Eighth Grade Social Studies: World History to 1450

Course Description

Students will build their conceptual understanding of change and continuity while they trace the impact of ancient cultures on modern world issues. Students will look at human origins, ancient civilizations, the rise of empires, and the development of world religions.

Grade Level(s):  Eighth Grade

Related Priority Standards (State &/or National):  Missouri Learning Standards for Social Studies (6-12)

Essential Questions

• What does it mean to be civilized?
• What is progress?
• How does belief influence action?
• Do belief systems unite or divide people?
• How does geography impact people, places, and cultures?
• Why have some societies progressed faster than others? Why do some succeed and others fail?
• Is war justified?

Enduring Understandings/Big Ideas

Students will be able to:

• Make, support, and evaluate claims using compelling questions and credible evidence.
• Analyze point of view in order to engage in informed, civil discourse.
• Analyze evidence through the lenses of text, context, and subtext to determine validity and importance.
• Independently select, organize, and evaluate varied evidence to generate an informed conclusion.
• Identify civic, geographic, historical, and economic trends to generate informed decisions.
• Generate a plan to take informed action to improve our communities.

Course-Level Scope & Sequence (Units &/or Skills)

Unit 1: Peopling of the World - The Continents, Oceans, Hemispheres, East Africa 200,000-10,000 BCE

In this unit, students will explore adaptation and migration, humans’ environmental impact, and social life in the Paleolithic Era.  Essential questions specific to this unit include:

• What causes people to migrate?
• Why do some people choose not to migrate?
• What makes humans human?
• Is technology progress?
• How does geography impact people, places, and regions?

Students will: 

• Analyze how relationships between humans and environments extend or contract spatial patterns of settlement and movement
• Explain multiple causes and effects of events and developments in the past
• Explain the relationship between tool use and adaptation to new and changing environments
• Use maps to compare various theoretical patterns and causes of human migration.
• Evaluate the influences of long-term human-induced environmental change on spatial patterns of conflict and cooperation
• Evaluate the impact of hunting and gathering on the environment
• Compare historical and contemporary means of changing societies, and promoting the common good
• Detect possible limitations in the historical record based on evidence collected from different kinds of historical sources
• Identify the cultural processes that gave rise to the earliest human communities
• Evaluate how the development of human language and oral traditions impacted early human societies and what we know about them.

Unit 2: Development of Agriculture and Early Civilizations - River Valleys - 10,000-1,000 BCE

In this unit, students will explore domestication and codependency, beginnings of permanent settlement, early Neolithic innovations and inventions, differing cultural styles, interchange of ideas, the Great Thaw, complex societies as centers of innovation (river civilizations) and the rise of pastoral nomadism.  Essential questions specific to this unit include:

• What does it mean to be civilized?
• Is technology progress?
• How does belief influence action?
• Was agriculture a positive development for humanity?
• How does geography impact people, places, and regions?
• How do river valleys support developing civilizations?
• Why have some societies progressed faster than others? Why do some succeed and others fail?

Students will: 

• Explain how global changes in population distribution patterns affect changes in land use in particular places
• Evaluate the relative influence of various causes of events and developments in the past
• Develop claims and counterclaims while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both
• Describe differing theories for why humans began to domesticate plants and animals
• Compare the pros and cons of the hunter-gatherer lifestyles vs. the domestication of plants and animals.
• Analyze how relationships between humans and environments extend or contract spatial patterns of settlement and movement
• Analyze how the specific environments of the Tigris-Euphrates, Nile, Indus, Huang He and Yangtze river valleys shaped the early development of civilization
• Assess specific rules and laws (both actual and proposed) as means of addressing public problems
• Explain how changes in transportation and communication technology influence the spatial connections among human settlements and affect the diffusion of ideas and cultural practices
• Classify series of historical events and developments as examples of change and/or continuity
• Analyze multiple factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras
• Evaluate how the emergence of civilization spurs changes in human interaction (social classes, occupational specialization, oral tradition shifting to written records, innovations and inventions)
• Describe how new ideas, products, techniques, and institutions spread from one region to another
• Explain how the physical and human characteristics of places and regions are connected to human identities and cultures
• Analyze multiple factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras
• Analyze how people's perspectives influenced what information is available in the historical sources they created
• Analyze the role of religion in different cultures
• Compare the fine arts in different civilizations (architecture, literature, art)

Unit 3: Classical Traditions, Major Religions, and Empires - The Mediterranean World, Western Europe, East and South Asia, and The Middle East - 1000 BCE-300 CE

In this unit, students will explore development of new technologies, increased environmental impact of humans, multiplying of cities, empire building, continued spread of ideas, the emergence of social classes, iron metallurgy, classical philosophy, major world religions, and rise of interregional empires.  Essential questions specific to this unit include:

• What does it mean to be civilized?
• How does belief influence action?
• Do belief systems unite or divide people?
• What motivates people to build empires?
• What are the motivations behind conquest?
• How does geography impact people, places, and regions?
• Why have some societies progressed faster than others? Why do some succeed and others fail?

