Grades 9-10: Building Historical Background Knowledge - The Road to Revolution 1754-1776
Rating: 
Common Core Standards
Reading in History/Social Studies
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10.1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10.2: Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10.3: Analyze in detail a series of events described in a text; determine whether earlier events caused later ones or simply preceded them.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10.5: Analyze how a text uses structure to emphasize key points or advance an explanation or analysis.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10.6: Compare the point of view of two or more authors for how they treat the same or similar topics, including which details they include and emphasize in their respective accounts.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10.9: Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources.
Writing in History/ Social Studies
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.9-10.2: Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/ experiments, or technical processes.
Description of Unit
This Grade 9-10 unit titled “Building Historical Background Knowledge: The Road to Revolution 1754-1776” developed by Expeditionary Learning for Student Achievement Partners is the first of two CCSS-aligned curricular units for high school social studies teachers that serve as “bookends” to the study of the American Revolution. This unit has an estimated instructional time of eleven 90-minute sessions of integrated ELA/literacy and history instruction. (The lessons can be divided into 45-minute periods or modified further to fit any school schedule.) The unit has students consistently doing the work of historians: closely reading and evaluating primary and secondary source documents in order to build background knowledge on two separate historical events. Initially, students do this with teacher guidance and support; as the unit continues, they do so with greater independence. Students focus on reading, writing and speaking grounded in evidence. The close reading of complex primary and secondary sources is assessed in two ways; a test on the Declaration of Independence in order to assess students’ understanding of the document and its historical significance, followed by an evidence-based essay that explains the differences and similarities between the conditions leading to the Arab Spring and those leading to the American Revolution, drawing conclusions and implications from evidence.
Cautions
Connecticut teachers should be cautioned that teacher notes and preparation materials are extensive and will require familiarity to be used effectively. (The agendas for lessons 1-7 , in which students read a wide variety of historical texts, have been built out with explicit directions, explanations, and timing protocols for teachers. The agendas for lessons 8-11, regarding instruction, are more summative in nature and contain fewer directives for teachers; however, they still provide an outline of activities and timing protocols.) Connecticut teachers will have to create an aligned rubric to provide sufficient guidance for interpreting student performance on the summative assessments—both the Declaration of Independence assessment and the writing task. While the unit plan only lists standards for reading and writing in history, standards for speaking and listening are not listed and could be added.
Rationale for Selection
This unit is an excellent example of a CCSS-aligned curricular unit that fully integrates social studies content with literacy. It has been designed with two specific purposes in mind: as a professional development resource and as a curriculum to use, adapt, or build from as districts see fit. The goal of the unit is to help students master content literacy standards while gaining content knowledge in social studies and to build teachers’ capacity to apply CCSS-aligned practices in instruction and assessment. The unit includes a progression of learning where concepts and skills advance and deepen over time, providing all students with multiple opportunities to engage with complex texts. The unit provides the appropriate scaffolding for students to build background knowledge about a topic and to advance toward independent reading at the college-and-career readiness (CCR) level. Key teaching protocols, in particular close reading with complex texts, are described in enough detail to make it very clear what is required of students, and how to support them in this rigorous work. Specific instructional strategies are described that support students’ reading and writing with evidence. The unit regularly assesses whether students are mastering the targeted Common Core standards. Materials include summative assessments, central texts, key resources and lesson level agendas with sufficient detail to show key instructional moves. Suggestions of activities, text-dependent questions, and daily assessment give teachers clear guidance, while still leaving room for teachers to adapt and make the lessons their own. In some cases, the modules could also be adapted for other grade levels, if the rigor of the text-dependent questions were ratcheted either up or down or alternate materials of greater or lesser complexity were folded in with new questions and tasks developed.