Welcome to 8th Grade Social Studies!

This year our schedule has changed, and one result is your social studies class becoming an every-day class, but for only a semester. This means we have shorter classes, for only half of the year. We have no time to waste! After our introductions and expectations, we will launch right into our units of instrsuction.
A week of lessons in social studies this year might look like this:

• Monday - Introduction and vocabulary assignment
• Tuesday - Lecture of video and notes for grade (exit ticket)
• Wednesday - Reading and a response in writing or other format
• Thursday - Reading/video and a response in writing or other format
• Friday - Review and/or quiz or other assessment of the week's essential question

Our units of instsruction are:

This unit begins with a brief review of world geography basics, and then looks at the native culture regions of North America, and the colonial regions of European migrants to America. Students will understand what a region is, and how regions are defined. And, we will look at which people settled in the regions of North American that became the United States.

This unit will tell the story of how the British colonists in North America developed their own culture and ways of making a living, and how social and economic differences led to disagreements with, and eventual separation from the British empire.

This unit will cover the key ideals that are found in the Constitution, and how the Constitution describes how our government is structured, and how it works. We will also look at the part of the Constitution that guarantee our individual rights.

Every year students in 8th grade must complete a state assessment for social studies - aka "the CBA." This will be a research-based project where you will make an argument for one side of a public issue.

Will there be time left in a semester? If the answer is "yes" Then there is plenty of American history left to cover. The new nation period right after the Revolutionary War, the Industrial Revolution, slavery and how it impacted life and politics in the United States, westward expansion and of course, the Civil War.

Literacy Skills

Throuhout our social studies course, we will do lessons that embed literacy skills. This means in this class we will do lots of reading and writing. There will be note-taking, reading several articles per week and responding in writing (in someo cases), vocabulary lessons, and at least one large research-based project that will be presented as an argumentative essay.

Resources

This class will a variety of digital resources throughout the semester. All of these resources will be available using your Mount Vernon school district Google account. If you are using a lab or library computer (or device that is not your Chromebook), please make sure you are signed in to your Google account at the beginning of each class, and synced in your Chrome browser.

Class Syllabus

This document has additional information about this class, about grading and other materials, and about learning and behavior expectations. Please make sure and read the syllabus, and show it to your parent or guardian.