The highlighted evidence outcomes are the priority for all students, serving as the essential concepts and skills. It is recommended that the remaining evidence outcomes listed be addressed as time allows, representing the full breadth of the curriculum.

Students Can (Evidence Outcomes):

• Identify ways different cultures record history in the Western Hemisphere through written and oral sources. (1.1.a)

• Analyze multiple primary and secondary sources while formulating historical questions about the Western Hemisphere. For example: Oral histories, art, artifacts, eyewitness accounts, letters and diaries, artifacts, real or simulated historical sites, charts, graphs, diagrams and written texts. (1.1.b)

• Gather, organize, synthesize, and critique information, from multiple and diverse perspectives, to determine if it is sufficient to answer historical questions about the Western Hemisphere.  For example: Indigenous People, Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, LGBTQ, and religious minorities and differing opinions within such groups. (1.1.c)

• Explain how people, products, cultures, and ideas interact and are interconnected in the Western Hemisphere and how they have impacted modern times.  For example: The “Great Dying” of Indigenous Peoples in the Americas and its consequences; rapid deforestation of the Amazon; anti-colonial and nationalist movements, the Columbian Exchange, and revolutions in energy.  (1.2.a)

• Determine and explain the historical context of key people, events, and ideas over time including the examination of different perspectives from people involved. For example: the complex interactions between majority and minority groups and individuals involved in European colonization in the Western Hemisphere. (1.2.b)

• Identify examples of the social, political, cultural, and economic development in key areas of the Western Hemisphere.  For example: the extension of networks of communication, colonial empires, patterns of migration over time, and international trade.  (1.2.c)

• Explain the interdependence and uniqueness among Indigenous Peoples in the Western Hemisphere including the existing conflict and power dynamics between Indigenous Peoples and those in power. (1.2.d)

• Use geographic tools to identify, locate, and describe places and regions in the Western Hemisphere to investigate and solve geographic problems. For example: Farming practices in a dry climate, implications of building a dam, and deforestation.  (2.1.a)

• Classify and analyze the types of human and geographic connections between places. (2.2.a)

• Identify physical features of the Western Hemisphere and explain their effects on people who reside in the region. (2.2.b)

• Analyze positive and negative interactions of human and physical systems in the Western Hemisphere and give examples of how people have adapted to their physical environment. (2.2.c)

• Investigate the historical, social, and cultural influences of minorities on civil governments of the United States, and the rest of the Western Hemisphere. (4.2.f)

Academic Vocabulary and Language Expectations

• Aztec, Inca, Maya, Indigenous, adaptation, irrigation, ethnicity, cultural region, innovations, diaspora

• Grade 6-8 Social Studies Language Expectations