History Content Standards

1. Students understand the chronological organization of history in order to identify and explain historical relationships.

  • Teen Talk: Students will understand history as a time line and that events can be related because of the time they occurred in history.
  • Examples in the classroom:
    • Students will identify people and events that characterize each of the major eras in United States and world history.
    • Students will use chronological data and duration of events to identify and analyze patterns of continuity and change.
  • Service Learning Activities:
    • Students will make presentations on important historical events to peers or younger students. These could take the form of reenactments, stories, plays, etc.
    • Students will create a booklet about people's experiences with war. They will organize it chronologically, thematically or geographically. They will then send works in progress to veterans for their comments.
  • Careers for Exploration:
    • Historian, Librarian, Politician, Diplomat, Curator, Teacher
  • Classroom Exploration:
    • Humanities, US History, World History, Anthropology, American Literature, British Literature

2. Students know how to use the processes and resources of historical inquiry.

  • Teen Talk: Students will know how to gather information from multiple sources, including technology, to understand events from multiple perspectives. Sources include documents, eyewitness accounts, letters and diaries, artifacts, historical sites, charts, graphs, diagrams, and writing.
  • Examples in the classroom:
    • Students will interpret oral traditions and legends as "histories."
    • Students will use historical information to interpret and evaluate decisions or policies regarding contemporary issues.
  • Service Learning Activities:
    • Students will research local property use or other community history for community planning projects.
  • Careers for Exploration:
    • Journalist, Reporter, Internet Engineer, Medical Fields
  • Classroom Exploration:
    • Journalism, Newspaper, Year Book, Humanities, AP English, Construction Technology, Electronics

3. Students understand that societies are diverse and have changed over time.

  • Teen Talk: Students will need to know that societies are made up of many different people and societies are changing all the time.
  • Examples in the classroom:
    • Students will explain the reasons for major periods of immigration to the United States and describing how different segments of US society reacted and changed.
    • Students will explain how, historically, social organization has been related to distributions of privilege and power.
  • Service Learning Activities:
    • Students will interview senior citizens about their experiences, then compile a community history booklet. This could be done for local events such as a flood, a local industry or a particular person. It could also be around specific national or global events such as WW II, the Civil Rights movement or the first moon landing.
    • Students will research the roles of women from the early days of colonization to present day. Include what issues women were fighting for, if progress was or was not made etc. Create a newsletter/newspaper with a feminist theme. Include a column for today's issues. Send published work to women's groups - Women League of Voters, AAUW, ABWA.
  • Careers for Exploration:
    • Public Relations, Historian, Demographer, Postal Worker, Military
  • Classroom Exploration:
    • Sociology, Anthropology, Ethnic Studies, Foreign Language, Comparative Religion

4. Students understand how science, technology and economic activity have affected societies throughout history.

  • Teen Talk: Students will understand how history has been affected by many forces.
  • Examples in the classroom:
    • Students will analyze the major technological turning points in history.
    • Students will trace the historical factors that led to the transition from local and regional economies to a globally interdependent economy.
  • Service Learning Activities:
    • Students will identify individual achievements of scientists and inventors, the significance of the achievements, and produce a booklet, play or video for peers or other interested groups.
  • Careers for Exploration:
    • International Business, Economist, Educator, Financial Investor, Diplomat
    Classroom Exploration:
    • American Government, History Courses, Economics, Humanities, Comparative Religions

5. Students understand political institutions and theories that have developed and changed over time.

  • Teen Talk: Students will recognize that politics affect all parts of society.
  • Examples in the Classroom:
    • Students will identify and explaining the ideas expressed in the documents that influenced the development of constitutional democracy.
    • Students will describe and analyzing the major events in the expansion of the political power of the United Sates.
  • Service Learning Activities:
    • Students will research how attributes of various people effect their individual political rights (i.e., gender racial identity, national origin, property ownership, religion, legal status). Publish findings or give oral presentation to interested groups or peers.
  • Careers for Exploration:
    • Politician, Public Service, Attorney, Judge, Political Scientist, International Business, Journalist, President
  • Classroom Exploration:
    • American Government, History Courses, Economics, Comparative Religion, Sociology, Business Education, Marketing

6. Students know that religious and philosophical ideas have been powerful forces throughout history.

  • Teen Talk: Students will recognize that religion and philosophy influence the course of history.
  • Examples in the classroom:
    • Students will describe basic ideas of various philosophies that have affected societies throughout history.
    • Students will explain, from an historical context, why artistic and literary expression, have often resulted in controversy.
  • Service Learning Activities:
    • Students will research and present, to interested groups, forms of expression that depicts the history, daily life and beliefs of various peoples (i.e., folk tales, ballads, dance and architecture).
  • Careers for Exploration:
    • Theologian, Religious Leader, Historian, Politician, Author, Journalism
  • Classroom Exploration:
    • History Courses, Comparative Religion, American Government, Literature Courses, Humanities, Anthropology