. history standards.

“This booklet is a great resource of TN history for any classroom teacher,” says Elizabeth Johnston, who teaches U.S. history in Shelby County.

The booklet is different than the previous 11th grade booklet, which was called Raise the Children the Best You Can. Each chapter of Don’t Leave Them In Doubt was written as if it is a “stand-alone history column” intended for high school audiences.

The booklet contains interesting, original and grade-appropriate chapters about topics such as Reconstruction, the Coal Creek War, World War I in Tennessee, the passage of the Nineteeth Amendment, the Scopes Trial, the Manhattan Project, Fayette County’s Tent City Movement and Sun Records.

“These Tennessee history handbooks are essential for history coming alive for my students,” says Terrence Cormier, who teaches U.S. history in Williamson County. “They are a great supplement to help students understand U.S. History from a Tennessee perspective!”

Each chapter concludes with a page of questions that tests whether the student understood the chapter–especially in the context of U.S. history. Students are expected to write in this booklets, which is one of the reasons they are priced at only $2 each.

The table of contents of the booklet makes it clear which standard (or standards) are covered in which chapter. The booklet is indexed and primary sources are in bold face.

The cover of Don’t Keep Them In Doubt features a photo taken inside the court room during the Scopes Trial. The photo, taken by the Chicago Tribune in July 1925 and now published for the first time in print, shows a Dayton, Tennessee, high school student testifying during the famous “Trial of the Century.”

The title of the booklet refers to a famous letter that Tennessee State Representative Harry Burn received from his mother on the day in August 1920 that he cast a decisive vote on the Nineteenth Amendment. “Hurrah and vote for suffrage!” Phoebe Burn told her son. “Don’t keep them in doubt.”

Click here for the Teacher’s Guide to Don’t Keep Them in Doubt.