Teachers can engage students in historical thinking by intentionally structuring close reading tasks. This article provides a practical and theoretical examination of the learning and teaching during a 30-minute social studies class in which students studied colonization by reading a primary source text from the Jamestown Colony. Students used inference as a tool first to explain the literal meaning of the text (explanatory inference) and then to elaborate on that literal meaning to develop their historical ideas (elaborative inference). Also, an inquiry-based teaching method called "critical exploration" was used in this class and is described in practical terms. (Contains 35 notes.)