Historical thinking requires understanding and evaluating change and continuity over time. It also involves making appropriate use of historical evidence in answering questions and developing arguments about the past. Each historian would describe the various skills needed for this complex task slightly differently, but for AP history courses they have been organized into four major skills that represent the ways historians study the past. These skills have been described as “habits of mind.” This useful phrase should remind you that a skill needs to be practiced repeatedly until it becomes second nature. Because practice is an integral part of learning to think historically, the following sections include exercises to help you develop these “habits of mind.” Like shooting free throws, rehearsing dance moves, or playing scales, historical thinking skills need to be exercised regularly until you can use them easily and almost effortlessly.

As we discuss each skill separately, keep in mind that these skills overlap in many ways. For example, you can’t make a historical argument without also evaluating evidence. So as you develop one historical thinking skill, you will also be practicing other skills. The first three skills are all necessary in order to move on to the fourth — interpretation and synthesis — in which you will bring what you have learned together.