Modulo

Digital Inquiry Group

Recommended Ages

6th–12th grades

In a world of endless headlines and social media feeds, teaching kids to evaluate information is essential. The Digital Inquiry Group develops curricula and tools that help students practice media literacy, research skills, and civic reasoning in a structured way. Founded by educators and researchers concerned about misinformation, the organization offers lesson frameworks that guide learners through questioning sources, checking evidence, and understanding bias. We love how their approach moves beyond simple checklists to deeper habits of inquiry. Their materials are best for middle and high school students and work well in humanities, social studies, and advisory settings. Some resources assume group discussion and may need tweaking for solo homeschool use, but the core questions translate well. Pro tip: pair their frameworks with real news stories or social media posts your student encounters, turning daily life into an ongoing media literacy lab.

Best for middle and high school learners who can handle multiple short texts, enjoy debating evidence, and are ready to learn how to evaluate online claims, images, and sources in a structured way; especially valuable for families prioritizing critical thinking and civic literacy.

Pros

Nonprofit that continues the work of the Stanford History Education Group, offering free Reading Like a Historian lessons and Civic Online Reasoning materials; these research-backed units use primary sources and real websites to teach students to source, corroborate, and contextualize information, improving both history understanding and digital literacy. oai_citation:11‡Civic Online Reasoning

Cons

Less of a full history “spine” and more of a powerful supplement: lessons assume strong reading skills, class discussions, and writing, so homeschoolers may need to slow down, read aloud, or modify question sets; materials focus mostly on middle and high school, leaving a gap for younger elementary students.

Because DIG’s core resources are free, there is usually no need for ESA or charter funding; schools sometimes use professional‑development funds to bring in DIG trainers, but individual homeschool families can simply download and use the lessons.

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Digital Inquiry Group
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Skills

What kids will learn
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Critical Thinking
Critical Thinking
Social Studies
Social Studies
ELA
ELA

Digital Inquiry Group Mission

Digital Inquiry Group’s mission is to help students learn to “read like historians” and think critically about the flood of information they encounter, both in the past and online. By developing non-partisan, evidence-based curricula in history and civic online reasoning, DIG works to prepare young people for informed citizenship in an era of AI, social media, and misinformation.

Digital Inquiry Group Story

For two decades, the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) pioneered research-based materials that taught students to analyze primary sources and evaluate digital information. In 2023 that work spun out into Digital Inquiry Group, an independent nonprofit that could more flexibly scale its free lessons, assessments, and professional development. Led by SHEG founder Sam Wineburg and co-founder and executive director Joel Breakstone, DIG continues to refine widely used programs like Reading Like a Historian, Beyond the Bubble assessments, and the Civic Online Reasoning curriculum, all tested in real classrooms before being released at no cost to educators worldwide.

About Modular Learning

FAQ: Additional Details about Digital Inquiry Group

A lesson day might start with a warm‑up sourcing exercise on a projected or printed document, followed by your student reading short historical accounts from competing perspectives with a highlighter in hand. You pause to discuss questions like “Who wrote this?” and “What was their purpose?” before they complete a graphic organizer and craft a short paragraph arguing which account is most trustworthy, citing evidence from the documents. 

Digital Inquiry Group (DIG), formerly the Stanford History Education Group, offers free document‑based history lessons, assessments, and Civic Online Reasoning materials that teach students to “read like historians” and evaluate digital sources. Homeschoolers download lesson plans and primary‑source sets, then lead students through inquiry sequences where they source, contextualize, corroborate, and close‑read multiple documents before writing evidence‑based claims about historical questions. 

Adult facilitation is essential—you’ll guide document analysis, model historical‑thinking moves, and lead discussions about bias, sourcing, and evidence before students work more independently.

Most materials are designed for middle‑ and high‑school students who can handle complex texts and write short analytical paragraphs; younger students may need heavy scaffolding or simplified sources.

Digital Inquiry Group’s inquiry‑based social studies units teach students to read sources critically, which is a great match for gifted, 2e, and autistic learners who enjoy “detective work.” Tasks can sometimes be reading‑heavy, so dyslexic or ADHD students may need text‑to‑speech, structured note‑taking, and explicit modeling of how to break questions into smaller steps.

All downloadable lessons and assessments are free; if you ever register for a paid workshop or PD event, any refund policies would be specified at registration by Digital Inquiry Group or its hosting partner.

Not ideal for families seeking a gentle, story-only history approach for young kids, for students who currently find multi-document reading overwhelming, or for parents who prefer heavily patriotic or religious framing to history and current events.

Alternatives and companions include narrative world-history curricula like Curiosity Chronicles, activity-rich programs like History Odyssey, civics tools like iCivics, and news-literacy organizations such as the News Literacy Project for additional media-literacy practice. oai_citation:12‡actuarialfoundation.org

In 2024 SHEG formally became the independent nonprofit Digital Inquiry Group, and the team continues to add new history lessons, update Civic Online Reasoning tasks to address current misinformation challenges, and expand professional‑development offerings; DIG and many of the other resources in this collection are also highlighted across Modulo’s broader secular homeschool guides on reading, science, math, handwriting, vocabulary, social studies, scheduling, and more. 

Use Reading Like a Historian or Civic Online Reasoning once every week or two as a “document lab”: print or display the sources, annotate them together, ask your learner to explain their claim and reasoning out loud, and only then write a short paragraph—keeping the emphasis on thinking rather than length.

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Meet Sam and Joel

Sam Wineburg, founder of the Stanford History Education Group, is a historian of education and the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and History, Emeritus, at Stanford University, known for his work on historical thinking and how students learn to evaluate sources. Joel Breakstone, co-founder and executive director of Digital Inquiry Group, previously led SHEG for a decade and has overseen large-scale studies and curriculum development in history education and digital literacy. Together they bring deep research expertise and a commitment to free, classroom-tested materials that teach students how to think, not what to think.