Evaluate evidence, compare and contrast information, interpret the historical record, and develop sound historical arguments and perspectives on which informed decisions in contemporary life can be based.
H1.1 Temporal Thinking
Use historical conceptual devices to organize and study the past. Historians use conceptual devices (eras, periods, calendars, time lines) to organize their study of the world. Chronology is based on time and reflects cultural and historical interpretations, including major starting points, and calendars based on different criteria (religious, seasonal, Earth-sun-and-moon relationships). Historians use eras and periods to organize the study of broad developments that have involved large segments of world’s population and have lasting significance for future generations and to explain change and continuity.
6 – H1.1.1 Explain why and how historians use eras and periods as constructs to organize and explain human activities over time.
6 – H1.1.2 Compare and contrast several different calendar systems used in the past and present and their cultural significance (e.g., Olmec and Mayan calendar systems, Aztec Calendar Stone, Sun Dial, Gregorian calendar – B.C./A.D.; contemporary secular – B.C.E./C.E. Note: in 7th grade Eastern Hemisphere the Chinese, Hebrew, and Islamic/Hijri calendars are included).
H1.2 Historical Inquiry and Analysis
Use historical inquiry and analysis to study the past. History is a process of reasoning based on evidence from the past. Historians use and interpret a variety of historical documents (including narratives), recognize the difference between fact and opinion, appreciate multiple historical perspectives while avoiding present mindedness (judging the past solely in term of norms and values of today), and explain that historical events often are the result of multiple causation. Students will conduct their own inquiry and analysis in their studies about the ancient history of the Western Hemisphere.
6 – H1.2.1 Explain how historians use a variety of sources to explore the past (e.g., artifacts, primary and secondary sources including narratives, technology, historical maps, visual/mathematical quantitative data, radiocarbon dating, DNA analysis). 6 – H1.2.2 Read and comprehend a historical passage to identify basic factual knowledge and the literal meaning by indicating who was involved, what happened, where it happened, what events led to the development, and what consequences or outcomes followed.
6 – H1.2.3 Identify the point of view (perspective of the author) and context when reading and discussing primary and secondary sources. 6 – H1.2.4 Compare and evaluate competing historical perspectives about the past based on proof.
6 – H1.2.5 Identify the role of the individual in history and the significance of one person’s ideas.
H1.4 Historical Understanding
Use historical concepts, patterns, and themes to study the past.
Historians apply temporal perspective, historical inquiry, and analysis to spheres of human society to construct knowledge as historical understandings. These understandings are drawn from the record of human history and include human aspirations, striving, accomplishments, and failures in spheres of human activity.
6 – H1.4.1 Describe and use cultural institutions to study an era and a region (political, economic, religion/belief, science/technology, written language, education, family).
6 – H1.4.2 Describe and use themes of history to study patterns of change and continuity.
6 – H1.4.3 Use historical perspective to analyze global issues faced by humans long ago and today
