Historical Context to Civic Action: Trade Books and Disciplinary Literacy Instruction

Abstract This six-day research project examined the potential for how trade books and primary sources can be used in concert with each other to develop middle school students’ disciplinary thinking skills in the manners advocated for in the C3 Framework. The project was focused on the trade book Thurgood, a picture book biography about Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Students drew images and used words to describe Thurgood Marshall’s civic identity and answered metacognitive analysis prompts explaining their thinking and work. Students’ work samples suggest that they employed a nuanced integration of both civic and historical thinking to articulate how Thurgood Marshall’s lived experiences influenced his civic action and civic identity.