grade seven history and social science: united …...grade seven history and social science: united...

Grade Seven

History and Social Science: United States History, 1865 to the Present

Grade 7 Curriculum Loudoun County Public Schools Patricia Coggins, Instructional Supervisor

The purpose of this curriculum is to lay out the conceptual outcomes for instruction. The instructional strategies used will then build the learning towards those outcomes, while assessment will determine if the outcomes set forth in the curriculum have been achieved. This curriculum document is organized to help teachers plan and carry out authentic Learning experiences that allow students to explore, discuss, and meaningfully construct concepts and relationships in contexts that involve real-world problems and projects that are relevant to the learner. In this document, each unit’s learning outcomes are listed first, followed by ideas for making the content more authentic for students, and ideas for driving or challenging questions that allow the students to build an understanding through an inquiry process. There are five units in the curriculum. Since the foundations of the units are conceptual, they encompass and call for the study of more than just the Virginia SOLs for US History 1865 to the Present. SOL connections are listed in red following each learning outcome. This means that when teachers focus on the outcomes and the concepts they will include in instruction, they are naturally and organically embedding the Virginia State Standards.

United States History, 1865 to the Present – Unit I – The Struggle to Live Up to Our Ideals Includes SOLs USII.1a, b, d, f, USII.3a-c; USII.4a, c

At the end of this unit, students will be able to:

1. Use maps and diagrams to describe the impact of westward expansion on American Indians. (Includes USII.4a)

2. Using primary documents to compare the characteristics shared by Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln that led them to become leaders during a difficult period in American History (Includes: USII.3c)

3. Compare different perspectives on the success or failure of Reconstruction (Includes: USII.3b) 4. Describe the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution and explain the conflicts around their interpretation and enforcement that

continue today. (Includes: USII.3a)

5. Evaluate the positive and negative long-term consequences of Reconstruction including Jim Crow and other constraints faced by African Americans. (Includes: USII.3a, b, c; USII.4c)

6. Recommend the policies you would have put in place so that the Reconstruction period would have had a different outcome. (Includes:

USII.3b)

Idea(s) for making this content AUTHENTIC for students:

1. Do a simulation where students lose something important that belongs to them so they can empathize with the removal of American Indians from their land.

2. Have the students interpret the 14th amendment based on issues in the news today. 3. Have students investigate the positive and negative effects of Reconstruction based on evidence we can still see today.

Ideas for a Challenging or Driving question:

1. To what extent had African Americans or American Indians attained the “American Dream” by the early twentieth century? Today? 2. To what extent was Reconstruction a revolution? 3. How have beliefs about race been used to create different groups and provide or deny benefits based on those beliefs? 4. What debates and dilemmas remain unresolved from the Reconstruction Era?

http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/standards_docs/history_socialscience/2015/index.shtml

United States History, 1865 to the Present, Unit II – The Reshaping of America: 1865 to 1917 Includes SOLs USII.2a-c; USII.4a, b, d, e

At the end of this unit, students will be able to: 1. Explain the role geography and new technologies played in the movement of settlers westward in the latter half of the 19th century.

(Includes: USII.2a, c; USII.4a)

Determine the common characteristics of the cities who led the rapid development of the United States in the late 19th century. (Includes:

USII.2c)

2. Explain how new inventions, the rise of big business, the growth of industry, increased immigration, and American Farms provided the fuel for the industrialization of the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (Includes: USII.2b: USII.4b, d)

3. Make connections between immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with immigration today. (Includes: USII.2a; USII.4a, b d)

4. Explain how the Progressive Movement has impacted life in the U.S. today. (Includes: USII.4e)

Idea(s) for making this content AUTHENTIC for students: 1. Use the student’s own experiences of immigration, or moving somewhere new because a parent/guardian had an economic opportunity, to

connect them with the experience of pioneers in the westward movement. 2. Have students investigate where the mixed feelings about immigration in our country today might originate. 3. Have students evaluate how the industrial revolution has changed their lives today.


1. How has geography driven the movement of people within the United States? 2. Were the Progressives successful in making government more responsive to the will of the people? 3. Why do U.S. citizens have mixed feelings about the description of the U.S. as a “Nation of Immigrants?” 4. Why are some of the programs set up by Progressives in the early 20th century still being debated today? 5. What evidence do we have that the American “West” has been romanticized in history books and media?


United States History, 1865 to the Present, Unit III – From Isolation to Involvement: 1898-1939 Includes SOLs USII.5a-c


1. Determine the reasons for American Imperialism throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. (Includes: USII.5)

2. Evaluate the causes and effects of the Spanish American War. (Includes: USII.5a)

3. Describe Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy decisions and determine their impact on future foreign policy initiatives. (Includes USII.5b). 4. Explain the causes and effects of United States’ involvement in World War I. (Includes: USII.5c)

5. Evaluate America’s new leadership role in the world following World War I. (Includes USII.5c)

6. Examine how certain groups of Americans fought for the United States in WWI, yet were not given full rights as citizens. (Includes USII.5c)


• Have the students compare the Spanish American War with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. How are they different? How are they the same?

• Have the students investigate the characteristics of Imperialism to decide if the U.S. possessed those characteristics at the turn of the 20th century and to determine if the U.S. still possesses any of those characteristics today.

• Have the students investigate the ongoing debate in the U.S. to be either a “global player” or “isolate” themselves from the rest of the world.


