Learning much of the content of the history that students learn determined by the texts they read. The content of history and how students may read history are anything but static. History texts change, and what students learn reflects both how history is conceptualized and how it is politicized. History texts read by students in the US may now include accounts of diverse Americans and acknowledge their contributions to American history and culture (Tunnell & Ammon, 1996; VanSledright & Kelly, 1998). Paralleling the inclusion of diverse historical perspectives and experiences is the call for increasing di-versity in the types of historical texts that students read (McGowan, Erickson, & Neufeld, 1996; National Center for History in the Schools, 1994). For example, students may encounter personal letters, news-papers, broadsides, and diary excerpts in their US history textbook, or they may read other books whose content is germane to a particu-lar historical era. Fueling this change in history texts is the belief that diverse texts may prove engaging for student readers: They may help motivate students as they personalize and make people and events that are removed in time more familiar (Freeman & Levstik, 1986; McGowan et al., 1996). Embedded texts may enrich history because they add detail to the typically broad strokes of history that students encounter in elementary school (Freeman & Levstik, 1986; Richgels, Tomlinson, & Tunnell, 1993). Further, they present an account of