Research Briefs

What Happens When Students Read Multiple Sources in History Class?

Would you like to use documents in your history class, but don't know where to start? This study looks at challenges faced by students as they encounter historical documents and primary sources, and suggests practical approaches for the classroom teacher.

Apprenticing Adolescent Readers to Academic Literacy

Do your students struggle with reading history texts? This study by Ruth Schoenbach, Christine Cziko, and Faye L. Mueller, "Apprenticing Adolescent Readers to Academic Literacy," in The Harvard Educational Review looks at reading apprenticeship, an instructional approach developed at WestEd designed to help students of all abilities make sense of different types of texts.

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Special Topic Analysis

How can we assess our students' historical understanding? What do research, theory and practice tell us about effective professional development for history teachers? What do we know about the achievement gap in history and how can we close it? Each year, the Clearinghouse will prepare an in-depth study of one topic of special interest to history teachers. We recently focused on six state systems for assessing students' historical understanding. Our forthcoming report includes case studies of each of these systems and a statement endorsed by the six authors regarding issues to consider in developing and reconsidering any statewide history assessment scheme. Scholars from the National History Center are our partners in preparing this project.

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