Additional Resources

Curriculum Guidebook
The Curriculum Guidebook is designed to help orient educators to the materials—both their technical design and organization as well as the architecture of inquiry that shapes students’ learning over the course of a unit. The guidebook also includes suggestions for internalizing lessons and preparing to teach them. We recommend that teachers new to Investigating History start their journey here. 

2023-2024 Pacing Suggestions
This Suggested Pacing document is intended to provide rough guidelines for implementation of each Investigating History unit. Using these dates as general benchmarks for when to end and begin each unit can help ensure that you have ample time to address the entire curriculum over the course of the school year.

Design Specifications
The Curriculum Design Specifications document outlines the collective classroom vision that undergirds the Investigating History curriculum, describing what history and social science learning should look like for all students, and describes the materials' alignment with the latest research on teaching and learning in history and social science education. 

Professional Development Materials

Unit Launch Core Session Plans

The plans below lay out a two-day unit launch session that can be used to help participants orient to a unit before teaching it for the first time.

• Day 1: Facilitator Agenda, Slide Deck

• Day 2: Facilitator Agenda, Slide Deck

• Resources used in these sessions:

  • Assessment Flow Map: This document helps participants break down the content, skills, and other habits/capacities necessary for success on the summative assessment.

  • Unit Atlas Version 1 or Version 2: This document can be used to individually or collaborative make a "guide" to the unit as a whole, focusing on how each lesson contributes to the learning arc and support students in answering the supporting and essential questions and preparing for the summative assessment.

  • Lesson Internalization Road Map: This document can guide teachers through the process of internalizing an Investigating History lesson and preparing to teach it in their classroom. Optional "onramps" and "extra mile" questions help support an intentional focus on each stage of internalization.

Practice-Focused Modules

These modules are 90-minute deep dives into core instructional practices that are essential to the Investigating History curriculum. They are designed to be embedded into Day 2 of the Core Session Plan, but can also stand alone.

• Framing: Facilitator Agenda, Slide Deck

• Discourse: Facilitator Agenda, Slide Deck

• Formative Assessment: Facilitator Agenda, Slide Deck

• Scaffolding and Differentiation: Facilitator Agenda, Slide Deck

• Culturally Responsive Instruction: Facilitator Agenda, Slide Deck

Adoption and Implementation Guide
This guide is designed to help schools and districts make more informed and thoughtful choices about planning and implementation work by highlighting areas where they may need to invest additional time, resources, and/or attention. It draws on the experiences of schools who piloted Investigating History to lay out the conditions that are critical to Investigating History’s long-term success and provide a tool that schools and districts can use to determine the extent to which each condition currently exists.

Communicating with Families
The following may be useful in introducing Investigating History to families:

• This flyer (and an editable version here) can be used to share your reasons for adopting Investigating History.

• This sample letter to families can be used as part of initial communication.

• This accessible, one-page overview of the design specifications is a resource to inform families about the Investigating History curriculum and its instructional approach.

Additionally, the DESE FAQ: Race, Racism, and Culturally Responsive Teaching in History/Social Science answers some common questions that families may have about how race and racism are approached in the Massachusetts H/SS Framework in general, which informs our approach to the Investigating History materials more specifically and may help you respond to potential concerns about sensitive topics in the curriculum.