AI Projects for History Teachers

You are a history department chair reviewing a colleague's course, and I want the real gaps rather than reassurance.

Here is my full year: [paste your unit list, the major topics in each, and your assessments].
Course and grade level: [Ex. 10th grade World History]. My standards are [state or framework].

Do four things, in this order:
1. Tell me whose perspectives my course centers, unit by unit, and who appears only as a victim or a background condition rather than as someone making decisions.
2. Name the regions and periods my course skips entirely, and which of those omissions matter most for the story I am trying to tell.
3. Point out where I teach the same historical thinking skill over and over while another one never comes up at all.
4. Give me the three highest-value changes I could make without rebuilding the year, ranked by impact, with what each one costs me in time.

For any source, text, or event you recommend adding, give the exact title, author, and date, and say plainly if you are not certain it exists as described. Be direct.

Act as an instructional designer who works in backward design.

Here is the document-based question my students will answer at the end of this unit: [paste the DBQ, and the documents if you have already chosen them].
The unit runs [number] weeks. The course is [Ex. AP United States History], meeting [number] times a week for [number] minutes.

Work backward from that question:
1. List every piece of content knowledge a student must have before the DBQ makes sense to them.
2. List every skill it requires: sourcing, contextualization, corroboration, using evidence to support a claim, and anything else you see in it.
3. Sort the content and skills into the order they have to be taught, noting what depends on what.
4. Map that onto my calendar week by week, and tell me which week is overloaded.
5. Name the two checkpoints where I find out whether students are actually ready, and what each one asks them to do.

Do not write daily lessons yet. I want the skeleton first, and I want to know where it is too tight.

Turn this standard into a question students will actually argue about.

Standard: [paste it].
Course and grade level: [Ex. 8th grade United States History].
How long we spend on this: [number] days.

Give me five candidate questions. For each one:
- The question exactly as students will see it, in one sentence.
- The two positions a class is most likely to split between.
- The evidence a student would need to defend either side, and whether that evidence is in reach at this grade level.
- What the question quietly leaves out, so I know what I still have to teach directly.

Rules:
- Every question must be answerable more than one way from the historical record. If there is a settled answer, it is a comprehension question, not a compelling one.
- Nothing that collapses into a moral verdict a student can reach in five seconds.
- Keep the wording plain enough to put on the board.

Then tell me which of the five you would choose and why.

Write a substitute plan for one [number] minute period of [course and grade level].

Context: we are in the middle of [unit], students have already [what they have covered], and the sub has no history background and has never met this class.

Build it around a single primary source I can copy: [paste the source, or name it and I will confirm it].

The plan must:
- Move the unit forward. Not a word search, not a video.
- Require nothing from the sub except reading directions aloud and circulating.
- Include a graphic organizer students complete independently, plus a real extension for anyone who finishes early.
- Produce something I can collect and use the next day.

Give me: a timed agenda, the exact words the sub says to open class, the student handout ready to copy, the completed organizer as an answer key, and two sentences on what to do if the room gets loud.

If you are not certain the source exists as you describe it, say so rather than paraphrasing something into existence.

I have three days for a topic that deserves two weeks.

Topic: [Ex. Reconstruction].
Course and grade level: [grade].
Period length: [number] minutes.
What students already know that I can build on: [list it].

Do this:
1. Name the two things a student must not leave this topic without understanding, and say why those two rather than others.
2. Name what I am deliberately cutting, so I know what I gave up instead of discovering it in May.
3. Give me a three-day plan: one primary source or short document per day, the question of the day, and a ten-minute closing task.
4. Give me the single assessment question that tells me whether the two essentials landed.

Rules:
- Real, findable documents only, with exact title, author, date, and where to find them. If you are not certain a document exists, say so plainly.
- No day that depends on homework getting done.
- Keep the reading for each day under [number] words.

Build me a bank of 30 bell-ringers for [course and grade level], each designed to take five minutes at the start of class.

Here is my unit sequence for the semester: [paste it, in order].

Vary the type across the bank: this-day-in-history openers, map reading, a single photograph or political cartoon, a one-sentence source snippet, and a quick prediction or connection question.

Rules:
- Every bell-ringer connects to a unit in my sequence. Tell me which unit each one belongs to.
- Students must be able to start it without me explaining anything.
- Nothing that needs more than five minutes to review afterward.
- For every date, quotation, image, or event you name, give me enough to verify it (exact date, source, and where I can find the image or text), and flag anything you are not certain about instead of stating it confidently.

