Essential Questions:

 

Essential Questions:

Seventh grade history begins with an in-depth study of Islam and its impact on the medieval and early modern world. Students examine the Islamic world between the 7th and 16th centuries, focusing on the basic tenets (beliefs and practices) of Islam and the life of Muhammad, Muslim expansion, art, architecture, trade, and travel. After learning about the development of Islam in Arabia, we will examine the emergence of the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman Empires.

The focus then shifts westward to Europe, where students investigate the political, economic, religious, geographic, and social factors that shaped people’s identities during the medieval era. Students will bridge their medieval Europe study with the medieval Middle East as their attention swings eastward with the Crusades. Their examination of the “Crusading” period will focus on the intersection of “East” and “West,” and the study will enable students to assess how this critical juncture set off a series of causes and effects that laid the foundation for the early modern era.

Students will also examine the legacy of the “early modern era” in our modern world. We will return to the Middle East and investigate how the ideologies that came to the fore in Western Europe (secularism, individualism, nationalism, colonialism) helped shape and alter the landscape, both literally and figuratively, of the Middle Eastern world in the 19th and 21st centuries.

 

• How do maps and globes reflect changes in history, politics, and economics?
• How is power gained, used, and justified?
• Why do some people conform, while others rebel?
• How are ideas transmitted?
• How do technology, science, and information impact and transform societies?
• How does religion unite people? Divide people? Confront/integrate/define modernity?
• In what ways do geographical, cultural, social, political contexts transform the views we have of the past?
• In what ways do diverse global societies create varied perspectives, contributions, and challenges?
• What issues from our study of the past inform the present and shape the future?
• How have our ideas of history changed in a media-driven world?

Seventh grade history begins with an in-depth study of Islam and its impact on the medieval and early modern world. Students examine the Islamic world between the 7th and 16th centuries, focusing on the basic tenets (beliefs and practices) of Islam and the life of Muhammad, Muslim expansion, art, architecture, trade, and travel. After learning about the development of Islam in Arabia, we will examine the emergence of the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman Empires.

The focus then shifts westward to Europe, where students investigate the political, economic, religious, geographic, and social factors that shaped people’s identities during the medieval era. Students will bridge their medieval Europe study with the medieval Middle East as their attention swings eastward with the Crusades. Their examination of the “Crusading” period will focus on the intersection of “East” and “West,” and the study will enable students to assess how this critical juncture set off a series of causes and effects that laid the foundation for the early modern era.

Students will also examine the legacy of the “early modern era” in our modern world. We will return to the Middle East and investigate how the ideologies that came to the fore in Western Europe (secularism, individualism, nationalism, colonialism) helped shape and alter the landscape, both literally and figuratively, of the Middle Eastern world in the 19th and 21st centuries.

 

• How do maps and globes reflect changes in history, politics, and economics?
• How is power gained, used, and justified?
• Why do some people conform, while others rebel?
• How are ideas transmitted?
• How do technology, science, and information impact and transform societies?
• How does religion unite people? Divide people? Confront/integrate/define modernity?
• In what ways do geographical, cultural, social, political contexts transform the views we have of the past?
• In what ways do diverse global societies create varied perspectives, contributions, and challenges?
• What issues from our study of the past inform the present and shape the future?
• How have our ideas of history changed in a media-driven world?

Eighth grade history is a survey of notable moments in American History. The class explores this subject chronologically, though not necessarily linearly, focusing on themes such as American culture and values, American democracy, conflict and unity, diversity, citizenship, technological change, geography, and the relationship of the US to the world. These are themes that weave themselves through the development of our nation. Also, students pay considerable attention to acquiring and refining the tools that one needs to become a historian. Throughout the year, students develop note-taking, research skills, presentation, and writing skills. The class uses a wide variety of primary sources; however, each assignment includes secondary source supplements, including textbooks and literary sources. Assignments encourage students to explore alternative interpretations and perspectives of American History.

The main topics covered in the course are: Colonial America and the Revolutionary era, the Constitution, a Model Congress Assignment, Westward Expansion, the Civil War, the rise of Industrial and Urban America, a research paper considering some aspect of the New Deal and World War II eras, and a study of Civil Rights and the Supreme Court.

 

Essential Questions:

• What are American values? What were the key values upon which Jamestown and Plymouth were founded? To what extent are the values of Jamestown and Plymouth still evident in American society?
• How does one read history relative to a traditionalist, revisionist, or other historical perspective and what is the responsibility of the historian to voices that are silent?
• What justifies dissent?
• What is the impact of earlier political theorists and Enlightenment philosophers on the thinking of the revolutionary American colonists? How do those same theories impact current American thinking?
• Under what circumstances can rights be limited?
• What are the roles and obligations of a citizen?
• From where are power and authority derived? What is the difference?
• How does the Constitution work as a “living document”?  How do Supreme Court decisions and legislative actions shift our understanding of the “law of the land”?
• What are the goals and ends, intended and unintended, of westward expansion?  How do the elements of manifest destiny from the beginnings of the nation to the current era shift?  What is the psychology manifest in an expanding nation?  

Eighth grade history is a survey of notable moments in American History. The class explores this subject chronologically, though not necessarily linearly, focusing on themes such as American culture and values, American democracy, conflict and unity, diversity, citizenship, technological change, geography, and the relationship of the US to the world. These are themes that weave themselves through the development of our nation. Also, students pay considerable attention to acquiring and refining the tools that one needs to become a historian. Throughout the year, students develop note-taking, research skills, presentation, and writing skills. The class uses a wide variety of primary sources; however, each assignment includes secondary source supplements, including textbooks and literary sources. Assignments encourage students to explore alternative interpretations and perspectives of American History.

The main topics covered in the course are: Colonial America and the Revolutionary era, the Constitution, a Model Congress Assignment, Westward Expansion, the Civil War, the rise of Industrial and Urban America, a research paper considering some aspect of the New Deal and World War II eras, and a study of Civil Rights and the Supreme Court.

 

Essential Questions:

• What are American values? What were the key values upon which Jamestown and Plymouth were founded? To what extent are the values of Jamestown and Plymouth still evident in American society?
• How does one read history relative to a traditionalist, revisionist, or other historical perspective and what is the responsibility of the historian to voices that are silent?
• What justifies dissent?
• What is the impact of earlier political theorists and Enlightenment philosophers on the thinking of the revolutionary American colonists? How do those same theories impact current American thinking?
• Under what circumstances can rights be limited?
• What are the roles and obligations of a citizen?
• From where are power and authority derived? What is the difference?
• How does the Constitution work as a “living document”?  How do Supreme Court decisions and legislative actions shift our understanding of the “law of the land”?
• What are the goals and ends, intended and unintended, of westward expansion?  How do the elements of manifest destiny from the beginnings of the nation to the current era shift?  What is the psychology manifest in an expanding nation?