Grade 7 Social Studies is arranged chronologically and incorporates geography as well as economic, social, and political trends. The course content is divided into eight Key Ideas, tracing the human experience in the United States from preColumbian times until the Civil War, with a focus on the people, events, and places in New York State as applicable.  Throughout the course, I will look to help students see connections across a timeline of history,  while also helping students make connections to the present day through the usage of Enduring Issues and Civic Literacy. 

Grade 7: Social Studies Practices:

A. Gathering, Interpreting and Using Evidence

1. Define and frame questions about the United States that can be answered by gathering, interpreting, and using evidence.

2. Identify, select, and evaluate evidence about events from diverse sources (including written documents, works of art, photographs, charts and graphs, artifacts, oral traditions, and other primary and secondary sources).

3. Analyze evidence in terms of historical context, content, authorship, point of view, purpose, and format; identify bias; explain the role of bias and audience in presenting arguments or evidence.

4. Describe and analyze arguments of others, with support.

5. Make inferences and draw general conclusions from evidence.

6. Recognize an argument and identify supporting evidence related to a specific social studies topic. Examine arguments related to a specific social studies topic from multiple perspectives. Recognize that the perspective of the argument’s author shapes the selection of evidence used to support it.

B. Chronological Reasoning

1. Identify how events are related chronologically to one another in time, and explain the ways in which earlier ideas and events may influence subsequent ideas and events.

2. Employ mathematical skills to measure time by years, decades, centuries, and millennia; to calculate time from the fixed points of the calendar system (B.C.E. and C.E.); and to interpret the data presented in time lines.

3. Identify causes and effects, using examples from current events, grade-level content, and historical events.

4. Identify and analyze the relationship between multiple causes and multiple effects.

5. Distinguish between long-term and immediate causes and effects of an event from current events or history.

6. Recognize, analyze, and evaluate dynamics of historical continuity and change over periods of time.

7. Recognize that changing the periodization affects the historical narrative.

8. Identify patterns of continuity and change as they relate to larger historical process and themes.

9. Identify models of historical periodization that historians use to categorize events.

C. Comparison and Contextualization

1. Identify a region of colonial North America or the early United States by describing multiple characteristics common to places within it, and then identify other similar regions (inside or outside the continental United States) with similar characteristics.

2. Identify and categorize multiple perspectives on a given historical experience.

3. Describe, compare, and evaluate multiple historical developments within the United States in various chronological and geographical contexts.

4. Identify how the relationship between geography, economics, and history helps to define a context for events in the study of the United States.

5. Connect historical developments to specific circumstances of time and place and to broader regional, national, or global processes.

6. Understand the roles that periodization and region play in developing the comparison of colonial settlements in North America. Identify general characteristics that can be employed to conduct comparative analyses of case studies in the early history of the United States. 

D. Geographic Reasoning

1. Use location terms and geographic representations, such as maps, photographs, satellite images, and models to describe where places in early United States history were in relation to each other, to describe connections among places, and to evaluate effectively the benefits of particular places for purposeful activities.

2. Distinguish human activities and human-made features from “environments” (natural events or physical features—land, air, and water—that are not directly made by humans) and describe the relationship between human activities and the environment.

3. Identify and analyze how environments affect human activities and how human activities affect physical environments in the United States.

4. Recognize and analyze how characteristics (cultural, economic, and physical-environmental) of regions affect the history of the United States.

5. Characterize and analyze changing interconnections between places and regions.

6. Describe the spatial organization of place, considering the historical, social, political, and economic implication of that organization. Describe how boundaries and definition of location are historically constructed.

E. Economic and Economic Systems

1. Explain how economic decisions affect the well-being of individuals, businesses, and society; evaluate alternative approaches or solutions to economic issues in terms of benefits and costs for different groups of people.

2. Identify examples of buyers and sellers in product, labor, and financial markets.

3. Describe the role that competition has in the determination of prices and wages; identify other factors that help to determine prices.

4. Examine the roles of institutions, such as joint stock companies, banks, and the government in the development of the United States economy before the Civil War.

5. Examine data on the state of employment, unemployment, inflation, total production, income, and economic growth in the economy. 6. Explain how government policies affected the economies in colonial and early United States history.

F. Civic Participation

1. Demonstrate respect for the rights of others in discussions and classroom debates; respectfully disagree with other viewpoints. Use techniques and strategies to be an active and engaged member of class discussions of fellow classmates’ views and statements, with teacher support.

2. Participate in activities that focus on a classroom, school, community, state, or national issue or problem.

3. Identify and explain different types of political systems and ideologies used at various times in colonial history and the early history of the United States and explain the role of individuals and key groups in those political and social systems.

4. Identify, describe, and compare the role of the individual in social and political participation in, and as an agent of, historical change at various times and in various locations in colonial North America and in the early history of the United States.

5. Participate in negotiating and compromising in the resolution of differences and conflict; introduce and examine the role of conflict resolution.

6. Identify situations in which social actions are required and determine an appropriate course of action.

7. Identify how people in power have acted to extend the concept of freedom, the practice of social justice, and the protection of human rights in United States history.

8. Identify how social and political responsibilities developed in American society.

9. Develop the connections of an interdependent community by engaging in the political process as it relates to a local context.