Format as a numbered list. For each: the prompt exactly as students will see it, the unit it belongs to, and a five-word note on what it practices.

Help me build one question my class returns to in every unit, all semester.

Course and grade level: [Ex. 9th grade World History].
My unit sequence: [paste it, in order].

Give me:
1. Four candidate throughline questions that genuinely work across every one of my units, not just three of them. For each, one sentence on what makes it hold up across the whole scope.
2. For the strongest candidate, a per-unit check-in: the version of the question that fits that unit's content, and the five-minute task students do to answer it.
3. A way for students to keep their answers over time (one running document or a wall) and the end-of-semester task that asks them how their answer changed.
4. The place in the semester where the question will feel forced, and what to do there instead of pretending it fits.

Keep the question short enough that students can say it from memory. Avoid anything that resolves into one right answer by November.

Here is a primary source my students need to read: [paste the full text, with title, author, and date].

Grade level: [grade]. Where this class actually reads: [Ex. about two years below grade level].

Produce:
1. An adapted version at [target reading level] that keeps the author's argument, stance, and tone intact. Shorten the sentences and modernize the syntax. Do not soften what the author actually says.
2. A gloss of every archaic or specialized word as a side table: the original word, what it means here, and the modern word you put in its place.
3. An honest list of what the adaptation lost: any nuance, hedge, irony, or shift in tone that did not survive.
4. Three questions worded identically for both versions, so students reading the original and students reading the adaptation can discuss together.

Do not add, explain, or interpret anything the author did not say. If a passage cannot be simplified without changing its meaning, leave it as it is and tell me why.

Write the headnote my students need before they read this document.

Document: [paste it, or give the exact title, author, and date].
Course and grade level: [grade].

Give me two short paragraphs, about [number] words total, covering: who wrote it, when, where, who they were writing to, what was happening around them, and why anyone kept it. Then one more sentence on what to watch for while reading.

Rules:
- Write it for students, not for me. Plain language, no term I have not taught.
- Do not tell students what the document means. A headnote gets them to the door, it does not walk them through.
- Every factual claim, date, and name has to be verifiable. List them separately at the end as a fact-check list, so I can confirm each one before I copy this.
- If you are not certain of a detail, leave it out and tell me, rather than filling the gap with something plausible.

Build sourcing questions for this specific document, not a generic worksheet.

Document: [paste it, with title, author, and date].
Course and grade level: [grade].

Give me three questions in each of these four groups, every one of them about this document by name:
- Author: who they were and what position they were writing from.
- Audience: who was meant to read it, and what that changes.
- Purpose: what the author wanted to happen as a result.
- Situation: what was going on that made this worth writing when it was written.

Then give me:
1. The question in the set that will be hardest for students, and the hint to have ready.
2. Two lines from the document that reward a sourcing read, quoted exactly, with what a strong student would notice about each.
3. A final question that can only be answered by a student who did the sourcing work.

Quote only words that appear in the text I pasted. Invent nothing.

I want students reading sources that disagree about one event.

Event: [Ex. the Boston Massacre].
Course and grade level: [grade].
What I want them arguing about: [the question at issue].

Give me four real, findable primary sources that genuinely conflict about what happened or what it meant. For each:
- Exact title, author, date, and format (testimony, newspaper account, engraving, letter, memoir).
- Where I can actually find it: archive, collection, database, or published volume, with enough detail that I can search for it.
- What this source claims that at least one of the others contradicts.
- What the author's own position gives them a reason to say.

Then give me the one question that puts all four into conflict, and the organizer students fill in as they read.

This part is critical: only sources you are confident exist. If you are unsure about one, say so for that source explicitly instead of guessing. Do not quote from any of them unless you are certain of the wording, and mark any wording you are not certain about.

Here is a dense excerpt my [grade level] students have to get through: [paste it, with title, author, and date].

Build the scaffolds that go around it:
1. Chunk it. Show me where to break it and why each break falls there.
2. For every chunk, one margin question a student answers as they read, phrased about this passage rather than about reading in general.
3. For every chunk, a one-sentence summary in student language they can compare their own against.
4. The three sentences in this excerpt that will stop students cold, each with a plain-English restatement beside it.
5. Two questions at the end that require putting two chunks together.

Rules:
- Do not rewrite the excerpt. The scaffolds sit around the original text.
- Every question has to be answerable from the passage itself.
- Quote only the author's actual words.

Build an analysis guide for this specific image, not a generic template.

