Despite decades of research to the contrary, public discourse continues to insist on the direct power of curriculum to shape student learning, rather than acknowledge the complex and situated ways that teachers and curricular materials interact to shape enacted instruction. In this paper, we use a model of curriculum enactment to illustrate the…

Engaging historiography and interpreting secondary sources represent essential elements of historians' work that have been largely ignored in favor of primary source reading in high school history classrooms in the United States. To understand whether and how students apply their historical reasoning skills to secondary sources, we asked…

History classrooms remain stubbornly resistant to instructional change. We explored whether using classroom video to help teachers identify curriculum-embedded opportunities for student discourse improved their understanding and facilitation of document-based historical discussions. We observed a relationship between teachers' capacity to notice…

A recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center revealed that many history teachers avoid or minimize conversations about race for fear they will trigger "racialized conflict." This silence should raise alarms, as we know that race and racism permeate the lived experiences of teachers and students and inevitably surface in historical…

In this article, Abby Reisman offers four instructional practices that educators can use to help students grapple with history's contradictions and engage in meaningful text-based discussions. Reisman details two suggestions that can be used in history classrooms and across the disciplines: orient students to one another and orient students to the…

Both the Common Core Standards for Literacy and the College, Career, and Civic Life Framework for Social Studies State Standards underscore the importance of classroom discussion for the development of high-level literacy and subject-matter knowledge. Yet, discussion remains stubbornly absent in social studies classrooms, which tend toward rote…