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By questioning, you can identify patterns. For every chapter of this book, you want to find out the
major subject. The easiest way to do this is to ask the “reporter questions”: Who? What? Where?
When? Why?
1. Who is the chapter about? History texts are almost always about people. Is the focus an individual?
A social group? A political entity?
2. What does the section say about this person or group? Texts usually describe some major event or
pattern. Did these people do something important? Did something happen to them?
3. Where did the subject being described take place? Physical location is often crucial in history. Does
this location help make sense of the subject in some way? Historical Thinking Skills: A Primer

4. When did the events take place? Like physical location, chronology forms part of the historical context
that makes events understandable. Does the text describe something unfolding over a very short period
or a longer one? Are there crucial events that came before that make the description understandable?
this sample.
5. Why did the event or pattern being described take place — and why does it matter? Whether talking
Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
about a dramatic development or a continuity that endured for a long period of time, historians
always attempt to understand what led to it. What reasons does the text provide for the event or
pattern? How is the significance of the development explained?
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Clarifying Worth Publishers.
Are there any words you don’t understand? If they’re crucial for making sense of the passage, can you
define them by referring to the key terms found in the textbook’s margins, a dictionary, or another
by Bedford, Freeman &
outside source? If there are any sentences you don’t understand, do they become clearer as you reread
them or as you read on in the text?

When it comes to vocabulary, use good judgment. Is the word crucial for understanding the passage?
If not, read right past it. If it is a crucial word, you may need to look it up in a dictionary. Before you
take the time to look it up, however, check that it hasn’t been defined already for you in the text.

When a longer passage throws you off, usually clearing up difficult vocabulary will help make the
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passage clearer. If it doesn’t, simply reread the sentence a few times (slowly!). If it’s still unclear, back
up — usually to the beginning of the paragraph — and try again. The most common way skilled read-
ers get clarification is simply by rereading.

Summarizing Distributed
A summary is a brief review of the “big picture” of a particular section or chapter. After reading, briefly
explain what each chapter is about in one sentence, being sure your summary answers all five questions
from the “Questioning” section above. If you are summarizing a section, you might think of this as
answering the focus question posed in the section. For example, a summary of the first section in
Chapter 1 might answer the focus question “How did climate change shape the late Middle Ages?” as
follows: People and animals (who) in northern Europe (where) died from famine and became more
susceptible to disease (what) during the fourteenth century (when) because the climate became colder
and wetter and governments did little to help them (why).

Predicting
Based on your reading of an entire section or chapter, what do you think will come next in the text?
How do you know? You may think predicting what’s coming next is a waste of time, but it’s a really
good test of how well you understand the flow of the text. If you’re in a car with your family going to
visit your grandmother, you probably know the route to get there. If your mother takes an unanticipated

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