Grade 8

Eighth Grade

Inquiry

Civics

History

Ethnic, Cultural, and Identity Studies

Economics/Personal Financial Literacy

Geography

Construct Compelling and Supporting Questions

Gather and Evaluate Sources

Develop Claims

Communicate and Critique Conclusions

Take Informed Action

Civic and Political Institutions

Civic Dispositions and Democratic Principles

Processes, Rules, and Laws

Roles and Responsibilities of a Civic Life

Historical Change, Continuity, Context, and Reconciliation

Cause and Consequence

Historical Thinking

Diversity and Identity

Identity in History

Community Equity Building

Economics Systems and Models

Economic Decision Making

Money and Markets

Incentives and Choices

Personal Financial Literacy

Geographic Representations and Reasoning

Location, Place, and Region

Human-Environmental Interactions and Sustainability

Movement, Population, and Systems

Develop compelling questions about a relevant topic of interest.

Create supporting questions from credible sources to expand on the compelling question.

Identify, locate, and gather reliable and relevant primary and secondary sources from a variety of media, such as print, digital, multimedia, artifacts, and oral traditions.

Evaluate primary and secondary sources for the author's bias, perspective of the creator, and relevance to the topic.

Describe how geographic representations can express both geospatial locations and human bias.

Use a coherent system or structure to evaluate the credibility of a source by determining its relevance and intended use.

Categorize and sequence significant people, places, events, and ideas in history using both chronological and conceptual graphic organizers.

Formulate a claim based on evidence from primary and secondary sources in response to a question.

Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.

Use primary and secondary sources to analyze conflicting and diverse points of views on a certain topic.

Make connections between current events, historical materials, and personal experience.

Examine how and why diverse groups have been denied equality and opportunity both institutionally and informally.

Engage in discussion, debate, or academic conversation analyzing multiple viewpoints on public issues.

Create maps, charts, infographics, or other visual media that communicate research findings or other significant information digitally or on paper.

Develop informational texts, including analyses of historical and current events.

Portray historical people, places, events, and ideologies of the time to examine history from the perspective of the participants through creative expression.

Use applicable presentation technology to communicate research findings or other significant information.

Conduct a research project to answer a self-generated question of historical significance and apply problem-solving skills to historical research.

Recognize and value my group identities without perceiving or treating others as inferior.

Identify facets of personal identity, determine how they want to present themselves to the world as a person belonging to an identity group, and brainstorm how to address negative perceptions.

Describe ways in which stereotyping can be a barrier to acting as an ally and engaging in positive civic behaviors in classrooms, schools, and the broader community.

Explain the challenges and opportunities people face when taking action to address problems, including predicting possible results.

Synthesize historical and local knowledge to take age-appropriate action toward mending, healing, and transforming the future.

Compare Indigenous government structures to those of the United States today.

Describe the ways Indigenous peoples organize themselves and their societies.

Discuss the relationship between a ruler of a nation-state and the citizens of its colonies.

Examine how challenges the government faced because of the Articles of Confederation resolved at the Constitutional Convention.

Evaluate how individuals and groups addressed specific problems at various levels to form a new republic.

Identify and apply the function of the first 10 Amendments (the Bill of Rights).

Discuss the nature of civil wars in general, and the role of border states and territories in the U.S. Civil War specifically and explore the role the territory of New Mexico played.

Describe the role of community members in ensuring the long-term survival of their community, including cooperation, obligations, rights, and responsibilities.

Assess the responses of various groups to British policies in the Thirteen Colonies.

Identify parallels in language or intent (construct or content) between Enlightenment philosophies and the ideas expressed in the founding documents of the United States.

Cite specific examples of precedents established in the Early Republic that impact American lives today.

Critique citizens' responses to changing political and social policies during the early 19th century.

Identify policies of this era that define the relationship between federal, state, and tribal governments through treaties, court decisions, and land acquisition statutes.

Evaluate the efficacy of formal U.S. policies of expansion, their effects on Sovereign Tribal Nations' ability to self-govern, and Indigenous resistance efforts to preserve tribal sovereignty.

Compare the federal government's response to the southern states' call for independence with that of the original Thirteen Colonies.

Discuss the impact of significant legislation and judicial precedents in formally perpetuating Rules, and Laws systemic oppression.

Analyze the impact of individuals and reform movements that advocated for greater civil rights and liberties throughout early U.S. history.

Investigate the causes and effects of diverse ideologies on politics, society, and culture that are associated with immigration and migration.

Identify key people, places, and ideas from major European nations of the 15th and 16th centuries.

Identify and describe the structure and function of the three branches of government, as laid out in the US Constitution.

Compare and contrast Indigenous and Hispanic peoples assimilation experiences with later immigrants' experience as part of expansion across the territorial United States.

Analyze the development of the women's suffrage movement over time and its legacy.

Make personal connections to immigration stories and experiences—both in the past and in the present.

Evaluate the impacts of European colonization on Indigenous populations.

Describe the impact of slavery on African populations in Africa and the Americas.

Identify Indigenous peoples alliances during and after the American Revolutionary War.

