Using multiple texts to foster junior high students’ historical understanding

The present study explored how seventh-grade students can benefit from reading multiple texts on controversial topics in history. The study was divided into two parts. The first part entailed classroom observations, interviews, and content analyses of the curriculum framework, textbook, and teacher's manual. It was to select trade books and adolescent literature as multiple sources of further reading in the study of history. The second part compared seventh graders’ construction of meaning after reading textbooks and trade books chosen to enrich the textbook’s content. It was found that by setting textbooks as controlling texts, those complementary texts, conflicting texts and synoptical texts can facilitate students’ deep understanding. By depicting a well-defined relationship between multiple texts and history learning (including content and disciplinary knowledge), this study has implications for theories of reading comprehension for multiple texts and for the design and choice of instructional materials in history.