Curriculum
Seventh Grade Social Studies: We the People
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
How does one's identity shape or affect one's experiences?
How do stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination affect us and our nation?
Why is it important to be a critical thinker?
How has the "We" in "We the People" changed over time?
To what extent have we as a nation lived up to the values on which it was founded?
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
I. Individual Identity
Define identity as one’s sense of self and who one is
Conclude that there are many factors that shape identity, including: name, religion, age, gender, family, ethnicity, personal experience, interests, abilities, etc., and that each of our identities is different
II. Geography Introduction
On a physical map of the world, use cardinal directions, map scales, key/legend
On a topographic map locate important physical features of a region
Use other kinds of maps (e.g., landform, population, climate) to determine important characteristics of a region.
On a political map of a region, demonstrate map reading skills to distinguish countries, capitals, and other cities and to describe their absolute location (using latitude and longitude coordinates) and relative location (relationship to other countries, cities, or bodies of water)
Use knowledge of maps to complement information gained from text about a city, country or region.
Explain how absolute and relative locations, major physical characteristics, climate and natural resources in a region have influenced settlement patterns, population size, and economies of countries.
On a world map, locate and label the United States, the continents, and oceans.
Identify each of the 13 Colonies, the Appalachian Mountains, and Atlantic Ocean on a map.
Identify the 50 states on a map of the United States.
On a world map, locate and label:
the four hemispheres
the seven continents
the five oceans
the Equator and Prime Meridian
the two poles
III. National Identity
Identify why the Founders of the United States considered the government of ancient Athens to be the beginning of democracy and explain how the democratic political concepts developed in ancient Greece influenced modern democracy (e.g., voting rights, trial by jury, legislative bodies, constitution writing, rule of law)
Describe the government of the Roman Republic and the aspects of republican principles that are evident in modern democratic governments (e.g., separation of powers, rule of law, representative government)
Explain how British ideas about and practices of government (e.g., the Magna Carta) influenced American colonists and the political institutions that developed in colonial America.
Identify the “Social Contract,” the work of Enlightenment thinking John Locke, as the origin of the natural rights on which the Declaration of Independence is based
Identify that the principles of government of the United States were influenced by the governments of Native Peoples (e.g. the Iroquois Confederacy)
Recognize that the Declaration of Independence is a primary source document
Define and distinguish between primary and secondary sources
Differentiate between fact and opinion
Define value as a core, motivating belief that guides your thoughts and actions.
Identify the values of the promise of the Declaration of Independence as liberty, justice, equality, and opportunity
Identify a democratic republic as the form of government chosen by the Founding Fathers when they created the government of the United States.
Identify the U.S. Constitution as the foundation/structure of the government of the United States.
Identify the shared pieces of identity of those who wrote the Constitution and those who were considered the “We” in “We the People”
Identify the three branches of government, their roles and responsibilities, and our system of checks and balances.
Identify the Great Compromise as resulting in the formation of the Senate and House of Representatives
Identify the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution as the Bill of Rights and the liberties they guarantee.
Identify ours as a government based on the principle of federalism, with powers distributed between the national and various state governments
Identify contemporary, school-based examples of the Bill of Rights.
From the short story “Harrison Bergeron,” infer that Vonnegut’s authoritarian society of the future was created by the slow, methodical, step-by-step increase in government power and reduction of personal liberties.
Identify Nazi Germany as a government in the 1930s and 1940s as one that used similar tactics, instituting gradual anti-Semitic and racial laws that eventually led to their ultimate goal of genocide.
Identify the Holocaust as a genocide during World War II when Nazi Germany systematically exterminated 10 million people, among them 6 million Jews, political opponents, gay men, the disabled, Catholics and Jehovah’s Witnesses and acts of resistance by those who were persecuted
Identify the American Constitutional protections against an authoritarian government (checks and balances, free press, free speech, etc.)
IV Breaking the Chain
Define perspective as the way we see and view things, often influenced by our life experiences
Infer that the way others see us can affect the way we see ourselves
Define majority and minority
Define stereotype, prejudice and discrimination, and the cause and effect relationship between them
stereotype: a frozen idea of a group or person which labels all of its members with the same characteristics
prejudice: a strong feeling or attitude against a person or group, not based on facts or knowledge, often based on stereotypes
discrimination: treating one person or group differently from the way you treat another; usually unfair treatment. Discrimination is the action one takes based on feelings of prejudice
Conclude that stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination can affect the experiences of an individual with a particular identity.