Compare and contrast the efforts of the American and British governments to gain the services of African Americans with recruitment of Indigenous peoples.

Describe causes and effects of the Mexican American War and its consequences on residents living in the "new" U.S. Territories.

Examine the ways in which the United States acquired new territories, including purchases, forced relocation, treaties, annexation, and war.

Demonstrate how conflicts over slavery led the North and South to war.

Evaluate the impact of science and technology during the Civil War period.

Compare and contrast the causes, demographics, and results of the American Revolution.

Discuss the role of religion in the Thirteen Colonies and its impact on developing American identity.

Compare and contrast the causes, demographics, and results of the American Revolution with the French and Latin American revolutions.

Compare and contrast the causes, demographics, and results of the Haitian Revolution and enslaved peoples' rebellions between 1830 CE and 1860 CE.

Power Dynamics, Leadership, and Agency

Critical Consciousness and Perspectives

Describe how knowledge and perspectives of Indigenous peoples can help inform solutions to environmental and human rights issues.

Draw a diagram or make a model to illustrate how Indigenous people have preserved their histories.

Examine how enslaved people adapted within and resisted their captivity.

Describe the formation of African American cultures and identities in free and enslaved communities.

Identify and explore how current traditions, rights, and norms of identity groups have changed or are changing over time.

Compare and contrast the various origins (indigenous, forced, voluntary) of identity groups in the United States.

Examine the impact of historical cultural, economic, political, religious, and social factors that resulted in unequal power relations among identity groups between c. 1400 CE and 1500 CE.

Examine historical and contemporary cultural, economic, intellectual, political, and social contributions to society by individuals or groups within an identity group.

Examine historical and contemporary cultural, economic, intellectual, political, and social contributions to society by individuals or groups within an identity group between 1490 CE and 1750 CE.

Examine the demographics of the Thirteen Colonies in the years leading up to and during the American Revolution.

Describe the influence of diverse ideologies on politics, society, and culture in early U.S. history.

Analyze the motivations of various groups and their impacts on western expansion and the settlement of the United States.

Examine the role assimilation plays in the loss of cultural, ethnic, racial, and religious identities and language.

Deconstruct the Emancipation Proclamation to determine its contemporary purpose and current significance.

Discuss the impact of the Western Campaign on Indigenous peoples.

Explore and demonstrate the contemporary and current significance of Juneteenth.

Assess how social policies and economic forces offer privilege or systemic inequity in accessing social, political, and economic opportunity for identity groups in education, government, healthcare, industry, and law enforcement.

Discuss how the exchanges of resources and culture across civilizations led to the emergence of a global society.

Identify and analyze cultural, differently abled, ethnic, gender, national, political, racial, and religious identities and related perceptions and behaviors by society of these identities.

Discuss the similarities, differences, and interactions between civil rights and civil liberties.

Evaluate the role of racial social constructs in the structures and functions of 21st-century American society.

Apply knowledge of an event of the Sectionalism and Reform Era to analyze current issues and events.

Investigate how identity groups and society address systemic inequity through individual actions, individual champions, social movements, and local community, national, and global advocacy.

Illustrate significant European economic theories and their connection to the colonization of the Western Hemisphere.

Identify and analyze the economic specializations of the Thirteen Colonies.

Identify and explain the economic differences between the North and the South.

Summarize a significant economic warfare initiative of the Civil War through creative expression.

Explain how Union Army strategies and other socioeconomic changes at the end of the Civil War led to an economic depression in the southeastern United States.

Analyze the benefits and challenges that are associated with rapidly growing urban areas because of industrialization.

Determine the relationship between long-term goals and opportunity cost.

Use the five themes of geography (location, place, movement, human-environmental interaction, and region) to describe a specific Sovereign Tribal Nation or Indigenous peoples group of North America.

Analyze how historic events are shaped by geography.

Synthesize geographic information about the significance of the Thirteen Colonies to the British Empire.

Define a region by its human and physical characteristics.

Describe how Indigenous people of North America adapted to their environment.

Critique the ideas and belief systems related to land-and resource-use among Indigenous peoples and Europeans.

Describe a human-created environmental concern related to western expansion, including different contemporary perspectives and other historical context between 1815 CE and 1850 CE.

Describe the causes and effects of exploration and expansion into the Americas by the Europeans during the 15th and 16th centuries.

Compare and contrast reasons why people moved to—and left—the Thirteen Colonies.

Identify immigration and emigration factors that motivated groups to move to and within the United States during time periods of mass immigration.

Analyze why and how Indigenous peoples resisted United States territorial expansion.

Describe how white supremacist groups' organizations in the United States arose with the intention of maintaining the oppression of specific groups through informal institutions.

Describe demographic shifts because of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Demonstrate why different people may have different perspectives of the same historical event and why multiple interpretations should be considered to avoid historical linearity and inevitability.

Examine both sides in debate or academic discussion of politics in response to immigration.

Identify ways insurance may minimize personal financial risk.

Illustrate the power of compounding to highlight the importance of investing at a young age.