Nobody owns the phrase “historical thinking,” but the power of this idea for organizing expectations in the modern-day American K-12 classroom owes a great deal to set of determined scholars such as Sam Wineburg from Stanford University. Wineburg and his colleagues at the Stanford History Education Group have developed a series of fantastic resources for classroom educators at any level. Others at institutions such as UCLA and George Mason University have also helped pioneer historical thinking toolkits on the web. Now, many standards, such as AP US History or Common Core, are also promoting historical thinking as part of their program. We hope that Lincoln’s Writings embodies and helps promote the spirit of these important endeavors. To that purpose, we have provided a discussion forum below that illustrates how participants in our “Understanding Lincoln” online course have applied historical thinking principles to their multi-media Lincoln projects. We have also listed several of the leading historical thinking resources available currently on the web.
Discussion Forum
Kelly Arickx, Lincoln’s Beard, Storify, August 2014
Kaellagh Cassidy, Digital Primary Sources to Humanize Lincoln, Storify, August 2014
Sara Combs, Understanding Lincoln & the Quest for Student-Centered Learning, Storify, August 2014
Stacy Hoeflich, Teaching Lincoln with Primary Sources, Storify, August 2014
Sean New, How do you teach Abraham Lincoln’s hero?, Storify, August 2014
Jesse O’Neill, A.Lincoln, Funny Man?, Storify, August 2014
Rhonda Webb, Sherman, Lincoln, and George: The War in Three Dimensions, Storify, February 2014
Historical Thinking Resources
Blueprint for Student Learning (National Council for History Education)
Historical Thinking Matters (George Mason / Stanford)
National Center for History in the Schools (UCLA)
Reading Like a Historian (Stanford University)
Teachinghistory.org (Center for History & New Media, George Mason University)
Teaching Literacy Through History (Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History)