Historical Thinking Skills

Historical Thinking Skills

Historical causation

• identify, analyze, and evaluate multiple cause-and-effect relationships in a historical context, distinguishing between the long-term and proximate causes.

Patterns of continuity and change over time

• recognize, analyze, and evaluate the dynamics of historical continuity and change over periods of time,
• relate these patterns to larger historical processes or themes.

Periodization

• describe, analyze, evaluate, and construct models of historical periodization that historians use to categorize events into discrete blocks and to identify turning points, recognizing that the choice of specific dates favors one narrative, region or group over another

Comparison

• describe, compare, and evaluate, in various chronological and geographical contexts, multiple historical developments within one society and one or more developments across or between different societies.
• identify, compare, and evaluate multiple perspectives on a given historical experience.

Contextualization

• connect historical developments to specific circumstances of time, place, and regional, national or global processes.

Adapted from College Board AP US History curriculum https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/ap/historical-thinking-skills.pdf