Middle School History Syllabus

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1 Middle School History Syllabus Curriculum Details Created by: Garrett O Sullivan Created on: June 2014 Source: KS3 National Curriculum & Big History Project School Session: 2014/15 Curriculum Aims These are set out below and describe the educational purposes of a course in History for the Middle School. They are not listed in order of priority. The general aims are to: successful learners who enjoy learning, make progress and achieve confident individuals who are able to live safe, healthy and fulfilling lives responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society. The subject specific aims are to: explore the ways in which the past has helped shape identities, shared cultures, values and attitudes today. investigate aspects of personal, family or local history and how they relate to a broader historical context appreciate and evaluate, through visits where possible, the role ofmuseums, galleries, archives and historic sites in preserving, presenting and influencing people s attitudes towards the past use ICT to research information about the past, process historical data,and select, categorize, organize and present their findings make links between history and other subjects and areas of the curriculum, including citizenship. Page 1 of 18

2 Learning Outcomes There are a number of key concepts that underpin the study of history. Pupils need to understand these concepts in order to deepen and broaden their knowledge, skills and understanding. These skills and concepts are then reflected in the APP (Assessing Pupil Progress) chart which is used to assess our student s attainment throughout Middle School History. The APP chart can be viewed in the assessment section of this document. The key skills and competencies for Middle School History are as follows: Chronological Understanding Thinking Historically Understanding and using appropriately dates, vocabulary and conventions that describe historical periods and the passing of time. Developing a sense of period through describing and analyzing the relationships between the characteristic features of periods and societies. Building a chronological framework of periods and using this to place new knowledge in its historical context. Cultural, Ethnic and Religious Understanding Understanding the diverse experiences and ideas, beliefs and attitudes of men, women and children in past societies and how these have shaped the world. Change and Continuity Identifying and explaining change and continuity within and across periods of history. Cause and Consequence Analyzing and explaining the reasons for, and results of, historical events, situations and changes. Page 2 of 18

3 Significance and Interpretation Exploring Interpretations Considering the significance of events, people and developments in their historical context and in the present day. Understanding how historians and others form interpretations. Understanding why historians and others have interpreted events, people and situations in different ways through a range of media. Evaluating a range of interpretations of the past to assess their validity. Historical Enquiry Historical Enquiry identify and investigate, individually and as part of a team, specific historical questions or issues, making and testing hypotheses reflect critically on historical questions or issues. Using Evidence identify, select and use a range of historical sources, including textual, visual and oral sources, artefacts and the historic environment evaluate the sources used in order to reach reasoned conclusions. Communicating about the Past present and organize accounts and explanations about the past that are coherent, structured and substantiated, using chronological conventions and historical vocabulary communicate their knowledge and understanding of history in a variety of ways, using chronological conventions and historical vocabulary. Page 3 of 18

4 Course Description History fires pupils curiosity and imagination, moving and inspiring them with the dilemmas, choices and beliefs of people in the past. It helps pupils develop their own identities through an understanding of history at personal, local, national and international levels. It helps them to ask and answer questions of the present by engaging with the past. Pupils find out about the history of their community, the Bahamas, America and the world. They develop a chronological overview that enables them to make connections within and across different periods and societies. They investigate Europe s relationship with the wider world, and relate past events to the present day. As they develop their understanding of the nature of historical study, pupils ask and answer important questions, evaluate evidence, identify and analyze different interpretations of the past, and learn to substantiate any arguments and judgments they make. They appreciate why they are learning what they are learning and can debate its significance. History prepares pupils for the future, equipping them with knowledge and skills that are prized in adult life, enhancing employability and developing an ability to take part in a democratic society. It encourages mutual understanding of the historic origins of our ethnic and cultural diversity, and helps pupils become confident and questioning individuals. The Middle School History curriculum is studied for three years between Year Seven and Year Nine. Individual teachers are free to decide how they will cover the syllabus however it is strongly advised that the following content is covered each year: Year 7: from Medieval Europe to the Age of Explorations Year 8: from the Enlightenment to the World after 1945 Year 9: the Big History Project 13.8 billion years of history in one course Page 4 of 18

5 Course Curriculum Year Seven 1. The Study of History Why do we study history and how is it linked to the present day? Using timelines and how they promote understanding of changes through history. Analysing, valuing and interpreting sources. The concepts of cause and consequence. Vocabulary and lexicon for describing the past 2. Medieval Europe Life in medieval Europe: the spread of Christianity and the monastic system manorialism, feudalism and the structure of medieval society. Knights and chivalry: how to become a Knight in medieval society the knight s code and chivalry The Normans in England: who were the Normans claimants to the English throne the Battle of Hastings changes made to Norman England The demise of medieval Europe: the growth of towns and agriculture the Black Death and the end of medieval society Page 5 of 18

