Digital Inquiry Group

We have 30 free history lessons and assessments to teach the African American Freedom Movement during Black History Month and year-round. From Thomas Jennings and Emancipation to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Greensboro Sit-Ins, check out our materials: 

www.inquirygroup.org/about/update...

Congratulations to @inquirygroup.org Co-Founder Sam Wineburg — named the third most influential education scholar in curriculum and instruction!

Join us this week at the National Council for the Social Studies Conference! We'll be at Booth 328 to share resources, professional development opportunities, and swag. Learn more: https://www.inquirygroup.org/about/updates/2025/national-council-social-studies-2025

November is National Native American Heritage Month. We have free lessons and assessments to support teaching the histories of Indigenous peoples of the United States and the Americas this month and year-round. Explore our materials: https://inquirygroup.org/native-american-heritage-month

In school, students read carefully selected materials. Outside, they scroll through a flood of unfiltered information. How do we bridge this divide? By bringing the digital world into the classroom, not to replace the curriculum, but to make it better. #MediaLiteracyWeek

Skilled users of the internet don't begin with critical thinking. They begin with critical ignoring. They ask, “Do I really know what I’m looking at?” Then, they use the internet to check the internet. #MediaLiteracyWeek

AI chatbots cite articles that don’t exist and draw on studies that say the opposite from what they claim. The most important thing for students to learn about AI? Information is always wedded to a particular source. #MediaLiteracyWeek

We’ve asked thousands of students to evaluate online sources. Here are the five most common mistakes they make: #MediaLiteracyWeek

Young people are online almost constantly — yet struggle to make sense of the content that streams across their screens. Our Civic Online Reasoning curriculum offers evidence-based resources teachers can use to help students make better decisions online. #MediaLiteracyWeek

Preparing Students for Informed, Active Citizenship: Lessons from Illinois Illinois Democracy Schools are a key element of the state’s comprehensive approach.

Integrating digital literacy into existing coursework boosts students’ online reasoning. Learn more about our work in Illinois weaving Civic Online Reasoning into biology and geography classes in this National Association of State Boards of Education article: https://loom.ly/1LtxxHU

September 15 to October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month. We have free lessons and assessments to teach Hispanic, U.S. Latino, and Latin American history this month and year-round. Browse our curriculum: https://www.inquirygroup.org/about/updates/2023/hispanic-heritage-month-materials

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Beyond the Bubble History Assessments. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar. Join the Digital Inquiry Group for a free webinar on Beyond the Bubble history assessments.

You can still sign up for today’s Beyond the Bubble History Assessments webinar at 4 pm PT/7 pm ET! Join us to explore 150+ free, document-based history assessments that reveal student thinking and can be scored in minutes.

Register for today’s webinar: https://loom.ly/9gb-MB8

Historical Video on TikTok | Digital Inquiry Group Increasingly, students learn about the past and present from social media. This assessment asks students to evaluate the trustworthiness of a video on TikTok depicting an American city in the 1940s. Use this task as an exit ticket or \do now\ to start the class in order to quickly gauge student thinking about videos on social media. Using the accompanying rubric as a guide, review responses to get a sense of how students evaluate videos on TikTok.

Does a TikTok video really show Newark, New Jersey, in the 1940s? Our new task gauges student thinking about videos on social media. https://inquirygroup.org/history-assessments/historical-video-tiktok

You can still sign up for today’s Reading Like a Historian Lessons webinar at 4 pm PT/7 pm ET! Join us to explore 200+ document-based lessons that engage students in historical inquiry.

Register for today’s webinar: https://loom.ly/mxEyVlU

We’re honored to be recognized by @librarycongress.bsky.social as part of its 2025 Literacy Awards, particularly for our work integrating digital literacy into history instruction.

The 1974 Puerto Rican Riots | Digital Inquiry Group All historical events have multiple causes. Part of the work of historians is to identify both immediate and systemic causes of events and to analyze the relationships between causes. In this lesson, students analyze historical documents to investigate the question: What caused the 1974 Puerto Rican Riots?

What caused the 1974 Puerto Rican Riots? In our new lesson, students analyze historical documents to investigate both immediate and systemic causes. https://inquirygroup.org/history-lessons/1974-puerto-rican-riots

You can still register for today's webinar at 4pm PT/7 pm ET on sorting fact from fiction online! We’ll cover the research behind the Civic Online Reasoning curriculum, review materials, and discuss how these resources can be integrated into classrooms. Sign up now: https://loom.ly/zryviKY

You can still sign up for today’s Beyond the Bubble History Assessments webinar at 4 pm PT/ 7 pm ET! Join us to explore 150+ free, document-based history assessments that reveal student thinking and can be scored in minutes.

