Free U.S. History Course for High School Students 

U.S. history is more than a timeline of names, dates, and events. It is the story of people, power, conflict, change, and the questions that continue to shape civic life today.

Khan Academy has updated its free U.S. History course for high school learners, with support from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation. The course now brings together rigorous historical content, clearer lessons, stronger practice, and more support for reading and writing.

What is included in Khan Academy’s U.S. History course?

The course includes nine units that guide students from Indigenous societies before European contact through modern debates over democracy, equality, and civic life.

Students will find reading, practice, and writing support connected to shared learning goals, including the following:

• Shorter, more focused lessons
• 150 revised interactive articles
• More than 400 new practice questions
• Comprehensive unit overviews
• 25 Writing Coach essay assignments

Together, these updates help students move beyond memorization and toward deeper historical understanding.

Rigorous history, designed for high school learners

Khan Academy’s U.S. History course has always been known for its depth. The updated course maintains that rigor while also making the learning experience easier for high school students to navigate.

Lessons are shorter and more focused, helping students build knowledge one idea at a time. Articles have been rewritten for high school readers, with checks for understanding that encourage students to pause, think, and engage closely with what they are reading.

The goal is not to simplify history. It is to give students the support they need to read carefully, connect ideas, and make sense of complex historical questions.

Practice that builds historical thinking

The course now includes more practice questions than ever before that are designed to assess understanding, not promote memorization.

Students practice skills such as cause and effect, continuity and change, historical context, evidence, and interpretation. Practice is closely connected to the articles and videos in each lesson, so students can apply what they are learning right away.

That means practice feels less like a quiz on isolated facts and more like a chance to build the skills historians use.

Unit overviews that help students see the big picture

Each unit includes an overview to help students and teachers understand where they are in the larger story of U.S. history.

These overviews include maps, timelines, key vocabulary, and writing prompts. They help students answer important questions:

• What happened?
• When did it happen?
• Why did it matter?
• How does it connect to what came before and after it?

For teachers, the overviews can support planning, unit launches, review, and classroom discussion. For students, they make it easier to understand how individual lessons fit into a broader historical narrative.

Writing support with Writing Coach

The updated course includes 25 Writing Coach essay assignments that help students practice historical argument writing.

Students move step by step from claim to evidence to explanation, building the skills they need to write more clearly and confidently. Writing Coach gives actionable feedback, helping students improve their writing over time.

For teachers and students, Writing Coach assignments are free and can be used for writing practice, classroom discussion, or summative assessment.

How teachers can use the course

Khan Academy’s U.S. History course is flexible enough to support different classroom needs.

Teachers can use it as any of the following:

• A core instructional resource
• A supplement for an existing curriculum
• A review and practice resource
• Writing instruction support 

Because the articles, videos, practice questions, unit overviews, and Writing Coach assignments are connected to shared learning goals, teachers can more easily align instruction, practice, and assessment.

A good place to start is with the unit overviews. From there, teachers can explore the related lessons, practice, and writing assignments that match their goals.