Education Commons^™

Integrating Creative, Critical, And Historical Thinking Through Close Reading, Document- Based Writing, And Original Political Cartooning, John Bickford

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

Historical thinking, an unnatural and developed skill,1 is foundational for both civicinvolvement and social studies education.2 To facilitate students’ historical thinking, teachers candraw from a myriad of discipline-specific close reading strategies.3 History literacy stratagems canbe adjusted for learners both young4 and old5; teachers can target a specific heuristic6 or address adistinct barrier to understanding.7 Whether termed content area literacy strategies, close readings,processes, and simply methods,8 state and national education require students to scrutinizecomplex, diverse, and, at times, competing texts.9 The education initiatives assess students—inboth history/social studies and English/language arts non-fiction curricula—on their ability toextract, employ, and cite newly generated understandings …