Appendix A: Implementing District Standards
To ensure compliance with state initiatives, this unit will integrate some of the focus questions found in the California Department of Education’s Curriculum Framework for History-Social Studies.37 The following objective is taken from that framework:
History–Social Science Framework, Chapter 12
The eighth grade course of study begins with an intensive review of the major
ideas, issues, and events that shaped the founding of the nation. In their study of
this era, students will view American history through the lens of a people who were
trying—and are still trying—to fulfill the promise of the Declaration of
Independence and the Constitution. Throughout their eighth grade United States
history and geography course, students will confront the themes of freedom,
equality, and liberty and their changing definitions over time.
The unit will follow the teaching thesis that Europeans colonized the Americas in order to gain the economic, religious, and political freedoms that they did not have at home by subjugating the rights of Indigenous people. Stemming from this thesis, the overarching unit focus question will be “How did the European pursuit of freedoms in the New World impact the different groups’ definitions of being American?” Supporting this inquiry will be a series of four lesson focus questions. A more complete discussion of the hierarchical structure of these focus questions can be found in the next section.
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