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The article explains the meaning of historical thinking and sheds some light on how it could be more successfully be taught. As historians pore through documents and assess their status, they simultaneously begin to build theories and models about the past they are investigating. Because the work of historical thinking is complex and often difficult, some teachers-particularly at the elementary and middle school levels-make the presumption that their students are incapable of engaging in such thought. By high school, with careful guidance from ambitious history teachers, students can learn to do it much as historians.