6 The Incas of South America: 3. The Great Civilizations of Mesoamerica the growth of the Incas and Cusco daily life in an Incan city the discovery of Machu Picchu achievements of the Incas The Aztecs of Central America: the rise of the Triple Alliance human sacrifice in the Aztec Empire achievements of the Aztecs The Lucayans of the Bahamas: Taino migration to the Bahamas what we know about the Lucayans legacy of the Lucayans The causes of the Renaissance: 4. The Renaissance & Reformation Emergence from the Middle Ages Trade with the East and the growth of Italian City States. Humanism and the patrons of the arts: de Medici of Florence. Changes in the arts, architecture and science: New techniques in painting and sculpture. Case Studies: Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci New styles of architecture; gothic to classicism. Page 6 of 18

7 Changes in science Galileo, the solar system and gravity. The causes of the Reformation: The power of the church in Europe. Indulgences and other common abuses. The invention of the printing press and diffusion of information. The major reformers: Martin Luther and the early German Reformation. Henry VIII and his six wives. The reasons behind increased exploration: 5. The Age of Explorations Marco Polo and his land journeys to Asia. New technologies in navigation and boat construction. Searching for sea routes to Asia: Henry the Navigator and the Portuguese school of navigation. Sea routes to India: Vasco da Gama and Bartholomew Diaz. Christopher Columbus and the discovery of the Americas. The colonisation of the Americas: The Treaty of Tordesillas and the early conquistadores. Hernan Cortes and the conquest of the Aztecs. The Columbian Exchange and transatlantic slavery. The impact of colonization on the Lucayans Early piracy in the Bahamas Page 7 of 18

8 Course Curriculum Year Eight The American War of Independence: 6. The Age of Revolutions The main causes of the revolution. George Washington and the war with Britain. Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence. Treaty of Paris and a reshaped New World The French Revolution: The social and political structure of France in the 18 th Century. The main causes of the revolution. From the Bastille to the execution of Louis and the end of monarchy. The Reign of Terror and Robespierre. The emergence of Napoleon and the promotion of science and law. Napoleon s conquest of Europe and his eventual exile to St.Helena. The emergence of new technologies: 7. The Industrial Revolution and Imperialism The causes of the industrial revolution. The steam engine and invention of new machinery. The growth of railways, mining and factories in industrial Britain. Life in the industrial revolution: Urbanisation and living conditions for workers. Case Study: inventors of the Industrial Revolution Watt, Davy or Faraday. Children and child labour during the 19 th century. Page 8 of 18

9 The American Civil War: Slavery and the plantation system in America. Westward expansion and the outbreak of war. The Bahamas, piracy and running the blockade Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. European imperialism: The Berlin conference and division of Africa The scramble for Africa The colonial system in Asia 8. World War One The causes of the war: Militarism, the alliance system and nationalism. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand and the Schlieffen Plan. The main battles of the war: Trench warfare and the life of a soldier. Battle of Verdun Battle of the Somme. Battle of Jutland. Warfare strategies: The new weapons; tanks, airplanes and chemical warfare. Naval Blockade and the entrance of America into the war. Reasons for the Allied victory in the war. The terms of the Treaty of Versailles Page 9 of 18

10 The road to war: 7. World War Two The Great Depression The main long term and ideological causes of the war. Appeasement and the failure to stop Hitler. Hitler s short term steps to war rearmament to the invasion of Poland. The main events of the war: The Battle of Britain. Operation Barbarossa and the invasion of Russia. Pearl Harbour and the battle in the Pacific. D-Day and the defeat of Germany. Dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Nazi Final Solution and the Holocaust. Consequences of the war: Ideological struggle; communism, capitalism and economic competition The conferences at Potsdam and Yalta. 8. The World Since 1945 The main causes of the Cold War: The division of Germany, Berlin and Eastern Europe. The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. The Berlin Blockade. Page 10 of 18

11 Cold War case studies: Castro and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Containment of communism: the Vietnam War. Collapse of communism and the fall off the Berlin Wall The people s century the power of protest Civil Rights movement in America Independence for the Bahamas Design a non-violent protest campaign on a topic of your choice Page 11 of 18

