Lesson planning is a critical task in the education of pre-service teachers, but the author has often questioned the extent to which traditional lesson plan formats truly contribute to the teaching and learning of history. Since current research in history education calls for an emphasis on building "historical thinking" skills and content knowledge in students, it follows that lesson planning by teachers should likewise adhere to a discipline-specific focus. With these ideas in mind, the author designed the History Circle. The History Circle is not a lesson plan or a model format of a plan. Rather, it serves as a starting point to engage pre-service teachers in curriculum making. By emphasizing the interaction between content (often primary and secondary sources) and thinking skills (historical thinking), the objective of the History Circle is to enable beginning teachers to focus on the necessity of considering the relationship between the content and skills one wishes to teach. The History Circle requires pre-service teachers to use primary and secondary sources to engage students in historical thinking. In this essay, the author outlines the processes she has used as a methods professor to implement the History Circle in the preparation of middle school and high school history teachers. (Contains 17 notes.)