In all the readings we have been doing on historical thinking and thinking about teaching history, a core element was the tension between the why and the what of history. Wineburg described thinking about history almost as a dartboard, with what as the bullseye and why and how as the next rings. Structurally, these build a narrative about thinking about history, not in terms of the memorization, but the reading and analysis core of historical thinking.  

The elements of historical thinking that show up across the readings in similar ideas if not exact language are: 

                  Accounting for multiple perspectives and narratives,

                  Primary sources used and analyzed

                  Sourcing and the perspective of the primary source

                  Understanding historical context

                  Progress and decline

                  Making the connection between evidence and the claim being made.

                  Humanizing history

The heart of this is primary sourcing – learning and understanding how to read primary sources, both in the literal way and intellectually. Placing primary sources in the context of their time and developing an understanding of the why and what of the source. Every account is colored by the author’s intent and point of view and should be viewed in the context of their time.  Starting with primary sources and thinking about history as a human narrative allows practitioners to frame compelling narratives.

Some fundamental questions in the teaching if history relate to how to incorporate historical thinking in the classroom. First, how does teaching move from the memorization model to a historical thinking model, allowing students to learn the procedural part of history, the reading, writing and analysis of history.  Setting up ways for them to explore history and determining the gaps their basic knowledge and how to develop them. 

Levesque noted that history is often presented to students in a prepackaged (“crafted”) form, leaving the question of how can the “crafted” history be used to teach.  Think it can be used as a starting point, or to provide a narrative to be studied and challenged.

The final question is, if history is made of multiple narratives, how that can be combined to create depth of historical knowledge and historical thinking.  Another of Levesque idea was teachers as coaches in their students’ learning, an easy idea to propose but challenging in practice. To coach students in historical thinking, educators have to think through asking the right questions, again, to identify skill gaps and to engage students in the learning the process of history.