Grade 8: United States History II: Colonial America–Reconstruction

Develop Questions and Plan Inquiries 

Apply Disciplinary Concepts and Tools

Evaluate Sources and Use Evidence 

Communicate Conclusions and Take Informed Action

Origins of United States Democracy and National Identity

Expansion, Influence, and Economic Growth

Civil Unrest, Civil War, and Reconstruction

Explain how compelling and supporting questions represent key ideas in the study of United States history.

Develop compelling and supporting questions that are mutually reinforcing.

Determine the kinds of sources that will be helpful in answering compelling and supporting questions, taking into consideration multiple points of views represented in the sources.

Apply disciplinary knowledge and practices to demonstrate an understanding of United States history content.

Gather information from multiple sources and evaluate their relevance and intended use (e.g., origin, authority, structure, context, corroborative value, credibility). 

Organize and prioritize relevant evidence from and among multiple sources to support claims. 

Develop claims and counterclaims while pointing out the strengths and limitations of different sources.

Construct arguments using evidence from multiple sources, while acknowledging the strengths and limitations of the arguments.

Construct explanations using reasoning, summary, sequence, examples, and data while pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of the explanations. 

Critique the credibility of arguments and structure of explanations related to a historical account of an event or issue in United States history.

Present arguments and explanations that feature multiple perspectives about local, state, or national history to reach a target audience using print, oral, and digital technologies.

Analyze how a specific problem can manifest itself at local, regional, and global levels over time, identifying its characteristics and causes, and the challenges and opportunities faced by those trying to address the problem.

Apply a range of deliberative and democratic procedures to make decisions and take action in classrooms, schools, and out-of-school civic contexts. 

Explain the events and developments that led to the establishment of colonies in the Atlantic and Pacific Worlds (e.g., desire for religious liberty, natural resources, economic opportunities, technological advancements).

Analyze the perspectives of both enslaved and free Black people through the historical sources they created (e.g., Venture Smith, Phyllis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano).

Analyze factors that influenced perspectives about national identity both during and as a result of the American Revolution (e.g., social contract, individual liberties, tyranny, economic and political sovereignty, citizenship).

Describe how individual and group perspectives of the American Revolution are documented in historical records while identifying representation of marginalized voices (e.g., journals, letters, pamphlets, newspaper articles from sources such as the Hartford Daily Courant). 

Explain laws that institutionalized slavery in the Colonial Era and in the Constitution (e.g., Black Laws of Virginia, Fugitive Slave Act, Three-Fifths Clause).

Examine the origin, purpose, and impact of the founding documents (e.g., popular sovereignty, republicanism, separation of powers, enfranchisement, liberty).

Explain the evolving powers and limits of the three branches of government as defined in the United States Constitution and subsequent federal court rulings, legislation, and executive action (e.g., Alien and Sedition Acts, Marbury v. Madison, Treaty of San Lorenzo). 

Explain the perspectives, civic virtues, and democratic principles debated during the Constitutional Convention (e.g., Connecticut Compromise, federalism, Three-Fifths Compromise).

Analyze how the ideas and principles within the Bill of Rights influence the social and political system in the United States.

Analyze how ideas and principles about citizenship and access to political power expressed in founding documents influenced social and political systems in the early republic (e.g., Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Three-Fifths Clause, Electoral College).

Explain the relevance of democratic principles in shaping acts of dissent and resistance in early United States history (e.g., Whiskey Rebellion, Shay’s Rebellion, Nat Turner’s Rebellion). 

Evaluate the US Constitution and Bill of Rights to determine if the goals of the American Revolution, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, were realized.  

Analyze the impact of United States’ treaties on the sovereignty of Native nations (e.g., Ordinance of 1787, Treaty of the Creeks, Treaty of Greenville, Louisiana Purchase, Treaty of Fort Wayne).

Analyze the events and developments related to the institution of slavery in the early republic (e.g., Haitian Revolution, Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves, cotton gin, textile industry).

Develop questions to analyze the significance of the methods of resistance employed by enslaved and free Black people in the United States (e.g., work resistance, violence, sabotage, petition, forming maroon communities, independent churches, and educational associations).

