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Curriculum and Instructional Guide
Curriculum and Instructional Guide
Course Description: In U.S. History, students investigate significant events, individuals, developments, and processes in nine historical periods from approximately 1750 to the present. Students develop and use the same skills and methods employed by historians: analyzing primary and secondary sources; developing historical arguments; making historical connections; and utilizing reasoning about comparison, causation, and continuity and change. The course also provides eight themes that students explore throughout the course in order to make connections among historical developments in different times and places: American and national identity; work, exchange, and technology; geography and the environment; migration and settlement; politics and power; America in the world; American and regional culture; and social structures.
The goal of this course is for students to become literate in the major events and themes of American history since the Colonial period to the Modern day, and to engage with primary and secondary sources to develop understanding of historical developments, and be more informed about the historical process of inquiry. They will develop skills in approaching historical questions through argumentative reasoning, research, critical thinking, and interpretation of sources. Students will see American history as a discipline relevant to the world in which they live; as a source of ideas for identifying, clarifying, and solving problems at various scales; and as a key component of building knowledge about their country and its impact on the world as a whole.
Key Ideas include things such as vocabulary, essential knowledge, places, historical figures
Course Concepts - The content and performance Social Studies standards are organized around the following guidelines:
ECO - Economics – Economics includes the study of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Students will understand how their economic decisions affect themselves, others, the nation, and the world as a whole. Students will be able to reconcile unlimited wants with limited resources. Students will understand the effects of economic decisions in daily living.
GEO - Geography – Geography includes the study of location, place, regions, movement and human interaction with the environment. Understanding the world and its delicate balance are essential to human survival. A geographic perspective allows better understanding of the past and preparation for the future.
HIS - History – History is an interpretation of events, people, ideas, and their interaction over time. In order for students to understand the present and make plans for the future, they must understand the past. Students will be able to understand, analyze, and interpret historical events, conditions, trends, and issues to develop historical perspectives.
CIV - Civics & Government – Citizenship entails an understanding of the nature of government and the unique qualities of a democracy including fundamental rights, structure, and the role of the citizen. Students will apply justice, equality, responsibility, and freedom to life. Students will understand and be able to describe various forms of government and analyze rights and responsibilities within each
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Ways to Infuse the Catholic Faith:
Catholic Social Teaching Themes:
Life and Dignity of the Human Person – The Catholic Church proclaims that human life is sacred and that the dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision for society. The Church believes that every person is precious, that people are more important than things and the measure of every institution is whether it threatens or enhances the life and dignity of the human person.
Call to Family, Community and Participation – The Catholic Church tradition proclaims that the person is not only sacred but also social. Marriage and the family is the central social institution that must be supported and strengthened, not undermined. Our Church teaches that the role of government and other institutions is to protect human life and human dignity and promote the common good.
Rights and Responsibilities – Catholic tradition teaches that human dignity can be protected and a healthy community can be achieved only if human rights are protected and responsibilities are met.
Option for the Poor and Vulnerable – Catholic teaching proclaims that a basic moral test is how our most vulnerable members are faring. We are instructed in Matthew 25: 31-46 to put the needs of the poor and vulnerable first.
The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers – The Catholic Church believes that the economy must serve people, not the other way around. Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation.
Solidarity – Catholic social teaching proclaims that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they live. We are one human family whatever our national, racial, ethnic, economic, and ideological differences. Learning to practice the virtue of solidarity means learning that “loving our neighbor” has global dimensions in an interdependent world.
Care for God’s Creation –The Catholic tradition insists that we show our respect for the Creator by our stewardship of creation. We are called to protect people and the planet, living our faith in relationship with all of God’s creation.
Unit 1
In America’s founding, freedom was wanted, but religious liberty was not a popular idea in that Catholics were held in suspicion or contempt in many places. Why was this the case? How has this changed in recent years? Using the USCCB as reference, discuss current challenges and opportunities American Catholics face regarding Religious Liberty.
What is the USCCB? Familiarize yourself with the breadth of topics addressed in its website. Are there areas of concern in the United States that you think the Bishops are not addressing? What do you think they would say?
Was the American revolution a Just War? It involved many Catholics, but did the war adhere to the standards that the Catholic Church believes are necessary for violence to be justified?
Unit 2
What is an inalienable right and what did the framers of the Constitution mean by liberty? Can/should people be free to do anything they want?
Pope Benedict said we live under a cultural dictatorship of relativism. What is moral relativism and how does its prevalence in culture affect society? What is objective truth and subjective truth? How did historical debates around Slavery and Abolition reflect moral relativism?
People often find and fight for a cause they see as important. What ‘causes’ has the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops asked us to be involved in? Where would the Abolitionist movement fit in this framework?
Unit 3
Rerum Novarum was published during the Industrial Revolution and provides guidance for how humans and the economy should interact. What issues are still faced by workers today from when it was published? How did Pope Leo XIII believe these issues should be addressed?
How have relations between the Native American tribes and the Catholic Church changed in the past two centuries since the westward expansion of the United States?
Unit 4
Utilitarianism is when we see people as objects.How is utilitarianism evident in the Spanish-American War and other colonial struggles? Discuss how we can see utilitarianism today.
Is the idea of the “Civilizing Mission” compatible with Church teaching? Why or why not?
How did the new scientific ideas such as the theory of evolution interact with the Catholic Church? Why are these sorts of scientific investigations held up as evidence against God, and why are they actually compatible with Church belief and teachings?
During World War One the Church attempted to broker peace between the belligerents. How has the Church acted as a peacemaker in other conflicts?
Unit 5
During the interwar years, the Catholic Church staunchly resisted the spread of Communism and during World War Two many German and Polish priests, bishops, and other figures resisted Nazi atrocities. What principles of Catholic social justice were they animated by? What can we learn from their example of defiance and faith in the face of totalitarian political ideologies?
Was World War Two a “just war” according to Catholic Social Teachings? Why or why not?
Unit 6
How did the Papacy react to the start of the Cold War?
How does the idea of solidarity between peoples that the Church puts forth interact with the ideas of containment and hostility during the Cold War between the belligerent powers?
Unit 7
How did the social movements of the 1960’s and the 1970’s interact with Catholic Social Justice teachings? DId they adhere to the same ideas? Did they differ in approach, goal, or both?
Civil Rights Movement
Second Wave Feminism
War on Poverty
War on Drugs
Environmentalism
Unit 8
What issues did the Church confront with the collapse of the Soviet Union?
How did changing economic and cultural conditions of the late 20th century bring to mind the earlier works of Popes like Leo XIII?
What roles did the Church adopt in confronting major problems of the late 20th and early 21st century such as the AIDS crisis and the ethnic conflicts around the world that the US became involved with?
Unit 9
The Church under Pope Francis has become increasingly concerned with the media and technological uses of younger generations. How have the recent apporaches to these issues been reflected in your own relationship with media and the internet?
What role does the Church have in today’s globalized and increasingly secularized world? How has the influence of Catholic institutions and beliefs been reflected in US actions since the end of the 20th Century?
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