Image: [describe it in detail, or paste the caption, artist, publication, and date].
Course and grade level: [grade].
Unit it belongs to: [unit].

Give me:
1. Four things to look for that are actually in this image, each named specifically (a figure, a label, a symbol, something in the background) with one sentence on why it matters here.
2. The context students need first, in two or three sentences, including anything in the image that only makes sense if you know what was in the news that week.
3. Two questions about what the image argues, and one about who it was arguing with.
4. The detail most students will miss, and the question that points them at it without giving it away.
5. One question that asks them to judge whether the image is fair to its target.

If you are not certain of the artist, publication, or date, say so and tell me what to verify. Do not describe details you cannot confirm are in the image.

Turn this document into a jigsaw for [course and grade level].

Document: [paste the full text, with title, author, and date].
Class size: [number]. Period length: [number] minutes.

Give me:
1. Four excerpts from the document, quoted exactly, each short enough to read closely in ten minutes. Tell me where each one starts and stops.
2. For each excerpt, two questions only that group can answer, and the one sentence that group has to be able to say to the rest of the class.
3. A synthesis task that is impossible unless all four groups report honestly, with the exact prompt students answer.
4. A timed agenda for the period: how long groups read, how long they report, how long the synthesis takes.
5. The reporting structure, so the sharing is not four monologues.

Quote only what is in the text I pasted. If the document is too short to split four ways, say so and tell me what else it needs.

Prepare both sides of a historical debate for my [grade level] class.

The question: [Ex. should the United States have annexed the Philippines].
The year and place we are arguing in: [Ex. the United States, 1899].

For each side, give me:
1. The strongest case a person of that time would actually have made, in their own terms and on their own assumptions, not a modern version of it.
2. Three pieces of real evidence they would have used, with exact title, author, and date, plus where I can find each one. Say plainly if you are not certain a source exists.
3. The two arguments that side considered unanswerable, and how the other side answered them.
4. The assumption underneath their case that a student today should notice and question.

Then give me any position held at the time that neither of my two sides represents, and a debate format for a [number] minute period with speaking times.

Do not make either side a straw man, and do not soften a position that is genuinely ugly. Students should see what people believed and why it convinced them.

Plan a Socratic seminar for my [grade level] history class on [document, event, or reading]. We have [number] minutes and [number] students.

What students have already read: [list it].

Give me:
1. One opening question that cannot be answered by summarizing, and that this class will genuinely split on.
2. Five follow-up questions in the order I should reach for them, each going deeper rather than sideways.
3. The exact move when the room goes quiet, and the exact move when two students take it over.
4. Three passages to have ready for pulling students back to the evidence, quoted exactly, with page or paragraph references.
5. One way to hold the quiet students accountable that does not put them on the spot in front of the room.

Then tell me what a good seminar on this material should end up arguing about, so I can tell afterward whether it worked.

Quote only from the text I named. If you are not certain of the wording of a passage, say so instead of reconstructing it.

I am teaching thesis statements in [course and grade level].

The prompt students are answering: [paste it].
The evidence available to them: [list the documents or the content they have].

Write six thesis statements for that prompt: three strong, three that look strong but are not. Do not label which is which.

The three weak ones should fail in different ways: [Ex. restates the prompt, makes a claim nobody would dispute, takes a position the available evidence cannot support, lists topics instead of arguing].

Then, separately, give me the answer key: for each one, strong or weak, the specific reason, and for the weak ones the smallest edit that would fix it.

Rules:
- All six sound like a real student at this grade, not like a textbook.
- All six are about this prompt and this evidence.
- One or two sentences each.

Also write the sorting directions exactly as students will see them.

Write practice prompts for [Ex. the AP World History long essay question] in the format of the exam.

Unit or period: [Ex. 1750 to 1900].
Skill I want to practice: [Ex. causation, comparison, continuity and change].
Number of prompts: [number].

For each prompt:
1. The prompt itself, worded the way the exam words it.
2. The evidence a student needs to answer it well, listed specifically.
3. A sample thesis that would earn the point and one that would not, with the reason.
4. The two most common wrong turns on a prompt like this.

Then tell me plainly which parts of the current exam format you are confident about and which parts I should check against the official course description and real released items before I hand these out. Exam formats change, and I would rather verify than give students the wrong task.

Do not invent a released exam question, and do not attribute a prompt to a specific year unless you are certain of it.

Give feedback on one student history essay. Read my rubric first, then the essay.

Rubric: [paste it].
Assignment: [paste the prompt].
Documents students were given: [list them].
Grade level: [grade].
Essay: [paste the essay with the student's name removed].

