Addresses the question: How do the modern theories of international relations account for the origins of the Peloponnesian War? Creates an historical fiction of Athenians debating the war's origins. (CMK)

Discusses Isabel Beck's and Margaret McKeown's research on reading history texts, Linda Levstik's investigation into narrative, and Samuel Wineburg's studies on the expert thinking of historians. Contends that these three research agendas suggest ways to construe and adapt the inquiry method in teaching history. (CMK)

Provides a two-part lesson plan in which students focus on the change and continuity in women's working conditions from 1840-1940. Students analyze historical materials. Includes background information, optional homework assignments, a bibliography, and five handouts. (CMK)

Presents a lesson plan in which students explore the impact of industrialization on agriculture, the experience of William Ellison, a free black cotton gin mechanic, and the skills that Ellison needed. Students discuss handwritten documents, diagrams, and census information related to the cotton gin. Includes a bibliography and four handouts. (CMK)

Provides background information on the presidio, a frontier palace or garrison. Offers a lesson to help students understand the chronological context of events in presidial California in relation to developments in the English colonies and Europe. Includes four handouts. (CMK)

States that two primary sources of historical information about the Great Irish Famine are newspaper articles and diaries. Provides six newspaper accounts about the Irish Famine from 1845 to 1848 and journal entries by Elizabeth Smith (a landowner's wife in Ireland) describing the conditions in Ireland in 1847. Includes questions. (CMK)

Argues that students should do hands-on work with original primary sources that are within archival collections. Gives students an opportunity to interact in an unfamiliar environment, learn new techniques for discovery, and develop a connection with people from the past. Offers examples of how students can work with archival materials. (CMK)

Provides background information on the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) focusing on the educational programs for the CCC. Presents a lesson on the censorship of the booklet "You and Machines" from the CCC programs. Includes excerpts from "You and Machines," copies of newspaper articles about the booklet, and a student handout.…

Discusses how students can use hypertext to create thick descriptions of primary documents in order to display their research for an electrical project. Explains that students learn that history is not just a collection of facts, improve their technical skills in terms of website creation and searching, and engage in historical interpretation.…

Presents an exercise in which three accounts of an episode that supposedly occurred between John Muir and Gifford Pinchot in the lobby of Seattle's Rainier Grand Hotel are read aloud during class. Provides the three accounts, excerpts from primary documentation including diary entries and newspaper articles, and discussion questions. (CMK)

This article describes one of many inquiry investigations the author designed for her fifth grade students in order to provide real and meaningful reading experiences through primary documents. There are two main goals for such a lesson: students will comprehend historical events accurately and in a way meaningful to them, and they will develop…

This pilot study examined middle school and high school student performance on an online historical thinking assessment task. After their teachers received training in the use of digital historical archives, students from all groups engaged in historical thinking behaviors (e.g., observation, sourcing, inferencing, evidence, question-posing, and…

Students' views on history inspired the author to reflect on her own teaching and to explore historical thinking. She decided to research the impact of a three-step approach to reading primary documents on ninth grade world history students, she was curious as to whether developing and using a consistent series of strategies with various primary…

This study reports the impact of consistently using a Socratic Seminar to interpret historical documents written by women on 9th grade students' historical empathy. Over the course of one semester in a year-long world history course, the class examined three documents written by women living in the complex time period being studied and discussed…

History and literature contain the keys to understanding oneself and others. Studying these subjects helps young people realize how the world they know evolved and how people like them coped with challenges, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. These subjects introduce students to models of achievement and courage, but they also provide…