Identify examples of historic prejudice and discrimination experienced by different groups of people throughout the history of the United States:
Native Americans
Identify Native Americans as the first Americans who populated the Americas for thousands of years prior to 1600.
Identify how the arrival of European settlers to the East Coast of modern day America led to the forced resettlement of Native Americans.
Identify Indian Boarding Schools as an example of forced assimilation
Define assimilation as the process of changing parts of your identity and behavior to adapt to and fit in more with the dominant culture.
Women
Use the letters between John and Abigail Adams to infer that women were not included in the “We” in the Constitution’s “We the People”
Identify “Coverture” as the legal status of women in Colonial America
Infer from primary and secondary sources that the status of women was subordinate to that of men.
Identify that the Declaration of Sentiments was purposefully based on the language of the Declaration of Independence
Identify which of the grievances listed in the Declaration of Sentiments are still relevant today
Identify that prior to the passage of the 19th Amendment, women in different states had different voting rights
Identify the 19th Amendment as the Constitutional change that granted universal voting rights.
Irish immigrants
Define the following terms
Migrate: to move from one place to another
Immigrate: to move to, or enter a country for the purpose of living there permanently
“Open Door” and “Closed Door” as they relate to Immigration policy
Define Nativism as the belief that white, Protestant, native-born Americans were superior to the incoming immigrants and were the “true” Americans.
Identify stereotypes, discrimination, nativist and government reactions to the Irish: “No Irish Need Apply” Know Nothings, paddy wagons, violence, poor paying and dangerous jobs, etc.
Identify that being Catholic was the piece of the Irish immigrant’s identity that led to nativist Protestant Americans’ prejudice towards them and fear that they would be more loyal to the Pope than the United States
Chinese
Identify the Chinese as a major immigrant group during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to the American West Coast
Identify the West Coast of the U.S. as the region of entry for thousands of Chinese immigrants.
Identify stereotypes, discrimination, nativist and government reactions to the Chinese: Chinese Exclusion Act, boycotts, etc.
Identify Angel Island as a processing and detention center where as many as 175,000 Chinese immigrants, plus thousands of immigrants from other countries, were detained and interrogated between 1910 and 1940.
Infer from the poetry on the walls of Angel Island feelings/frustrations/resilience of many Chinese immigrants.
Japanese/Japanese Americans
Identify Japanese-Americans as a relatively small immigrant group of the late 19th to early 20th century when approximately 400,000 came to the U.S. between 1880 and 1920.
Identify Hawaii and the Pacific Coast of the U.S. as the two most popular destinations for Japanese immigrants.
Identify the Japanese bombing of the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, as the event that precipitated the United States’ entry into WWII, President Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 9066 and the eventual internment of Japanese-Americans and Japanese immigrants.
Define habeas corpus; identify amendments of the Bill of Rights, and specific sections of these amendments that one could argue were violated by the internment of people living in the U.S.
Based on the Japanese internment experience and current events, weigh the balance between individual freedom and national security.
Question the role of racism in the establishment of the Japanese Internment Camps: Italians and Germans were put in internment camps at a MUCH lower number, and no Italian-Americans or German-Americans were interned.
Recognize that no Japanese American was ever convicted of sabotage or espionage against the U.S. during World War II.
Identify that the U.S. government eventually recognized that “racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership” is what led to Japanese internment.
Identify that the U.S. government issued a formal apology for Japanese internment and provided reparations to survivors and their descendants.
Muslims post 9/11
Identify stereotypes of Muslims created after the September 11, 2001 attacks
Identify the rise in hate crimes and outward forms of prejudice felt by American Muslims following the attacks
Define Islamophobia as prejudice and discrimination directed at Muslims and identify modern examples
Mexican and South American immigrants today
Identify stereotypes of Mexican and South American immigrants created by political leaders and the media
Identify and evaluate U.S. policy and policy proposals related to Mexican and South American immigration today (border wall, family separation policy, tariffs, etc.)
V. Pre-Civil War America
Identify the cotton gin and the power loom as two inventions that enabled the mass production of cotton cloth.
Infer that these inventions and slave labor allowed cotton production to soar.
Infer why the number of slaves increased dramatically between 1800 and 1840.
Infer that the life of a slave on a cotton plantation became more brutal, demanding and dehumanizing.
Identify Negro Spirituals as a way enslaved individuals maintained their humanity
Infer that, though the status of slaves was lower than any other group, their role in the U.S. cotton-based economy of the South was very important.
Identify the unacknowledged roles that enslaved individuals have had in building the economy of the South
Identify the 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that the Constitution did not include citizenship for black people
Identify leaders and strategies of abolitionist efforts and the role of allies in reform movements (William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Lucretia Mott, John Brown, Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, etc.).
