The aim of this article is to present a pedagogical approach for history education. This approach is called Meaningful History and it outlines the process by which upper-level secondary history students can cultivate historical consciousness. Based on the notion of learning as meaning making and historical consciousness as a disposition to engage…

In the last three decades, history education has focused overwhelmingly on inquiry. In teacher education, the recent turn to "Core Practices" or "High-Leverage Practices" (HLPs) has been applied to history education. Despite the attractiveness of inquiry-oriented instruction, it is still absent from far too many history…

This article is a guided inquiry into past and present uses of war powers. From the Constitutional framers' intent through Thomas Jefferson's adaptation to modern presidents' implementation, students extract meaning from the best available evidence. Evocative primary sources--some of which are contemporaneous to modern readers--and engaging…

This article presents a guided inquiry into Thomas Jefferson's place in American memory. It centers on Jefferson's liberty-based articulations and his involvement in slavery, which are paradoxical when juxtaposed. Evocative primary sources and competing secondary sources ground the inquiry. Discipline-specific strategies direct students through…

The author describes how high school students can use Google Tour Builder to track the impact of local Civil War veterans by conducting research with primary and secondary sources. In the article, there is a description of an example from Larned, Kansas where more than one hundred Civil War veterans settled a community on the plains. Digitized…

Middle school students learned about their community when they created documentaries as part of a state bicentennial celebration. Students gathered multiple primary and secondary resources and worked with community members to interview them for their perspectives through video presentations as part of the inquiry process. Students work with local…

Teachers value students' close reading of and text-based writing about diverse texts while eliciting their awareness of the world, privilege, and power. Carefully selected literature coupled with primary sources can bridge the classroom and society. To engage modern students in America's racialized past and present, this article guides teachers to…

One of the most effective methods for teaching social studies events, concepts, and issues incorporates the fine arts into lesson plans. The fine arts, such as photography, architecture, paintings, tapestries, and sculptures reflect the core cultural values, political ideals, and religious beliefs of a civilization and offer excellent…

Social studies continues to be marginalized in elementary grades, yet the "C3 Framework" and its Inquiry Arc offer possibilities for high-quality elementary social studies instruction. However, the "C3 Framework" requires that teachers possess an adequate understanding of how to implement inquiry within the various social…

A narrative of racial progress abounds in U.S. history, making it difficult for teachers to present complex interpretations of racial/ethnic discrimination. Historical complexity challenges such simplistic notions of race/ethnicity and encourages critical thinking. Adding anti-essentialist historical content about Latinx communities is one way to…

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…

High quality teaching involves deep content knowledge, understanding students and their learning processes, and complex skills of teaching and assessment. Students who experience high quality teaching tend to achieve higher annual growth rates. This study used a descriptive, qualitative research model to explore excellence in social studies…

In this article, the authors discuss how to explore the agency of ordinary citizens using local institutions to combat Jim Crow segregation laws during Freedom Summer. Primary sources from Miami (OH) University website about Freedom Summer and Susan Goldman Rubin's trade book ground the inquiry. Through the series of activities discussed, middle…

This manuscript explores the power of using inquiry in a second-grade classroom to make students' understanding of citizenship more complex. It describes an inquiry unit in which students studied primary sources, engaged with fiction and nonfiction children's literature, and participated in interdisciplinary learning to further understand the…

To explore questions in history and to construct historical narratives, historians work with evidence from the past. This approach to teaching history (inquiry involving the use of evidence) is an accepted part of the research on history teaching and is promoted widely in standards frameworks and practitioner publications as "good history…