The purpose of this action research study was to explore possibilities for scaffolding academic language and historical thinking for non-native English speaking students in two middle school classrooms. The teaching approach focused on six dimensions of historical thinking: background knowledge, cause, effect, bias, empathy, and application. The following questions guided the observations and conclusions: (1) What types of instructional activities appear to develop historical thinking skills and related academic language among English Language Learners (ELLs)? (2) How can teaching for a writing assessment help to shape this thinking and language development? Results suggested that multi-modal scaffolds for both thinking and language, designed to help students succeed on a motivating assessment task, developed cognitive and communication skills. (Contains 4 figures and 1 table.)