Jonas’s suggestions are excellent. I’ve been impressed with the Prentice Hall history texts that I’ve seen, and I use one in my US history class.
I don’t always meet this goal, but every year I try to read at least one thick, serious book about something that I’ll be teaching that year. It keeps me fresh, gives me a deeper understanding of the material, and often supplies me with good anecdotes and illustrations for my classes. It really puts a kick in my teaching.
Of course, finding time to read is hard (it’s gotten a lot harder for me in the last few years), but I’ve found that every little bit helps. Ten minutes a day, an hour a week, whatever. Audiobooks can help with this, and public libraries, even modestly-sized ones, often have surprisingly good selections of them.
I also incorporate the art, architecture, literature, and music of the period and place being studied into my lessons. It adds color if nothing else, and often increases understanding significantly. Much of the time it doesn’t even take very long. Just dash over to Wikipedia, snag some pictures of paintings or buildings or whatever, scrutinize carefully for appropriateness (that inadequately-clothed sculpture in the corner of the picture is easy to miss until its a foot tall on the screen in front of the students), and throw it on a PowerPoint.
That reminds me, I’m a big fan of Wikipedia for all the stuff besides the articles (which are often pretty good, too, as long as you remember what they are). Pictures, maps, footnotes, links—that’s where the good stuff is.
