Source-based writing is a common but difficult task in history and philosophy. Students are usually taught how to write a good text in language classes. However, it is also important to address discipline-specificity in writing, a topic likely to be taught by content teachers. In order to design discipline-specific writing instruction, research…

In history education, the deconstruction of narratives is an important skill for students. The skill teaches them to look critically at the offered texts. In this study, we investigated the extent to which students are able to critically analyse the narratives in their history textbooks. To answer this question, we asked 106 students in…

Tasks which invite students to identify with historical actors and describe their perspectives are a common phenomenon in history education. The aim of this study is to explore the differences in students' answers when completing a writing task in first person ("imagine you are in the past") or in third person ("imagine someone in…

A Dutch teacher presents reading, film viewing, and writing activities for "Empire of the Sun," J. G. Ballard's autobiographical account of life as a boy in Shanghai and in a Japanese internment camp during World War II (the subject of Steven Spielberg's film of the same name). Includes objectives, procedures, and several literature,…

In this article the authors focus on how features of a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment can elicit and support domain-specific reasoning and more specifically historical reasoning. The CSCL environment enables students to collaborate on a historical inquiry task and in writing an argumentative essay. In order to support…