History Standard Two - Grades 9-12

Sample Activities

Following an examination of historical documents relating to the Civil Rights era, student could write an analysis of motivations of both proponents and opponents of civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s. Then they would read several published interpretations and compare it with the ones they had written [Analysis].

Students could examine news coverage of a major world event in which the United States has been involved in different sources from around the world (e.g., London Times, International Herald-Tribune, Hong Kong Daily) and analyze the differences in coverage in terms of different national, political, or cultural perspectives on the issue [Analysis]

This activity could serve as the basis for a fully integrated social studies learning event which incorporated Civics, Geography, and Economics as well as History as intellectual tools for examining a problem or issue.

Students could be asked to select an historical event and perform the initial research necessary to determine primary and secondary source which might be located concerning it. After reading several accounts of negotiations over the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, they could generate lists of people involved who might have written diaries, letters, memoirs, or public papers detailing their own participation and personal impressions. These lists would then be compared to bibliographies in secondary interpretations, library catalogs, or on-line computer searches to determine the existence and availability of those sources. Students would then examine the compiled list of primary sources and present an oral analysis of the research possibilities and limitations for studying this conference (e.g., students might discover the only firsthand German accounts of the conference have not been translated into English, and that they will therefore be dependent on the impressions of other diplomats or secondary sources to reconstruct the German experience at Versailles) [Analysis; interpretation; content].

Students might read a secondary interpretation of the debate over ratification of the U.S. Constitution and compare that interpretation to selections from the Federalist and Antifederalist papers in order to assess the accuracy of the interpretation [Analysis].

to History Standard Two.