206. 3 Inquiry Routines of Investigating History

Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:

• ​Apple podcasts​
• YouTube
• ​Spotify​
• ​Stitcher

---

In this episode, we are diving into three inquiry routines that frame the Investigating History curriculum, which is currently being rolled out in fifth through seventh grade across Massachusetts. 

The three routines are: launching the question, investigating sources, and putting it together. These routines not only equip students with essential historical thinking skills, but also promote civic engagement and analytical discourse. By fostering student-centered learning, educators can guide students to develop focused questions, critically evaluate sources, and synthesize their findings into well-reasoned arguments.

Why? 

Today, students are inundated with information, so it’s critically important to learn to evaluate diverse sources and understand what’s factual and what’s false. This Investigating History framework enables educators to teach students to use inquiry routines to think critically and analyze information well. 

What?

The Investigating History framework has three key steps: 1) launching the question, 2) investigating sources, and 3) putting it together. Here are some steps an educator can take to bring this to life in your classroom: 

Step 1: Spark student interest.

Introduce your topic with a compelling question, statement, video, image, or other source that will prompt their thinking around the topic. You want it to be unique and engaging to capture interest from the start. 

Step 2: Introduce a question

Your question should be broad enough to cover a series of lessons. One example from Investigating History’s curriculum is to show students a map, sparking their interest. The question then, is, “what do maps tell us about people?” This guiding question can cover several questions or a whole unit.

Step 3: Create an inquiry chart. 

After introducing a broad question, students will start asking smaller questions and breaking it down further. Ask students what other questions come up, what they’re curious about, and what they need to discover to answer the big question. You might use one of these strategies: 

• Keep it open-ended and let students just flow with their creativity.
• Use a question formulation technique (QFT) and structured process to brainstorm questions. 
• Develop a Q-chart, which uses Who, What, Where, When, and Why and Did, Can, Should, etc. as sentence starters to build questions.  

Step 4: Investigate sources—observe, read, and connect. 

The Ingestivating History curriculum invites students to first observe the source—what kind of source is it? What skills do we need to evaluate it? Then, read (or view) the source, looking at it in-depth. Finally, connect it to the larger question you previously identified. This process can be repeated for several sources related to your main question. 

Step 5: Synthesize and put it all together. 

After working through various sources, start bringing them together to answer your main question. Track key ideas and draw conclusions. You’ll want to build a formative or summative assessment process here as well. For example, you may want students to submit a claim-evidence-reasoning paragraph that shows how they’ve analyzed a source to answer the key question. 

Final Tip

Empower students to lead their discussions and inquiries, fostering independence and critical thinking that extend beyond the history classroom.

To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Inquiry Routines Resource Bank with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 206 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

​If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below: