von Heyking, Amy. “Historical Thinking in the Elementary Years.” (2008)

By breaking down Peter Seixas’ six elements of historical thinking and interpreting them for elementary school teachers, Amy von Heyking challenges the assumption that elementary school children cannot develop historical thinking skills. She begins by stating that younger students have ideas about the past before they enter school due to their experience with fiction and public sites of memory; thus, von Heyking believes that teachers should start with their students’ previous knowledge and structure students’ engagement with historical significance, evidence, continuity and chance, progress and decline, empathy, and historical agency from there. She suggests that teachers encourage students to gather evidence from family members, chart continuity and change in their own development, and think about temporal sequencing in their communities as ways to integrate historical thinking as an essential element of social studies and history lessons.  von Heyking argues that activities such as these can prepare students for looking at historical evidence, making them receptive to different perspectives, and getting them to develop judgements about then and now. Because this article is in a collection designed for teachers, von Heyking also provides sample resources for breaking down historical thinking, such as a chart for change and continuity and a graphic web for learning about cause and effect and influence.