Historical Reasoning among Middle School Students with Learning Differences: Exploring the Use of Multiple Sources in Writing

Historical reasoning, as a disciplinary literacy, aims to develop higher-order thinking in addition to depth of historical knowledge beyond the textbook and memorization of facts. It teaches students to use information across multiple sources to contextualize and corroborate historical accounts, constructing an informed yet critical interpretation of events. Studies on the use of multiple sources to develop historical reasoning among students with learning differences (ld) are scarce. This qualitative study seeks to explore and describe how twelve 7th grade students in a special education classroom used multiple historical sources when writing argumentative/expository essays. The 96 total essays that students wrote throughout the academic year are the primary data source for this paper. Data memos, lesson plans, and interview transcripts were used to triangulate the findings found in the essays. Based on a thematic analysis, three major themes emerged: (1) students with ld demonstrated discipline-specific cognitive processes (e.g., sourcing, corroboration, contextualization) when using multiple historical sources in their essays; (2) students with ld leveraged the use of multiple historical sources in writing essays, mediated by a range of interests toward multiple source use; and (3) high-quality instruction characterized by scaffolding (i.e., gradual release of responsibility) for reading and writing fostered students with ld's understanding of historical events and historical reasoning using multiple sources. This paper offers implications for policy, research, and practice related to multiple source use among students with ld.