Identify how the abolitionist movement, and the exclusion of female abolitionist leaders, led to a more organized suffrage movement and planning of the Seneca Falls Conference
VI. Reconstruction and the Jim Crow South
Identify that slavery ends in 1865 with the end of Civil War and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.
Identify issues of importance in the Black Lives matter movement and to modern-day African Americans: police brutality, voting barriers, income disparity, discrimination, sentencing disparities, prison pipeline, etc.
Identify that at the end of the Civil War there were nearly 4 million former slaves suddenly “free”, but without land, jobs, education; unable to read or write; little or no opportunity to relocate.
Identify sharecropping as economic slavery, in response to the 13th Amendment, that trapped many newly-freed slaves to the land on which they used to work.
Identify the Jim Crow segregation laws of the South as an example of discrimination toward African Americans and an attempt to keep their status lower than White Americans
Define segregation as separating or isolating one group from a larger group; a form of discrimination.
Infer that Jim Crow laws led to a lack of equality in terms of public facilities and opportunities.
Infer that Jim Crow laws were a purposeful attempt by racist white supremacists to create separate societies for Blacks and Whites in the South.
Identify lynching as a physical and emotional threat, the role police and others in positions of power played, to African Americans and the role Ida B. Wells and Jessie Daniel Ames played in the anti-lynching movement.
Connect the participation of police officers to police-related shootings of African Americans today
Identify various voting barriers put in place to prevent African Americans from exercising their 13th Amendment Rights, such as the Poll Tax, Literacy Test, Grandfather Clause, threats of violence, etc.
Connection to modern day voting barriers, including overturning the Voting Rights Act, Voter ID laws
Identify the 14th Amendment as granting black citizenship and enshrining the “Equal Protection” Clause
Identify the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision as one in which the Supreme Court upheld segregation and ruled that the “Equal Protection Clause” allowed states and municipalities to separate races so long as both black and white people had access to the same public facilities; “Separate but equal” is Constitutional
Identify the 15th Amendment as preventing states from using race as a factor in preventing someone from voting.
Infer from the poem “We Wear the Mask”, that the role of the “mask” in responding to acts of discrimination was to make Black Americans feel safer and less noticed to the white power structure.
Identify some groups that currently wear a mask today, such as: Muslim-Americans, special education students, and gays and lesbians.
VII: Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance
Define the Great Migration as the time period beginning in 1914 (WWI) when approximately 2 million African-Americans left the rural South for the cities of the industrial North.
Identify four reasons the Great Migration occurred:
The economic, political and social conditions in the South.
Job opportunities created by WWI.
Stories and letters of the successes (real or imagined) from those who had headed north before them.
The codification of "Separate but Equal" in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision
Identify the Harlem Renaissance as the time period in the early 1900s that saw a blossoming of African American culture in the North.
Infer from the music, literature and art of this period that the rebirth of African-American culture and an affirmation of African-American identity can be seen through the music, literature, and art of this period.
Possible connection to Japanese internment: Debate whether reparations should be paid today to members of the African American community
VIII. Civil Rights Movement
Define the Civil Rights Movement as the efforts by legal, educational, political, and religious groups to reclaim the rights guaranteed African Americans in the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.
Identify some strategies used for Black gains in the area of civil rights: political leadership, media exposure, organized group formation, economic power (sit-ins, boycotts), lawsuits.
Students should select a current-day issue or movement that’s important to them and identify which strategies of the Civil Rights Movement could be used today to bring about the change they desire.
Draw the conclusion that many Whites joined with Blacks to advance the goals of the Civil Rights Movements.
Infer that many African Americans’ experiences of discrimination affected their feelings and behaviors, such as: feeling inferior, feeling frustrated and behaving passively; reinforces conclusion: how others see us affects how we see ourselves.
Identify the Brown v. Board of Education decision as the case that overturned Plessy and outlawed segregation in public schools.
Identify the important roles played by Martin Luther King, Jr. and his philosophy of nonviolent resistance, and Malcolm X and his philosophy of Black Power in the Civil Rights Movement.
Identify national civil rights laws that were passed as a result of the Civil Rights Movement (Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act).
Identify specific successes of the Civil Rights Movement to bring about its desired effect as well as goals that have not yet been fully realized.
Draw the conclusion that the Civil Rights Movement led to an increased awareness and growing activism of other groups not fully experiencing the promise of the Declaration of Independence, including women, Native Americans, the disabled, the economically disadvantaged, immigrants, and the LGBTQ+ community.