Social Education 256 Just Google It?: Supporting Historical Reasoning and Engagement during Online Research Ashley N. Woodson I’d be like, just Google it or whatever because the [history] teacher won’t know…. You got some dates, you’re good enough. I mean, it’s not like on math worksheets where you gotta, like, show your work. —Jayvon, high school journalism student In math classrooms, the phrase “show your work” reminds students to detail the steps that justify their answers. This process helps them to better understand the math problem, the problem-solving process and ultimately, the solution. 1 When I met Jayvon, he did not believe that he needed to show his work for his history homework. He considered a Google search that produced accurate dates was good enough. Google and other online search en- gines can provide immediate answers to empirical questions about history. However, this immediacy may under- mine higher-level historical reasoning and student engagement in historical research. 2 It is important that teachers continue to develop strategies that sup- port students’ active engagement with online historical content. This article describes three strategies that Jayvon, his classmates, and I developed to sup- port historical reasoning and engage- ment in our journalism classroom. Historical Reasoning, the Internet and Urban Digital Inequities Historical content knowledge—lists of names, dates, and locations—are an important component of social stud- ies education. 3 Students also benefit from understanding the personalities behind the names, the experiences bracketed by the dates, and the mean- ings associated with different loca- tions. This knowledge is developed in part through historical reasoning, or, the process of placing and under- standing historical phenomenon in the appropriate historical context. 4 Historical reasoning requires certain skills, including the ability to analyze historical sources, to generate hypoth- eses based on these sources, and to use these sources to construct interpre- tive accounts of the past. 5 These skills are necessary for students to evaluate the range of primary and secondary sources available online. 6 Historical reasoning helps us trans- form isolated facts into engaging nar- ratives about who we are, where we’ve been, and where we might be headed. Unfortunately, the curriculum in many social studies classrooms does not support the development of histori- cal reasoning. 7 While this is a problem across contexts, the growing influence of online sources in school-based historical research uniquely affects students in urban settings. 8 These students are less likely to have access to the types of instruction that pro- mote historical reasoning, 9 to models of informed Internet use, 10 and to in- school online activities that encourage higher order thinking. 11 These dispari- ties have been referred to as digital inequity. 12 Strategies that encourage students’ historical reasoning and crit- ical Internet use might help to address digital inequities in urban classrooms. The Context I met Jayvon when I taught Newspaper Journalism I in an urban, low-income vocational high school. All of my stu- dents were sophomores, juniors, or seniors who self-identified as black, Latino/a or multiracial. Students could take the class for one semester or for the entire year, and could reenroll dur- ing subsequent years if their schedules allowed. For example, Jayvon enrolled for his entire sophomore year, the second semester of his junior year, and the first semester of his senior year. The classes supported the objec- tives for college and career readiness of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, 6–12 and Literacy in History/Social Studies, 6–12. Assignments aimed to integrate the foundations of journalistic writing with historical thinking and research. 13 Early in the semester, students identi- Social Education 79(5), pp 256–260 ©2015 National Council for the Social Studies