History, as a discipline, is recognized as a constructed explanation of narratives based on fragmented, incomplete evidence that is subject to revision (Calder & Steffes, 2016). To construct narratives, historians use distinctive ways of thinking and practices that guide how they interpret and use evidence to explain the past through historical thinking. Further, the historical thinking, as an epistemology, allows historians to understand how knowledge is constructed and what it means (Lévesque).

Historical thinking, the use of critical thinking skills to make sense of evidence not easily shaped into narrative, is challenging and has even been described as an “unnatural” act (Wineburg, 1999), as it requires students to engage with the subject matter at cognitive levels that challenge one’s routine way of processing information. This process is needed to position students with an uncomfortable sense of strangeness toward the past, so we move beyond our false sense of proximity to the people and places of the past (Wineburg, 1992; Wineburg, 1999).

Educators have used the core elements of historical thinking over the decades to help students navigate the complexities of historical narratives and develop a deep understanding of history. The five key elements recognized by educators as foundational in helping students develop what Holt (1995) and Calder (2006) refer to as historical mindfulness include: having multiple accounts and perspectives, analysis of primary sources, sourcing and sources analysis, understanding historical context, and meeting the claims-evidence connection (Calder & Steffes, 2026; Fournier & Wineburg, 1997; Middendorf, King & Lincoln; Wineburg, Smith & Breakstone, 2018).

Scholars in teaching and learning have also modified these core components of historical thinking over time (Andrews & Burke, 2007; Calder, 2006; Furay & Salevouris, 1988; Mills, 2013; Ward, 1971); however, the elements remain at the heart of history teaching over the decades because these components move students from memorization of facts to critical inquiry.

An educator’s use of multiple, even conflicting, accounts of historical information and perspectives is essential for transforming students from passive readers of textbooks, often seen as the authority on knowledge, into active participants engaging with multiple sources of information. Students analyzing primary sources is also important, as the process encourages them to critique these documents rather than passively consume textbooks, which present other individuals’ interpretations of history as objective truth. By evaluating and analyzing sources, students learn to question the sources’ origins and the intentions behind their creation, skills essential for determining a document’s objectivity. Students’ understanding of historical context is critical for them to place an event in a specific location and time frame, allowing them to make connections among past events. Finally, students learning to make the claims-evidence connection is also critical as they learn to form an argument.

Historical thinking is important because efforts to assess students’ knowledge of history reveal that traditional methods of teaching history, lecture-based teaching, textbooks as sole reading, theme-based curriculum structure, and multiple choice assessment are ineffective in both producing students’ retention of information on standardized tests and in helping students make sense of historical information (Calder, Fournier & Wineburg, 1997; Wineburg, Smith & Breakstone, 2018). Further, this approach leaves students with surface knowledge, and underdeveloped reasoning skills to inquiry-based practices (McBrady, 2022; Santos, 2022; Ward, 2007).

The core constructs of historical thinking remain because of their effectiveness in helping students move beyond a false sense of familiarity with people from the past to viewing people and events with an “uncomfortable strangeness”, a position in which students are motivated to ask questions about the strangeness they can observe from historical content to actively generate an understanding of the past (Wineburg, 1999).