12 Course Curriculum Year Nine: The Big History Project What is the Big History Project? Big history weaves evidence and insights from many scientific and historical disciplines across 13.7 billion years into a single, cohesive, science-based origin story. The concept arose from a desire to go beyond specialized and self-contained fields of study to grasp history as a whole. Big history explores how we are connected to everything around us and where we may be heading. It provides a foundation for thinking about the future and the changes that are reshaping our world. Big history challenges students to think critically and broadly and tries to ignite a passion for inquiry. Access to a wide variety of learning resources encourages exploration. Students practice critical reading and writing skills through investigations, projects, and activities, and gain a strong interdisciplinary foundation, which provides a useful context for understanding world events in the past and present. Historical concepts: Big history requires students to examine big questions: How has the Universe and life within it grown more complex over the past 13.7 billion years? How do we know what we know about the past? How can we judge claims about the past? Why does what we know change over time? How does what happened during the early days of the Universe, the Solar System, and the Earth shape what we are experiencing today? Main Themes: Our big history course for high school students is a modern, science-based origin story. The course uses multiple disciplines and the connections between them to help students understand a 13.7 billion-year historical narrative in order to gain insight into human civilizations past, present, and future. The course provides an overview of scientific concepts in an historic context, focusing on four major themes. Thresholds Big history looks at eight points in time where we see massive leaps forward in both human and nonhuman history. These thresholds include the first stars, the formation of the Earth, the development of the human species ability to learn collectively, and the development of agriculture. Each threshold represents a moment where a set of conditions were just right for increasingly complex things to form. These Goldilocks Conditions set the stage for things such as stars, planets, Page 12 of 18

13 living organisms, and human beings. Each presents a new set of conditions not previously seen in our Universe. Scale Big history deals with many different scales in time and space: huge and tiny objects, such as galaxies and atoms; short and long events, from events that lasted a billionth of a second to those that span billions of years. To understand big history, it is important to grasp these different scales in time and space, see the relationships between them, and recognize how different scales enable diverse ways of seeing. Claim testing Studying the past is difficult in part because events that didn t take place in the present cannot always be easily verified. All scholars, whether they are historians, biologists, or astronomers, must justify the claims they make about the past. Understanding the justifications people make for these claims is an important factor in deciding how much you should trust an idea or a story. Big history examines how scholars use different claim testers in a variety of ways to substantiate the myriad claims made as part of the modern science-based origin story. This big history course identifies four main claim testers: authority, evidence, intuition, and logic. Collective learning Collective learning means sharing what you have learned with others so that the knowledge available to everyone increases over time, from generation to generation. Collective learning is unique to our own species and explains why human technologies have become increasingly powerful. Understanding the concept of collective learning helps us understand the unique place of human beings in big history. Big history itself is a product of collective learning over many thousands of years. Course Content: Part 1: Formations and Early Life Unit 1: What Is Big History? Investigation: Why look at things from far away and from close up? Unit 2: The Big Bang Investigation: When and why should people change their minds? Unit 3: Stars & Elements Investigation: How do new points of view pave the way for progress? Unit 4: Our Solar System & Earth Investigation: When and why do people accept a theory? Page 13 of 18

14 Unit 5: Life Investigation: How and why have people misused Darwin s ideas? Part 2: Humans Unit 6: Early Humans Investigation: How does language make humans different from other animals? Unit 7: Agriculture & Civilization Investigation: Was farming an improvement over foraging? Unit 8: Expansion & Interconnection Investigation: What can two diseases tell us about how our world has changed? Unit 9: Acceleration Investigation: To what extent has the Modern Revolution been a positive or a negative force? Unit 10: The Future Investigation: Are humans still evolving? Learning Outcomes: Big history is guided by course-wide learning outcomes that are built on key concepts and literacies. These outcomes shape each of the individual units and lessons as well as the assessment activities. The Big History Project seeks to move beyond simply learning facts to focusing on improving a student s ability to conduct research, read informational texts carefully and critically, and develop evidence-based arguments. BHP sets the expectation that participating students will be able to: Articulate a coherent narrative of the Universe, from the Big Bang to today. This narrative should incorporate multiple disciplines, and include details from small- and large-scale aspects of the story. Make use of complex scientific and historical facts in constructing explanations of the universe. Evaluate key historical and scientific concepts from a variety of scholarly disciplines. Locate their own community and humanity as a whole within the big history narrative of the Universe. Evaluate, analyze, and justify the validity of their own and others claims. Conduct rigorous historical investigations by framing researchable problems, finding relevant sources of information across a range of disciplines and formats, analyzing and evaluating evidence, and constructing narratives, explanations, and arguments. Critically read, synthesize, and analyze primary and secondary historical, scientific and technical texts, and other resources. Page 14 of 18

