This book offers a unique perspective on history instruction in the elementary and middle grades. Through case studies of teachers and students in diverse classrooms and from diverse backgrounds, the text shows children engaging in authentic historical investigations, often in the context of an integrated social studies curriculum. The authors begin with the assumption that children can engage in valid forms of historical inquiry-collecting and analyzing data, examining the perspectives of people in the past, considering multiple interpretations, and creating evidence-based historical accounts. Vignettes in each chapter show communities of teachers and students doing history in environments rich in literature, art, writing, discussion, and debate. Teachers and students are shown working together to frame and investigate meaningful historical questions. Students write personal and family histories, analyze primary and secondary sources, examine artifacts, conduct interviews, and create interpretations through drama, narrative, and the arts. The grounding of this book in contemporary sociocultural theory and research makes it particularly useful as a social studies methods text. In each chapter, the authors explain how the teaching demonstrated in the vignettes reflects basic principles of contemporary learning theory; thus they not only provide specific examples of successful activities, but place them in a theoretical context that allows teachers to adapt and apply them in a wide variety of settings. Following a preface, this book is divided into 14 chapters: (1) Past, Present, and Future: The Sociocultural Context for Studying History; (2) It's Not Just a Mishap: The Theory Behind Disciplined Inquiry; (3) There Aren't a Lot of "For Sure" Facts: Building Communities of Historical Inquiry; (4) To Find Out Things We Didn't Know about Ourselves: Personal Histories; (5) Tell Me about Yourself: Linking Children to the Past through Family Histories; (6) I Think Columbus Went to Hell! Initiating Inquiry into World History; (7) Rats in the Hospital: Creating a History Museum; (8) I Have No Experience with This! Historical Inquiry in an Integrated Social Studies Setting; (9) Why Isn't That in the Textbook? Fiction, Nonfiction, and Historical Thinking; (10) Oh, Good! We Get to Argue: Putting Conflict in Context; (11) In My Opinion, It Could Happen Again: How Attitudes and Beliefs Have Changed Over Time; (12) Nosotros La Gente: Diverse Perspectives in American History; (13) The Arts Make Us All Part of Humankind: Cognitive Pluralism in History Teaching and Learning; and (14) Epilogue. [For a previous edition of this book, see ED420572.]