Directing and Differentiating First-Graders’ Historical Reading, Thinking, and Writing about Abraham Lincoln

Abstract First-grader students engaged in a guided historical inquiry about Abraham Lincoln. The teacher carefully intertwined historical content, close reading, critical thinking, and text-based writing during Reading, Writing, and Social Studies classes. Students scrutinized secondary sources, which were largely biographies of Lincoln, to build their historical schemas. The first-graders analyzed primary sources—which were intentionally selected to mitigate historical gaps within secondary sources—in order to establish historical significance and make intertextual connections. Students formulated emerging historical understandings through extemporaneous text-based writing, which were later used to draft, revise, and resubmit expository essays. Students’ verbal contributions were far more nuanced than written communications, which their budding fine-motor writing skills limited. Children exhibited critical and historical thinking during whole-class classroom dialogue, small-group discussion, and individual interactions, such as when asked to clarify their writing. Students completed an age-appropriate adaptation of informed action. Teachers and research can gain rich, nuanced understandings from close examinations of students’ reading, writing, and thinking.