Register for today’s webinar: https://loom.ly/WBXUT1o

Dennis v. United States | Digital Inquiry Group This assessment gauges students’ ability to evaluate the credibility of a social media video for providing information about a Supreme Court decision. To answer the question successfully, students must read laterally about the organization that posted the video and evaluate whether it’s a trustworthy source of information. 

Can students evaluate the credibility of a social media video about a Supreme Court decision? Our new assessment gauges students’ ability to read laterally and assess whether the organization behind the video is trustworthy. https://inquirygroup.org/history-assessments/dennis-v-united-states

You can still sign up for today’s webinar at 4 pm PT/7 pm ET! Join us to learn tips for integrating digital literacy in your classroom using free Civic Online Reasoning lessons designed for use in different subjects.

Register now: https://loom.ly/XRuAYEM

Second Red Scare and the Supreme Court | Digital Inquiry Group At the height of the Second Red Scare, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Communist Party USA leader under the Smith Act, deciding that membership in the party amounted to advocating the violent overthrow of the government. Just six years later, the Supreme Court reversed course. In this lesson, students contextualize two Supreme Court decisions and reason about why the Supreme Court changed its mind.  

During the Second Red Scare, the Supreme Court ruled that membership in the Communist Party amounted to advocating the violent overthrow of the government. Just six years later, the Court changed its mind. Our new lessons asks students to investigate why. https://loom.ly/49K2pVQ

Chinatown Image | Digital Inquiry Group Artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to generate realistic images of the past. Without careful consideration of where an image comes from, it could be easy to be fooled by a bad actor misrepresenting the past with an AI image. This assessment gauges students’ abilities to reason critically about a social media post that uses an AI-generated image to support a dubious claim about the past.

AI images are everywhere — and are increasingly indistinguishable from genuine photos. Our new assessment gauges students’ abilities to reason critically about a social media post that uses an AI-generated image to support a dubious historical claim. https://loom.ly/cSsmswM

Historical Chinatown Photos | Digital Inquiry Group Arnold Genthe took hundreds of photographs in San Francisco’s Chinatown from 1896 to 1906. Genthe’s extensive portfolio provides historians with a trove of evidence of what life was like in Chinatown in the decade leading up to the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. This lesson asks students to think critically about Genthe’s photographs and evaluate their strengths and limitations as evidence of the past.

Between 1896 and 1906, Arnold Genthe took hundreds of photographs in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Our new lesson asks students to evaluate the strengths and limitations of these photographs as evidence of the past. https://inquirygroup.org/history-lessons/historical-chinatown-photos

There’s still time to register for today’s webinar at 4 pm PT/7 pm ET! Participants will experience a model lesson, receive access to curricular resources, and identify strategies for integrating digital literacy into history instruction. Sign up now: https://loom.ly/_hX5m5E

Grandfather Clause | Digital Inquiry Group Use this assessment to gauge students’ skills at verifying claims on social media. This task asks students whether a claim made on TikTok is accurate. The video claims that the term “grandfather clause” comes from a disenfranchisement scheme common in Southern states in the Jim Crow era. By consulting credible sources, students should determine that the claim is true. 

Did the term “grandfather clause” originate from a voter suppression scheme in Southern states during the Jim Crow era? Our new assessment asks students to verify a TikTok claim using credible sources. https://inquirygroup.org/history-assessments/grandfather-clause

How can students learn what to trust if schools never show them the kinds of information they see on their phones? DIG Co-Founder Sam Wineburg joined The Squiz to talk about the shift from an analog to a digital age, and how schools need to respond.

Full episode: pod.link/1477008816/e...

You can still register for tomorrow's webinar at 4pm PT/7 pm ET on sorting fact from fiction online! We’ll cover the research behind the Civic Online Reasoning curriculum, review materials, and discuss how these resources can be integrated into classrooms. Sign up now: https://loom.ly/zPikcPk

🎙️ In this episode of School’s In, GSE Professor Emeritus Sam Wineburg discusses digital literacy and how to help students navigate the internet in the era of AI and fake news.

🎧 Listen to the full episode: lnk.to/SchoolsInSM

#EduSky #AcademicSky

Jim Crow Era OUT | Digital Inquiry Group It can be tempting to think that textbooks present impartial accounts of the past. However, textbook writers and publishers have a variety of motivations in choosing what to include in textbooks, including creating products that the companies believe are likely to be purchased. In this lesson, students analyze two history textbook passages about the Jim Crow era, one published in 1942 and the other in 1974.

Why might history textbooks have changed how they present the Jim Crow era? In our new lesson, students contextualize contrasting textbook passages from 1942 and 1974 to investigate how historical accounts evolve. https://inquirygroup.org/history-lessons/jim-crow-era-out

In Igarassu, Brazil, Ezequiel David do Amaral Canario used our Battle of the Somme lesson to explore World War I with his students. We’re thrilled to see educators around the world adapt and incorporate our free, evidence-based materials!