Course Description |
The seventh grade social studies curriculum focuses on ancient world history and geography with a deliberate focus on the content literacy. Students begin their exploration into world history with a focus on historical thinking. Students then investigate human history from the beginning until around 1500. They explore major and significant changes in each era through a chronological organization. Students learn about the earliest humans and explore early migration and settlement patterns. In studying the origins of farming and its impact upon emerging human cultures, students analyze evidence from the fields of archaeology and anthropology, and employ a wide range of data sources including artifacts, photographs, and geographic information. Students examine how the emergence of pastoral and agrarian societies set the stage for the development of powerful empires, trade networks, and the diffusion of people, resources, and ideas. Extending students study of world history through Era 4 (300 CE – 1500 CE) places world religions and development of empires in the Americas (Aztecs, Incas, Mayans) in their historical context. The rise and fall of empires, as well as the nomadic groups in Afro-Eurasia, generated new zones of cultural and commercial exchange that linked regions across the world and enabled ideas to spread.
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Course Objectives |
The objectives of world history are to improve students’ literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects. At the end of this course, students should be able to:
-Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text. -Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence. -Evaluate evidence, compare and contrast information, interpret the historical record, and develop sound historical arguments and perspectives on which informed decisions in contemporary life can be based. -Describe and study the relationships between people, places, and environments by using information that is in a geographic (spatial) context. |