The purpose of this study was to examine the writing skills of 7th- and 8th-grade students with a high proportion of migration background in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The study was part of the SchriFT project (2017-20), funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. A writing task was given on the topic: "Why can we only…

Historical reasoning, as a disciplinary literacy, aims to develop higher-order thinking in addition to depth of historical knowledge beyond the textbook and memorization of facts. It teaches students to use information across multiple sources to contextualize and corroborate historical accounts, constructing an informed yet critical interpretation…

Jacob Olivey set out to design enquiries which would enable his pupils to reconstruct, using evidence, the perspectives of people in the past. In this article he shares in detail the planning and outcomes of two enquiries: one for Year 7 and one for Year 8. Olivey offers a example of 'the curriculum as the progression model', considering how to…

This case study describes how culturally relevant pedagogy can be used in disciplinary rigorous ways in an urban middle school history classroom. The focus is on a unit about the Johnstown Flood of 1889, which provided a setting for teaching about the event as well as the historical thinking practices of contextualizing, sourcing, and…

Students walk into their 7th grade history classroom where they've been studying the colonial period in America. But what they see in class today looks more like an art studio than a place for research. Students had to interpret what they were seeing, as people do when they observe a historical event. Are these students developing new ways of…

Identifying the challenges his students faced both with recall and analysis of the content they had learned for their GCSE course, Ed Durbin devised a solution which focused not on exam skills and revision lessons, but on using Key Stage 3 to build the 'hinterland' of contextual knowledge and causal analysis his students required to make sense of…

Paula Worth was concerned that her low-attaining set were only going through the motions when tackling causal explanation. Identifying, prioritising and weighing causes seemed an empty routine rather than a fascinating puzzle engaging intellect and imagination. She was also concerned that her usual efforts to solve this problem had been misplaced.…

Using an approach based on a Harvard study that found "when the whole body is involved, the number of brain cells brought to the learning activity doubles," the author offers over one hundred kinesthetic activities for classroom use. Activities are organized by content area, include directions for number of players, objective, and…

Describes the use of primary source documents and maps in a seventh-grade geography class. Maintains that 90 separate topics were divided into 6 main categories for student research. Asserts that the use of primary documents encouraged the development of the students' critical thinking skills. (CFR)