Analytical reading and writing are embedded in a disciplinary approach to history instruction and present opportunities to extend students' literacy practices. U.S. educators and researchers have come to rely on the Document-Based Question (DBQ) to assess and develop students' historical knowledge and argument writing. However, this task has been criticized for not being disciplinarily authentic and is often not accessible to lower grade levels. Relatively recent policy initiatives in the United States emphasize disciplinary thinking and communicating conclusions through inquiry (in the C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards) and argument writing (in the Common Core State Standards), so the challenge is to find writing opportunities that address both demands simultaneously. Through interviews with historians, the authors identify aspects of a common writing assignment (the DBQ) that are consistent and inconsistent with promoting historical thinking and writing in U.S. schools. The interviews are then used to propose guidelines for assignments and assessments that could give students more authentic opportunities to write and think historically. The authors also share assignments they have developed and tested that embrace such guidelines and explore the implications of those assignments for classroom use.