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The article focuses on the importance of secondary sources in both Advanced Placement world history and U.S. history. It mentions the examples of differing perspectives on issues such as the federal role in creating the American West, and the relationship between religion and class during the American Market Revolution. It also mentions the useful ways to integrate secondary sources into classroom instruction for history in context of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

The article focuses on example of the ways in which teachers can integrate digital history material in the classroom to teach first and second order historical concepts. Topics discussed include information on time used in the history which refers to both dates and periods in history; misconception of students regarding historians; and information on empathy which refers to an understanding that people in the past did not all share our worldview.

The article discusses about development of SCIM-C strategy, designed to help students in acquiring knowledge and skills necessary to interpret primary sources and reconcile various historical accounts. SCIM-C strategy focuses on five broad phases: Summarizing, Contextualizing, Inferring, Monitoring, and Corroborating. When students examine an individual source, they move through the first four phases and then, after analyzing several individual sources, they compare the sources collectively in the fifth phase.

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.

The article discusses about the "connect-the-dots method" used by the author in teaching history to middle school students. According to the article, the author thinks that his job as an eight grade history teacher is defined as a bridge between historical scholars and his students and through his method, he aims to make the study of history exciting. As an example, he would be giving his students the basic insights of the book "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond. His method of "connect-the-dots method" is introduced by presenting a puzzle on day 1, followed by an assessment while learning on day 2 and finally a reflection on day 3.