SUMMARY
Historical teaching material is one of the medias in the form of printed material. Historical teaching material is important used in historical learning because historical teaching material contains some historical facts which can help to improve the students’ ability of historical explanation. The results of the research conducted shown that the use of historical teaching material is very minimum as well as the use of historical teaching material which contains local history. The implementation of historical teaching material uses the cooperative learning model namely problem based learning (PBL). Based on the existed theories, the cooperative learning can stimulate the ability owned by students including the ability to think critically and construct the existed knowledge of historical facts. Based on the things, it is needed to develop a historical teaching material which contains local history material to improve the Senior High School students’ ability of historical explanation. The method used in this research is quasi experiment with two classes divided into one controlled class and one experimental class. This research took the students of XI grade in SMA Negeri 1 Lawang Kidul the Regency of Muara Enim as the sample. This research tested the effectiveness of students’ ability of historical explanation and obtained the following calculation results: the post-test average of experimental class is 74,17 and the post-test average of controlled class is 65,67 and it continued with the results of T-test with a score of 4,510 and the significance average of 0,000<0,025.