Analyze the perspectives of immigrant groups and their reasons for moving to and within the United States (e.g., German, Irish, Scandinavian, Chinese, Jewish).

Develop questions using multiple historical sources about how individuals and groups in northern states sustained or challenged racial inequality during the Antebellum Period (e.g., Connecticut’s gradual emancipation act, Amistad Trials, Sarah Harris and Prudence Crandall, The Liberator, American Colonization Society, American Anti-Slavery Society, Underground Railroad).  

Explain the causes and effects of government policies and executive decisions related to industrialization and expansion of the United States (e.g., Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Removal Act, Louisiana Purchase, Mexican-American War). 

Analyze attempts by individuals and groups with nativist views to shape the United States in the Antebellum Period (e.g., Philadelphia Riots of 1844, Know Nothing Party).

Compare movements for social change and the strategies they employed by the United States in the Antebellum Period (e.g., abolition, Second Great Awakening, suffrage, temperance).

Evaluate the influence human-induced environmental change had on spatial patterns of industrialization and Westward Expansion (e.g., Cumberland and National Roads, Erie Canal, Farmington Canal, Pacific Railroad).

Explain how Westward Expansion increased access to natural resources and the production and distribution of goods in a global market (e.g., agriculture, mining, canals, factories, rail, shipping).

Explain how the transition from an agricultural-based economy to an industrialized economy affected the well-being of individuals, groups, and businesses (e.g., factory workers, child laborers, women in the industrial workforce, formerly enslaved persons, Irish, Chinese, Black, and White laborers and tradespeople).

Explain how the demand for finished goods influenced business specialization and the growing need for labor during the American Industrial Revolution (e.g., textiles, firearms, shipbuilding, manufacturing, foundries, logging).

Analyze the role of innovation and entrepreneurship at the start of the American Industrial Revolution (e.g., mills, patents, telegraph, interchangeable parts).

Analyze how secession sought to preserve the social, economic, and racial hierarchies throughout the United States (e.g., domestic labor, manufacturing, slavocracy, textiles). 

Using multiple historical sources, identify individuals and groups during the Antebellum Period who sustained, promoted, or challenged the institution of slavery (e.g., Frederick Douglass, Harriett Beecher Stowe, John C. Calhoun).

Evaluate the relative influence of political, economic, and social developments that contributed to secession (e.g., Free Soil Movement, Nullification, Dred Scott Decision, Harper’s Ferry, abolition).  

Compare historical means used by individuals and groups to promote, sustain, and dismantle discrimination in the Antebellum Period (e.g., Underground Railroad, Bleeding Kansas, American Anti-Slavery Society, American Colonization Society, Compromise of 1850). 

Explain how change and continuity in technology, infrastructure, and military strategies shaped the Civil War (e.g., rail, scorched earth, blockade, Colt Firearms, Sharps Rifles).

Describe how policies related to military service shaped the events and outcomes of the Civil War (e.g., conscription, Emancipation Proclamation, draft riots, Connecticut 29th, Massachusetts 54th).

Analyze factors that influenced individual and group perspectives about national identity both during and as a result of the Civil War (e.g., Copperheads, Republicans, Wide Awakes, Unionists, women in the industrial workforce).

Analyze the factors that shaped perspectives in Connecticut about the Civil War (e.g., free labor movement, role of government, abolition).

Explain how and why individuals challenged gender roles in the Civil War Era (e.g., Loreta Janeta Velazquez, Frances Louisa Clayton, Anna Elizabeth Dickinson, Hartford Soldiers’ Aid Society, Rebecca Primus and Addie Brown).

Analyze the causes and effects of the Reconstruction Amendments (e.g., abolition, Latino and Black citizenship, suffrage).

Explain multiple causes and effects of racism both during and after Reconstruction (e.g., Page Act, Ku Klux Klan, Black Codes).

Analyze the purposes, implementation, and consequences of policies and political strategies during the Reconstruction Era (e.g., Homestead Act, Second Treaty of Fort Laramie, women’s suffrage, Radical Reconstruction).

Evaluate the successes and failures of the Reconstruction in fulfilling ideas and principles contained in the founding documents (e.g., elected Black officials, Ebenezer Bassett, Freedmen’s Bureau, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Compromise of 1877).