Contemporary educational initiatives require more non-fiction reading in English/language arts (ELA), close readings of primary and secondary sources in social studies/history (SSH), and text-based writing in all curricula. Teachers rely on various objective reading measures to determine a suitable challenge level for students. Primary sources, a key element to the aforementioned education initiatives, can fill these gaps and balance the misrepresentations within trade books. While they are not ready-made for an elementary classroom, primary sources position students to view history like a historian: as an edifice assembled from interpretations of diverse - and sometimes competing- sources. The primary elementary students learned both history content and how to do history through the historical process. The latter manifested in history literacy, historical thinking, and historical argumentation. Whole-class discussion enabled students to hear answers about different books that peers read in other literacy circles, which sparked students' recognition of trade books' disparate historicity. This elicited confusion, which was intended. Confusion is a powerful element of cognition and pedagogy. History-based curricula can be incorporated efficiently within interdisciplinary units, which are both common in elementary grades and perhaps more practical in elementary school than in middle or high school