Students will: 

• Evaluate the relative influence of various causes of events and developments in the past
• Organize applicable evidence into a coherent argument about the past
• Analyze the impact of new technologies. (metallurgy, transportation)
• Compare and contrast how different major world religions and philosophical thinking that emerged during the era and how it shaped societies
• Explain how cultural patterns and economic decisions influence environments and the daily lives of people in both nearby and distant places
• Evaluate the environmental impact of different classical cultures
• Explain specific roles played by citizens (such as voters, jurors, taxpayers, members of the armed forces, petitioners, protesters, and office-holders)
• Evaluate the relative influence of various causes of events and developments in the past
• Compare social class and citizenship in different societies
• Understand the conditions that led to the rise of empires and city-states.

Unit 4: Expanding Networks of Exchange and Encounter - Africa, Eastern Europe, Oceania, and Southeast Asia - 300-1000 CE

In this unit, students will explore the development of new technologies and learning, increasing human populations, growing web of commerce, intensification and increased scale of warfare, new developments in culture, the rise of Islam, the fall of classical empires, feudalism, the rise of civilization in Central and South America, and the Tang Dynasty empire in East and Southeast Asia. Essential questions specific to this unit include:

• Is the label The Dark Ages appropriate for this time period?
• Why do some civilizations fall?
• Are all civilizations doomed to fall?
• Is technology progress?
• How does belief influence action?
• Do belief systems unite or divide people?
• How does geography impact people, places, and regions?

Students will:

• Compare historical and contemporary means of changing societies, and promoting the common good
• Analyze how relationships between humans and environments extend or contract spatial patterns of settlement and movement
• Evaluate the relative influence of various causes of events and developments in the past
• Explore how people create organized societies in order to establish stability
• Analyze factors contributing to the weakening of empires or civilized traditions and compare causes of the decline or collapse of various empires. [Draw comparisons across eras and regions]
• Trace the migrations of farming peoples to new regions of Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, China, Oceania, and Mesoamerica and analyze connections between new settlement and the development of towns, trade, and greater cultural complexity in these regions.

Unit 5: Intensified Hemispheric Interactions - Central Asia, Central & South America - 1000-1450 CE

In this unit, students will explore development of new technologies and learning, increasing human populations, cross hemispheric trade, increasing interconnectedness, clashes of cultures and religions, crisis and recovery/transformation, kingdoms and empires in Sub-Saharan Africa, trans-Indian Ocean trade, The Crusades, rise of the Mongol Empire, the expansion of states and civilizations in the Americas, and The Black Death. Essential questions specific to this unit include:

• What does it mean to be civilized?
• Is technology progress?
• How does belief influence action?
• Do belief systems unite or divide people?
• How does geography impact people, places, and regions?
• Why have some societies progressed faster than others? Why do some succeed and others fail?

Students will:

• Explain the roles of buyers and sellers in product, labor, and financial markets
• Explain how the relationship between the environmental characteristics of places and production of goods influences the spatial patterns of world trade
• Analyze the combinations of cultural and environmental characteristics that make places both similar to and different from other places
• Identify similarities, differences, and causes of growth in society, economy, and political organization of Europe and Asia
• Compare the Inca or Aztec empires with empires of Afro-Eurasia in relation to political institutions, warfare, social organization, and cultural achievements.
• Construct maps to represent and explain the spatial patterns of cultural and environmental characteristics
• Explain how changes in transportation and communication technology influence the spatial connections among human settlements and affect the diffusion of ideas and cultural practices
• Trace major migratory and military movements of pastoral peoples of Asia and Africa and analyze the consequences of these movements for agrarian states and societies of Eurasia and Africa
• Trace the growth of states, towns, and trade in Sub-Saharan Africa between the 11th and 15th centuries
• Explain how the physical and human characteristics of places and regions are connected to human identities and cultures 
• Organize applicable evidence into a coherent argument about the past
• Analyze multiple factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras
• Draw on multiple disciplinary lenses to analyze how a specific problem can manifest itself at local, regional, and global levels over time, identifying its characteristics and causes, and the challenges and opportunities faced by those trying to address the problem.
• Explain the conditions that led to religious conflict during the Crusades and evaluate the intended and unintended outcomes
• Evaluate the relative influence of various causes of events and developments in the past
• Identify evidence that draws information from multiple sources to support claims, noting evidentiary limitations
• Identify the causes of the Black Death, how it spread, and evaluate its impact on society.

Course Resources & Materials:  Discovery Education Social Studies Techbook, Everything You Need to Know to Ace World History (teacher copy)

Date Last Revised/Approved: 2016