Students who engage in these inquiries will develop historical reading, thinking, and writing skills that will help them learn history content better, be better readers in their other school subjects, and be better equipped to engage with complex social and political issues.

Teachers can use these resources to engage students in a variety of types of inquiry, giving students greater or lesser independence based upon the students’ abilities. As students continue to engage in inquiry based lessons they can progress through structured inquiry, controlled inquiry, guided inquiry and free inquiry.

Research on historians’ reading, thinking, and writing show that they use several specialized skills when engaging in inquiry. Teachers can help students engage in these inquiries by teaching sourcing, corroboration, contextualization, observing & inferring, close reading, healthy skepticism, historical empathy, and hypothesis management.

The historical inquiry resources included on this website were designed for teachers to use in Utah Studies and US History classes and were prepared by Jeffery D. Nokes, a professor in the History Department at Brigham Young University, with the help of many of his undergraduate students.

If you're looking for other places to learn more about inquiry we recommend Verified, Building Students' Historical Literacies, Crash Course, Teaching History Learning Citizenship and Developing Historical Thinkers.
For additional resources click here!

Inquiry is the process of answering authentic and important questions in structured educational settings. In formal settings, inquiry makes learning the mandated curriculum feel more like the curiosity-driven learning that takes place outside of school.