15 Communicate big history ideas, evidence, narratives, explanations, and arguments to a variety of audiences through individual or shared writing, speaking, and other formats. Student Assessment: The Big History Project includes five key assessment instruments: Quizzes Each unit includes a brief multiple choice quiz covering core concepts and a glossary quiz in which students match terms and definitions. Tests There are three longer tests included in the course, which consist of multiple choice and shortanswer identification questions. Investigations Each unit includes an in-depth student investigation that requires research, writing, and presentation skills Project - based learning activities There are three, two-week long PBL activities that provide students with opportunities to apply their knowledge and develop their own ideas Little Big History project The capstone project to the course, the Little Big History project spans more than two weeks and provides rich opportunities for students to explore ideas within the course more deeply, and to represent their understanding through writing, presenting, and other artifacts. Page 15 of 18

16 Course Assessment for Year Seven & Eight In Middle School History we employ the APP (Assessing Pupil Progress) criteria to monitor the attainment and progress of our students. Beginning in Year Seven at Level 2a, students should gradually obtain the skills laid out in the chart below and by the end of Year Eight students should be at Level 7b. Class teachers are free to divide up the teaching of these key skills throughout years 7 and 8 in any way they wish although it is strongly advised to follow the progression steps laid out below. The APP Chart Level Thinking Historically 2a describe ways in which their own lives are different from those of people in the past Exploring Interpretations begin to identify some of the different ways in which the past has been represented Historical Enquiry ask questions about the past 2b recount some events, episodes, aspects of people s lives and actions from the past questions about the past by observing and handling different kinds of sources 2c identify some reasons why people may have acted as they did 3a describe some features of past societies compare different ways in which people have represented an event or person ask questions about the past and use sources to find answers to their questions 3b identify similarities and differences between different periods of history communicate their findings in appropriate ways 3c begin to suggest some causes of events 4a describe some characteristic features of past societies and periods describe how people have interpreted the past in different ways pursue investigations to find answers to historical questions 4b identify change and continuity within and across different periods of history use sources to establish evidence for particular enquiries 4c identify causes of events and situations present and structure their findings in a variety of ways 5a describe the features of past societies and periods suggest some reasons why people construct different interpretations of the past begin to suggest their own enquiry questions when investigating historical problems and issues Page 16 of 18

17 5b begin to recognise the nature and extent of diversity, change and continuity in past societies and periods consider why some events, changes and individuals are sometimes judged as more significant than others begin to evaluate historical sources to establish evidence for particular enquiries 5c suggest relationships between a range of causes of events and situations communicate their findings in appropriate and structured ways 6a describe the diverse experiences, values and beliefs of people in the past explore features of historical interpretations to consider how and why they have been constructed investigate historical problems and issues using and beginning to refine their own enquiry questions 6b reach some conclusions about the extent and nature of diversity, change and continuity within and across different periods of history apply and review criteria for making judgements about the significance of historical events, changes and individuals select and evaluate sources to establish relevant evidence for particular enquiries 6c begin to explain the relationships between causes of events and situations communicate their findings in relevant and well-structured ways appropriate to the purpose and nature of the enquiry 7a compare and contrast diverse experiences, values and beliefs of people in the past explain how and why people have constructed different interpretations of the past conduct historical enquiries by defining, and refining enquiry questions and begin to structure their own investigations of historical problems and issues 7b make substantiated judgments about the extent and nature of diversity, change and continuity explain how judgements about significance may vary according to the perspectives of those making them draw conclusions from a range of historical sources, selecting and evaluating them in the light of their nature, origin and purpose Grade Boundaries A+ A A- B+ B B- C+ C C- D+ D D- E+ E E- F Page 17 of 18

18 In School Assessment Middle School assessment will employ a combination of the following assessment methods: Fact checking quizzes Research projects and formative assessments Essay projects Summative exams prior to reporting periods. Year Seven Fact Check Quizzes Research Projects Essay Projects Summative Exam 1st Report 20% 20% 20% 40% 2nd Report 20% 20% 20% 40% 3rd Report 20% 20% 20% 40% Year Eight Fact Check Quizzes Research Projects Essay Projects Summative Exam 1st Report 20% 20% 20% 40% 2nd Report 20% 20% 20% 40% 3rd Report 20% 20% 20% 40% Notes and Comments Page 18 of 18

AUSTRALIAN STEINER CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK 2011

STEINER EDUCATION AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIAN STEINER CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK 2011 HISTORY Scope & Sequence High School SEA:ASCF HISTORY CURRICULUM AUSTRALIAN STEINER CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK SEA:ASCF HISTORY Scope