Grade 8

Historical Inquiry and Analysis

Geography

The Reconstruction Period and Government

Use research and inquiry skills to analyze American History using primary and secondary sources.

Understand how to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technology to report information.   

Understand physical and cultural characteristics of places.

Understand the relationships between the Earth's ecosystems and the populations that dwell within them.  

Understand the characteristics, distribution, and migration of human populations.

Understand how human actions can impact the environment and physical geography.   

Examine the effects of Reconstruction on American life 1865 to 1877.   

Understand how life changed after the Civil War: 1877 to the Early 1900s.   

Understand the changing role of the United States from the late nineteenth century through World War I.  

Understand the social, economic, and technological changes of the early twentieth century.  

Examine the major causes and effects of American involvement in World War II. 

Examine the economic, social, and political transformation of the United States and the world between the end of World War II and the present.

Understand the key domestic and international issues during the second half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.   

Provide supporting details for an answer from text, interview for oral history, check validity of information from research/text, and identify strong vs. weak arguments.

Analyze charts, graphs, maps, photographs and timelines; analyze political cartoons; determine cause and effect.

Analyze current events relevant to American History topics through a variety of electronic and print media resources.

Differentiate fact from opinion, utilize appropriate historical research and fiction/nonfiction support materials.

Identify, within both primary and secondary sources, the author, audience, format, and purpose of significant historical documents.

Compare interpretations of key events and issues throughout American History.

View historic events through the eyes of those who were there as shown in their art, writings, music, and artifacts, including the perspectives of indigenous people, immigrants, women, and minorities.

Use maps to explain physical and cultural attributes of major regions throughout American history.

Use appropriate geographic tools and terms to identify and describe significant places and regions in American history.

Identify the physical elements and the human elements that define and differentiate regions as relevant to American history.

Use geographic terms and tools to analyze case studies of regional issues in different parts of the United States that have had critical economic, physical, or political ramifications.

Locate major cultural and physical landmarks that are emblematic of the United States.

Locate and describe in geographic terms the major ecosystems of the United States.

Use geographic terms and tools to explain differing perspectives on the use of renewable and non-renewable resources in the United States and Florida over time.

Use geographic terms and tools to analyze the effects throughout American history of migration to and within the United States, both on the place of origin and destination.

Interpret databases, case studies, and maps to describe the role that regions play in influencing trade, migration patterns, and cultural/political interaction in the United States throughout time.

Use geographic terms and tools to analyze case studies of the development, growth, and changing nature of cities and urban centers in the United States over time.

Use political maps to describe changes in boundaries and governance throughout American history.

Describe human dependence on the physical environment and natural resources to satisfy basic needs in local environments in the United States.

Describe the impact of human modifications on the physical environment and ecosystems of the United States throughout history.

Use appropriate maps and other graphic representations to analyze geographic problems and changes over time throughout American history.

Illustrate places and events in U.S. history through the use of narratives and graphic representations.

Analyze the impact of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and how they changed the meaning of citizenship.

Identify the constitutional provisions for establishing citizenship (obey laws, pay taxes, defend the nation, and serve on juries).

Describe the impact of Reconstruction policies on the South and North including Lincoln's legacy plan.

Describe the influences of individuals on social and political developments of the Reconstruction period.

Examine the reasons for westward expansion, the legitimacy of the ideology behind the concept of "Manifest Destiny," and the impact of expansion on Native Americans.

Explain the reasons for the increase in immigration, growth of cities, and challenges arising from post-Reconstruction expansion.

Describe racial segregation, the rise of “Jim Crow,” and other constraints faced by African Americans and other groups in the post-Reconstruction South.

Explain the impact of new inventions, the rise of big business, the growth of industry, and the changes to life on American farms in response to industrialization.

Analyze contributions of entrepreneurs, inventors, and other key individuals from various gender, social, and ethnic backgrounds in the development of the United States economy.

Explain how economic institutions impact the national economy.

