Nanci's Blog

Historical Thinking Matters is a website developed by Stanford University and the Center for History and New Media.  It’s purpose is to help students learn to read and question primary documents related to learning history.  Using the strategies used by historians of sourcing, contextualizing, close reading and corroborating, students are encouraged to become detectives rather than knowledge consumers.  While it’s designed for high school students, much of what is offered can be adapted for younger grades.  The site offers four student investigations that are centered on key events that took place in American history after the Civil War.  These investigations can be used as models for similar teacher-created investigations.