SS Practice #3

The Reading Like a Historian curriculum engages students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features a set of primary documents designed for groups of students with a range of reading skills. This curriculum teaches students how to investigate historical questions by employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on historical issues and learn to make historical claims backed by documentary evidence. 

Social Studies Generation (SoGen) is comprised of three six-week sequences around topics commonly included in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade social studies content standards. These curricular materials can be used in place of the standard curriculum materials, or as a supplement. They provide opportunities to read, write, discuss, and build arguments about central concepts in social studies.

This study drew on observations of 40 secondary English language arts, history, and science lessons to describe variation in opportunities for students to engage in argumentation and possible implications for student engagement and learning.

By actively investigating the past, rather than passively memorizing ready-made facts or accounts assembled by others, students strengthen their critical reading and writing skills, and improve their ability to handle and retain vital content information.

Educators can find a series of lessons from ReadWriteThink on supporting students' ability to determine the meaning of words within the context of reading.

The DBQ Project was founded in 2000 to support teachers and students in learning to read smart, think straight, and write more clearly. As teachers, we believe all students can develop high-level critical thinking skills if they have consistent instruction and a chance to practice.

Read. Inquire. Write is a process that Structures Routines for Inquiry, Student Talk, and Argument Writing Through a Set of Disciplinary Literacy Tools. This downloadable curriculum creates a process to support middle school students' argument writing through reading of sources and analysis of complex social and historical problems.

This page provides several different resources that teachers can use to help students analyze primary source documents. 

From the Stanford History Education Group, these lessons support the development of civic online reasoning. Free registration is required.

The resources on this site are designed to strengthen civil society through First Amendment and Media Literacy Education.

This ASCD article from Educational Leadership focuses in on close reading.

This section of the Annenberg Learner's course on disciplinary literacy focuses teaching students to think and read like an historian or social scientist.

This article discusses adapting sources for classroom use allows teachers to steer students toward authentic historical inquiry and away from a version of history determined exclusively by the textbook.