1. When is “self-defense” an appropriate strategy for intervening in the affairs of other countries? (U.S. policies around Latin America in the late 19th and early 20th century via the Roosevelt Corollary, and “Dollar Diplomacy,” Iraq and Afghanistan today)

2. What role did “yellow” journalism play in gaining support for the Spanish-American War and how are yellow journalism and “fake” news connected?

3. How did US policymakers rationalize the contradiction between empire and democracy in the early 20th century and has it changed in the 21st century?

4. How have U.S. governments rallied support for its involvement in Wars? (Fear? Patriotism? Guilt?) http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/standards_docs/history_socialscience/2015/index.shtml

United States History, 1865 to the Present, Unit III- Turmoil and Change: the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and the New Deal Includes SOLs USII.6a-d

At the end of this unit, students will be able to: 1. Explain how new technologies changed life for Americans in the early twentieth century and how is it still changing lives today? (Includes:

USII.6a)

2. Describe the social and economic changes in the 1920s, including Prohibition and the Great Migration. (Includes USII.6b).

3. Investigate why there was an explosion of art, literature, and music in the 1920s and 1930s, that included the Harlem Renaissance. (Includes:

USII.6c)

4. Examine the causes of the Great Depression and its effects on the lives of ordinary Americans. (Includes USII.6d)

5. Explain the key features of the F.D.R.’s New Deal and evaluate their impact on American life today. (Includes USII.6d).


• Have the students create an “invention” and describe how it will change the lives of future Americans.

• Have students investigate the art of Jacob Lawrence on the Great Migration, then have students create their own “art” that depicts why people migrate within the U.S. today.

• Have students play the “Stock Market Game” and simulate a market crash and its consequences.

• Have students consider how life might be different for them without the passage of key elements of the New Deal

Ideas for a Challenging or Driving question: 1. How did the Great Migration and the conditions faced by African American when they arrived in northern cities, affect race relations in these

cities for decades to come? 2. What similarities and/or difference does the Great Migration have with the experience of people migrating to the U.S. today? 3. What causes economic depressions and how can we avoid them? 4. What role should the government play in times of a domestic crisis like the Great Depression? 5. Was the New Deal a good deal?


United States History, 1865 to the Present, Unit IV- The U.S. as a World Superpower: 1939 - Present Includes SOLs USII.7a-c; USII.8a-d

At the end of this unit, students will be able to: 1. Explain the major causes and effects of American involvement in World War II. (Includes: USII.7a)

2. Describe the major turning points of World War II, in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. (Includes USII.7b).

3. Explain the lessons learned from the Holocaust. (Includes USII.7b)

4. Determine the social, political, and economic impacts of World War II on the American home front, both during and after the war. (Includes:

USII.7c, USII.8b, USII.8d)

5. Evaluate America’s role as a major superpower in the Cold War following World War II. (Includes USII.8a, USII.8c).

6. Explain WWII served as a catalyst for increased African American participation in the struggle to obtain their full rights as citizens. Idea(s) for making this content AUTHENTIC for students:

• Use personal stories (primary documents) to connect students to the different human experiences of people involved in this conflict.

• Compare how this war was the same and/or different from conflicts that the U.S. is involved in today.

• Discuss how character traits developed at home and reinforced in school, are foundational to the successful resolution of complex conflicts like those that occurred in WWII and are still occurring today.

Ideas for a Challenging or Driving question: How did WWII change the role of women in the U.S.? What can we do to reduce the “bystander effect” that occurred during the Holocaust? How did the U.S. respond to information about persecution of the Jews and others by the Nazis? What factors came together that allowed the U.S. to enter WWII as “just another ally,” and end the war as a world power?

Under what circumstances is it morally acceptable to bomb civilians during a war? http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/standards_docs/history_socialscience/2015/index.shtml

United States History, 1865 to the Present, Unit V- A Changing Society: 1945 to the Present Includes SOLs USII.8e; USII.9a-d


1. Describe how globalization has changed American life. (Includes: USII.8e)

2. Examine the impact of the Civil Rights Movement and evaluate the extent to which its goals have been achieved. (Includes: USII.9a)

3. Evaluate the changing role of women from WWII to the 21st century. (Includes: USII.9a)

4. Evaluate the effectiveness of “The Americans with Disabilities Act.” (Includes USII.9a)

5. Determine the impact of new technologies on American life. (Includes: USII.9b)

6. Identify representative citizens who have influenced American society. (Includes: USII.9c)

7. Examine important foreign policy, immigration, and global environmental issues and make predictions about future issues. (Includes: USII.9d)


• Have students present evidence today that supports a for position for either the success or failure of the Civil Rights Movement.

• Have students analyze the impact of technology on their lives—in comparison with their parents.

• Have the students investigate the issue of “gender equality” over time.

• Have the students address the idea of human responsibility for the health of the earth. Ideas for a Challenging or Driving question: 1. How does our understanding about the culture of a people help us communicate with them more effectively? 2. Why is women’s history sometimes overlooked? 3. Why does the United States spend so much on defense relative to the rest of the world? 4. How does technology affect our way of seeing and experiencing the world? 5. What responsibility does the government have in creating a “safety net” for U.S. citizens? (social security, defense, welfare, Americans with

Disabilities Act, etc.) http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/standards_docs/history_socialscience/2015/index.shtml

grade seven history and social science: united …...grade seven history and social science: united...

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