Evaluate and explain the impact of the Progressive Movement and individual Catholic clergy and laity on child labor, working conditions, the rise of organized labor, women’s suffrage, and the temperance movement.

Compare different forms of government; i.e. direct democracy, representative democracy, socialism, communism, monarchy, oligarchy, autocracy.

Identify the evolution of the political party system in America.

Explain the reasons for and results of the Spanish-American War.

Describe Theodore Roosevelt’s impact on the foreign policy of the United States.

Evaluate and explain the reasons for the United States’ involvement in World War I and its international leadership role at the conclusion of the war.

Explain how developments in factory and labor productivity, transportation (including the use of the automobile), communication, and rural electrification changed American life and standard of living.

Describe the social and economic changes that took place, including prohibition, the Great Migration north and west, and the 19th amendment.

Examine art, literature, and music from the 1920s and 1930s; i.e. Langston Hughes, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Georgia O’Keeffe, and the Harlem Renaissance.

Analyze the causes of the Great Depression, its impact on Americans, and the major features of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Explain how federal, state, and local taxes support the economy as a function of the United States government.

Explain the causes and events that led to American involvement in the war, including the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Locate and describe the major events and turning points of the war in Europe and the Pacific.

Explain and evaluate the impact of the war on the home front.

Examine the increasing impact of media, individuals, and interest groups on monitoring and influencing government.

Analyze media and political communications (bias, symbolism, propaganda).

Describe the rebuilding of Europe and Japan after World War II, the emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as superpowers, and the establishment of the United Nations.

Describe the conversion from a wartime to a peacetime economy.

Discuss the importance of borrowing and lending in the United States, and list the advantages and disadvantages of using credit.

Discuss the function of financial institutions in the development of a market economy.

Examine the role of the United States during the Cold War, including the wars in Korea and Vietnam, the Cuban missile crisis, the collapse of communism in Europe, and the rise of new challenges.

Describe examples of how the United States has dealt with international conflicts.

Describe the changing patterns of society, including expanded educational and economic opportunities for military veterans, women, and minorities.

Evaluate and explain the impact of international trade and globalization on American life.

Examine the impact of the Civil Rights Movement, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the youth movement, and the changing role of women on all Americans.

Analyze the impact of the 24th and 26th amendments on participation of minority groups in the American political process. 

Analyze the significance and outcomes of landmark Supreme Court cases including, but not limited to, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, Gideon v. Wainwright, Miranda v. Arizona, and United States v. Nixon.

Examine multiple perspectives on public and current issues.

Describe the development of new technologies in communication, entertainment, and business and their impact on American life.

Examine motivating economic factors that influenced the development of the United States economy over time including scarcity, supply and demand, opportunity costs, profits, and entrepreneurship.

Analyze how representative citizens have influenced America scientifically, culturally, academically, economically, religiously.

Evaluate and explain American foreign policy, immigration, the global environment, and other emerging issues.

Recall that God made human beings with freedom to act responsibly when confronted with moral choices.

Explain how their creation in God's image underlies Catholic Social Teaching (innate dignity of all humans). Any form of human oppression, discrimination, and/or racism is in direct contradiction to our Catholic Faith. 

Identify Catholic Social Teaching as beginning with Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum Novarum [challenge to to morality of the Industrial Revolution].

Apply the concept of the dignity of the worker to the moral mandate to work for the benefit of the community.

Explain causes of vulnerability (age, race, disability, etc.) and ways we can act morally in situations where vulnerable people are present.

Explain the stewardship equation - receive / cultivate / share / return.

Recognize how the Church continues to work toward understanding the issues and problems of today in light of the Church's Social Teachings.

Apply the concept of the dignity of the workerto the moral mandate to workfor the benefit of the community.

Identify persons/groups that have influenced society/culture for the good throughout Church history.

Explain how Catholics are called to protect and promote the dignity of all human life.

Review and identify a moral decision-making process which includes reflection on faith, law, context, and self/others.