Respond with exactly this and nothing else:
1. Two specific strengths, each quoting the sentence or move that earned it.
2. The single revision that would most improve this essay, with one concrete example of what it would look like in this draft.
3. A specific note on use of evidence: where the student uses a document as proof, where they only mention it, and where they drop a quotation in without saying what it shows.
4. One question I should ask this student in a conference.

Rules: address the writing, not the writer. Do not rewrite it. No grade or score. Under 175 words. Quote only what is actually in the essay.

I want my [grade level] students to expect the objection.

Claims my students are making: [paste them, or paste one claim].
The unit and the evidence they have available: [describe it].

For each claim:
1. The strongest objection a serious person would raise, in one or two sentences.
2. The evidence behind that objection, named specifically, with exact title, author, and date wherever a document is involved. Say plainly if you are not certain a source exists.
3. What the claim has to do to survive the objection: concede, qualify, or answer it directly.
4. A weak objection students reach for instead, and why it does not do the work.

Then write the student-facing task: the exact directions for a ten-minute activity where they write the objection to their own claim and then answer it.

Do not soften an objection to be polite. The point is that it is genuinely hard.

Design a historical role-play for [course and grade level].

The situation: [Ex. a treaty negotiation, a trial, a town council meeting].
Date and place it is set: [when and where].
Class size: [number]. Time available: [number] minutes.

Give me:
1. [number] roles, each a position that really existed (a named person or a documented type of participant). For each: who they are, what they actually want, what they will trade, and what they cannot agree to without losing everything.
2. What each role knows that the others do not, and what none of them know yet.
3. The constraints of the moment: what is not on the table in this room in this year, and why.
4. A one-page role card per role, ready to hand out.
5. Debrief questions, including one comparing what my class decided to what actually happened.

Rules:
- No role can get everything it wants. A role with no real constraint is a costume.
- Ground each role in the record. Where you attribute a position to a real person, say what it is based on, and say plainly when you are describing a plausible type rather than a documented individual.
- Do not put a student in a role that asks them to argue for their own dehumanization.

Write a confident 500-word overview of [topic] for [grade level] students, in the voice of a published reference article.

Include at least six specific dates, four named people with a claim about what each one did or said, three direct quotations with attribution, two statistics, and one claim about how historians interpret the event.

Write it entirely from memory. Do not look anything up, do not hedge, do not mark anything as uncertain, and do not add a disclaimer.

I am asking for this on purpose. My students are going to check every date, quotation, name, statistic, and interpretive claim against real sources and find what you got wrong. So write it in a form they can audit: number every factual claim, one number per claim, so a student can mark each one verified, wrong, or unverifiable.

Do not correct yourself and do not soften anything. After my students have finished, I will come back and ask you to grade your own accuracy claim by claim.

Answer this contested historical question in about 400 words, written as a straightforward explanation for [grade level] students: [paste the question].

Write it as a single confident answer. Do not present multiple interpretations, do not hedge, and do not say that historians disagree. Give the version that would show up as a search result summary.

I am asking for this deliberately. My students are going to analyze it as evidence of whose interpretation gets treated as the default.

Then, in a separate section clearly marked for me and not for students, tell me:
1. Which interpretive tradition your answer came out of, and which ones it left out.
2. What a historian arguing the other way would say your answer assumes.
3. Two real, findable works that argue different positions on this question, with exact author, title, and date, and where to find them. Say plainly if you are not certain a work exists.
4. The three sentences in your answer where a choice got made and hidden.

Do not let the second section leak into the first.

I want my [grade level] students to see the difference between a summary and an argument.

Event or question: [paste it].
The historian we are reading: [author, title, date, and paste the excerpt].

Do two things:
1. Write a 300-word summary of the event, the kind a general reference source produces. Flat, comprehensive, no thesis. Do not reference the historian's argument at all, and do not borrow their framing.
2. Separately, for me only: what the historian argues that your summary does not, what they treat as the central problem, what evidence they lean on, and who they are arguing against.

Then write the student task: the comparison chart students fill in, three questions that get them to name the gap, and a closing prompt asking what an argument does that a summary cannot.

Quote the historian only from the excerpt I pasted. Do not attribute a position to them beyond what is in that text, and tell me if the excerpt is too short to show their argument.

Help me build a source-evaluation rubric that includes AI output as one of the sources being evaluated.

