Students
build on this learning in later stages of the progression to
develop an understanding that people represent and interpret
the past in different ways (e.g., through pictures, plays,
films, reconstructions, museum displays, and fiction and
nonfiction accounts), and that the interpretations reflect the
intentions of those who make them (e.g., writers,
archaeologists, historians, and filmmakers). A goal for
students at each level of the progression would be to
investigate a set of artifacts in increasingly sophisticated
ways to extract information about a particular period or event
in history. Not only would such investigations support the
students’ development of historical reasoning, they would also
provide evidence of the students’ ability to reason in
increasingly complex ways. This involves moving from the early
stages of reasoning based on simple observation to the more
complex stages based on indirect observation and the synthesis
of multiple sources of information. Using the evidence elicited
from such tasks connected to the goals of the progression, a
teacher could identify the “just right gap” – a growth point in
learning that involves a step that is neither too large nor too
small – and make adjustments to instruction
accordingly.