This study considers how adolescents compose historical arguments, and it identifies theoretically grounded predictors of the quality of their essays. Using data from a larger study on the effects of a federally funded Teaching American History grant on student learning, we analyzed students' written responses to document-based questions at the 8th grade (n = 44) and the 11th (n = 47). We report how students use evidence (a hallmark of historical thinking), how students structure their historical arguments, and what kinds of argumentative strategies they use when writing about historical controversies. In general, better writers cite more evidence in their arguments than weaker writers, and older students demonstrate how to situate evidence in ways that are consistent with the discipline. Both the structure of students' arguments and their use of evidence were predictive of the overall quality of their essays. Finally, students' use of argumentation strategies revealed

In this study, we explored the potential of two forms of discussion (disciplinary vs. traditional) for 39 sixth- and seventh-grade students with or at risk for learning disabilities (LD), before writing historical arguments. Nine teachers who led small group discussions in six heterogeneous social studies classrooms implemented the intervention. Students who were involved in disciplinary discussions ( n = 19) scored statistically higher than their peers who engaged in traditional discussions ( n = 20) on a measure of historical knowledge (partial η = .23); they also wrote essays with better persuasive quality (partial η = .43) and greater evidence of historical thinking (partial η = .40). A delayed posttest delivered 8 weeks after instruction ended revealed that students in the experimental condition continued to write in more historically sophisticated ways than did students in the comparison condition (partial η = .19). Challenges, however, remain for struggling learners who must now meet basic and advanced disciplinary literacy goals.

In this experimental study, 151 middle school students explored 3 historical controversies, first reading and discussing primary source documents in groups, then writing arguments on their own. Students were either randomly assigned to an experimental condition, using argumentative schemes and critical questions as guides during discussions, or to a comparison condition in which a traditional set of questions was used to guide discussions. Students in both conditions read the same historical controversies and used the same text structure heuristic to better compare reading and writing outcomes after students participated in discussion. The findings after instruction indicate comparable reading comprehension and comparable composing skill on general writing measures across conditions. Importantly, the findings also indicate disciplinary benefits for students in the experimental condition in terms of their ability to learn historical content and regarding the quality of students' historical reasoning in their written arguments. Argument schemes and critical questions appeared particularly helpful in facilitating students' substantiation of claims and development of rebuttals.

In this quasi-experimental study, 608 fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students explored 5 historical investigations. In the experimental condition, teachers used a cognitive apprenticeship model to teach students historical reading and writing strategies. Comparison teachers used the same materials to deliver a business-as-usual form of instruction. Random assignment was at the individual level for fourth and fifth graders and at the classroom level for sixth graders. After controlling for gender, ethnicity, and pretest scores, the findings indicated that experimental students outperformed their peers in control classrooms on measures of essay length (ES ϭ 0.25), holistic writing quality (ES ϭ 0.59), and argumentative historical writing (ES ϭ 0.67). Differences in students' argumentative historical writing remained after six weeks (ES ϭ 0.71). Finally, students with disabilities as well as those who did not meet annual reading proficiency benchmarks on state-administered assessments all benefited from experimental instruction. These results suggest that with appropriate supports and the opportunity to engage in meaningful historical content, students in fourth through sixth grade can analyze primary and secondary source documents and write evidence-based historical arguments. Educational Impact and Implications StatementThe authors investigated the effects of teaching fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students (N ϭ 608) historical reading and writing strategies, using a cognitive apprenticeship model of instruction, on their general and argumentative historical writing. The 5-week intervention yielded positive effects on the length, holistic quality, and argumentative historical writing of fourth through sixth graders. However, students with stronger incoming reading proficiency generally benefitted more from experimental instruction. The positive effect in students' argumentative historical writing was still evident six weeks after instruction ended. This study has implications for teaching historical literacies to students in upper elementary and beginning middle-level classrooms.

Historians use a range of genres in presenting their subjects, yet educators have increasingly privileged argumentation to help novices to reason with historical content. However, the influence genre and content knowledge are relatively unmeasured in this discipline. To learn more, the authors asked 101 eleventh-grade students to compose an argument or a summary on the Gulf of Tonkin and analyzed basic and disciplinary reading and writing measures. Results indicate that students with adequate content knowledge performed better on a disciplinary reading measure when composing arguments, and students with limited content knowledge demonstrated greater comprehension when composing summaries. Students with more knowledge wrote more; however, students who wrote summaries were not disadvantaged in terms of level of historical thinking or overall quality. Last, providing students with disabilities with a simple reading accommodation afforded them the ability to participate in the disciplinary literacy task at levels comparable to their peers.