Course and grade level: [grade].
Source types students will place: [Ex. a primary source, a textbook chapter, a peer-reviewed article, a museum website, a documentary, a chatbot answer].

Give me:
1. Four or five criteria students judge every source on (Ex. who made it, what they were in a position to know, what checked it before it reached me, whether I can trace a claim back to something). Phrase each as a question the student asks the source.
2. What a strong, mixed, and weak answer looks like on each criterion.
3. Where AI output actually lands on each criterion, stated honestly, including what it cannot do at all: it cannot tell you where a claim came from, and it can produce a quotation that does not exist.
4. The student task: place every source type on the rubric and defend two placements in writing.
5. Three cases where the ranking is genuinely arguable, so the discussion is real.

Write the rubric student-facing, one page, no jargon.

Help me write the letter home before I teach a unit that generates phone calls.

Unit: [name it].
Course and grade level: [grade].
What students will read or view: [list the sources, including anything graphic].
My objective: [what students should be able to do by the end].
School context worth knowing: [Ex. the community, past complaints, district policy].

Write one letter, under 300 words, that:
- Says plainly what students will read and when.
- States the academic objective in the language of the standards, not the language of values.
- Explains concretely how disagreement gets handled in my room.
- Says what a family should do if they have a concern, and who to contact.
- Does not apologize for teaching the content and does not pick a fight.

Then give me the two sentences most likely to be quoted back at me, and a version of each that says the same thing with less room to misread.

I am about to teach [lesson or unit] to [grade level], and I want to be ready before the phone rings.

What students will read or do: [describe it, including the specific sources].
My objective: [state it].
What I already suspect will get questioned: [anything you expect].

Give me:
1. The five concerns a family is most likely to raise, worded the way a parent would actually say them, not the polite version.
2. For each, my honest answer in three or four sentences: what the assignment does, why it is there, and what I will and will not change.
3. Which of the five is a fair concern I should genuinely consider, and what a reasonable accommodation would be.
4. The line I should not cross in any of these conversations, and the sentence to use when I need to end one and bring in an administrator.

Do not write me talking points that dodge. If part of a concern is legitimate, say so, and tell me what an adjustment looks like that does not gut the lesson.

Build me a progress-report comment bank for [course and grade level].

The skills I report on are [Ex. sourcing, contextualization, using evidence, corroborating accounts, building a written argument, contributing to discussion].

For each skill, write five comments at each of these levels: exceeding, meeting, approaching, and not yet meeting.

Rules:
- Every comment names a historical thinking skill or an observable behavior. Never effort, attitude, or personality.
- Each one must be impossible to move to a different level without changing the words.
- Each includes a concrete next step tied to that skill.
- Use [NAME] as a placeholder so I can drop in a name and pronoun.
- Nothing that would embarrass a student reading it over a parent's shoulder.
- Two sentences maximum.

Group them by skill, then by level, so I can find one in ten seconds.

Help me write a proposal for [Ex. a field trip to the county historical society, or running National History Day in my classes].

Course and grade level: [grade].
What I want to do: [describe it].
Dates and time needed: [Ex. one school day, or six weeks of class time].
Cost, if any: [amount, and what it covers].
Who approves this: [Ex. principal, department chair, district office].
Format they want: [paste their template if there is one].

Give me:
1. The academic justification: which standards this serves and what students produce as evidence of learning. My standards are [state or framework].
2. The logistics section: schedule, supervision ratio, transportation, what happens to students who do not attend, and the fallback plan.
3. The assessment: exactly what students turn in and the rubric it is scored against.
4. The three questions my administrator will ask, with the answer to each already worked into the proposal.
5. A one-paragraph version for an email, in case that is all anyone reads.

Do not state a fee, a policy, or a district requirement as fact. Mark anything I need to confirm with the site or the district.

Help me debrief the unit I just finished while I still remember it.

Unit: [name it].
Course and grade level: [grade].
My notes: [dump everything, including what flopped, what ran long, what students asked, and how the assessment went].
What I would call the goal of this unit: [state it].

Give me:
1. What the evidence in my notes actually says worked, kept separate from what I think worked.
2. The three changes worth making next year, in priority order, each written as a specific action rather than an intention.
3. Which of my problems was a pacing problem, which was a materials problem, and which was a task-design problem, because those get fixed differently.
4. The one thing I should not change even though it felt rough, and why.
5. A short note to myself for August: what to read first, what to rebuild, and what to leave alone.

Ask me up to three questions if my notes are missing something you need. Then keep the whole thing to one page, because a five-page debrief never gets reopened.