This study draws upon faculty interviews conducted in 2019 and 2021 to document dramatic shifts in primary source instruction of undergraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Synthesizing these data, it analyzes how faculty cultivated pedagogical practice, developed practical approaches to teaching with primary sources, and adjusted goals…

First graders engaged in an extended historical inquiry. Close readings of secondary and primary sources evoked rich class discussion. Scaffolding directed students' scrutiny of secondary sources for historical gaps; they ably detected source and intent within the primary sources. Students articulated newly constructed understandings through…

After three decades of scholarship describing why and how students ought to be taught to think historically, this study asks what happens when they are. Ten high school students from a school that incorporated historical thinking into all history coursework repeated the think-aloud task from Wineburg's 1991 study of the cognitive processes…

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." - Henry David Thoreau This study utilized an intervention of deep looking through implementation of Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) using artwork and artifacts in area museums/galleries (Yenawine, 2014). Techniques for working with primary sources, objects, artifacts, artwork,…

This article presents strategies for locating and using digitally available primary source documents in the fields of Deaf history and Deaf cultural studies for instruction in a Deaf history class, traditional history/social studies class, or language arts class in lessons that incorporate the Common Core State Standards for Literacy in History/…

What happens if Americans fundamental freedoms are denied or deferred? What is the ideal of freedom? Boston, Massachusetts, has long been a crucible for social, cultural, and political change. Here was the shot heard 'round the world, stronghold of abolition, home to the U.S. Colored Troops, the birthplace of American literature.... Boston is also…

This Framework is built upon the foundation of the 2003 and 1997 "Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Frameworks." Based in research on effective practice, it represents the contributions of members of the History and Social Science Curriculum Framework Review Panel, scholars who served as Content Advisors, and the more…

Metacom's War, also known as King Phillip's War, sets a pattern of national expansion through displacement of native people that echoes throughout American history. Helping students further understand this war through the examination of Mary Rowlandson's primary document provides educators and students with an opportunity to delve deeper into the…

Contrary to popular understanding that the United States Peace Corps stemmed from a spontaneous idea generated on the campaign trail to appeal to young voters, John F. Kennedy's celebrated proposal for a federally sponsored, overseas volunteer training programme was drawn from models and theories circulated by American academics. This article…

Students in elementary gifted class use discovery to learn about life in industrial New England. Taking multiple days to analyze this topic, students use artifacts (chairs), discussion, and primary sources to explore the politics of the 1830s. They examine the workings of Hitchcockville, Connecticut, and a Massachusetts Shaker colony. Students…

If teachers want to get their undergraduate students engaged in the study of history, there is no substitute for getting them to do their own research using original sources. In practical terms, this involves posing a good question, framing that question in a critical framework for analysis, searching for relevant documents, writing an interesting…

Utilizing extensive individual-level data files to examine antebellum school attendance in Newburyport (Massachusetts), a procedure was devised to estimate school attendance in Essex County (Massachusetts), during the period 1860-61. Concludes that a substantial minority of antebellum youth attended high school in Massachusetts communities. (SLM)

This collection of essays and short stories is designed to provide a glimpse of life in the factory for the women who worked in the cotton mills of Lowell, Massachusetts in the 1840s. The book, which contains two primary sources (i.e., materials written by contemporaries), and three secondary sources, begins with a brief introduction to the…

This lesson, which is based on a field trip to Lowell, Massachusetts, focuses on Lowell's preeminence as a textile weaving center beginning late in the 18th century. The lesson offers advice for managing the tour group, provides historical background on Lowell, the textile industry, and the United States and the world in general at the time, and…

This field trip program, three 45-minute hands-on workshops and a 30-45-minute interpretive tour, provides students with the opportunity to explore the many ways that the Industrial Revolution significantly changed modes of U.S. work, lifestyle, and land use. The workshops complement one another by exploring different aspects of these changes.…