As part of my history degree a required course was a guide to studying history (I don't remember what it was called - it was so long ago my degree could be cons

As part of my history degree a required course was a guide to studying history (I don't remember what it was called - it was so long ago my degree could be considered history at this point). The whole course was about looking at the narrative in whatever work we were reading and then thinking about the author of that narrative. It was important to consider what the author was (and wasn't) saying in their work, to consider reasons why they were and weren't saying things. For instance (and this wasn't an example from the course - that would be brutal to read the whole thing over a semester - I can barely remember the works we discussed directly) - Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He has a discussion around Christianity and the Catholic Church being one of the reason's for Rome's fall. It's interesting to place this idea in the context of HIS time - he was writing during the late 18th century and we see his contemporary modes of thoughts in events like the French Revolution, when there was a deliberate effort to remove the Catholic Church's power. The contemporary thought and his arguments mirrored each other. It was as much studying the work in its historical context as studying what the work was saying. This is what I think of when I think of critically thinking - considering all the layers of both the argument and why it's being made. These are probably details around your point 2 in that they are meta questions, and while annoying, are vital to engage with a historical text outside of anything but as a collection of facts and an entertaining narrative.