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Common Core State Standards Correlations

Grade 3: Reading/Informational Text

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.3: Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.4: Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 3 topic or subject area.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.6: Distinguish their own point of view from that of the author of a text.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.7: Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g., where, when, why, and how key events occur).

Grade 4: Reading/Informational Text

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.1: Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.4: Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words or phrases in a text relevant to a grade 4 topic or subject area.

Grade 4: Speaking and Listening

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.4.1: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 4 topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.4.2: Paraphrase portions of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

Grade 5: Reading Information Text

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.3: Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.4: Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 5 topic or subject area.

Grade 5: Speaking and Listening

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.5.1: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.5.2: Summarize a written text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

Grade 6: Speaking and Listening

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.6.1: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 6 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.6.2: Interpret information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and explain how it contributes to a topic, text, or issue under study.

Grade 6: History/Social Studies

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.7: Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.

District of Columbia Social Studies Content Standards

3.4 Broad Concept: Emphasizing the most significant differences, students describe Washington DC at the end of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries

3.4.2. Construct a chronological explanation of key people and events that were important in shaping the character of Washington, DC, during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries

3.5 Broad Concept: Students draw from historical and community resources to organize the sequence of local events and describe how each period of settlement left its mark on the land

Grades 3-5 Historical and Social Science Analysis Skills

Chronology and Cause and Effect

  • Students place key events of the historical era they are studying and interpret information contained within time lines and comparative time charts
  • Students explain how the present is connected to the past, identifying both the similarities and differences between the two, and how some things change over time and some things stay the same
  • Students summarize the key events of the era they are studying and explain the historical context of those events
  • Students distinguish cause from effect and identify and interpret the multiple causes and effects of those events

Historical Research, Evidence and Point of View

  • Students analyze societies in terms of the following themes, military, political, economic, social, religious, and intellectual
  • Students pose relevant questions about events they encounter in historical documents, eyewitness accounts, oral histories, letters, diaries, artifacts, photographs, maps, artworks and architecture.
  • Students use non-text primary and secondary sources, such as maps, charts, graphs, photographs, works of art, and technical charts

Grade 6 Historical and Social Science Analysis Skills

Chronology and Historical Interpretation

  • Students explain how major events are related to one another in time
  • Students construct various time lines of key events, people, and periods of the historical era they are studying
  • Students explain the central issues and problems from the past, placing people and events in a matrix of time and place
  • Students understand and distinguish cause, effect, sequence, and correlation in historical events, including the short-term causes or sparks from long-term causes
  • Students detect the different historical points of view on historical events and determine the context in which the historical statements were made (the questions asked, sources used, and author’s perspectives).

Geographic Skills

  • Students note the significant changes in the territorial sovereignty that took place in the history of units being studied


Maryland Social Studies State Curriculum

Grade 3

Standard 5.0 History

Topic A. Individuals and Societies Change Over Time

Indicator 2: Investigate how people lived in the past using a variety of primary and secondary sources

  • Collect and examine information about people, places, or events of the past using pictures, photographs, maps, audio or visual tapes, and or documents

Grade 4

Standard 5.0 History

Topic C. Conflict between ideas and Institutions

Indicator 2: Explain the political, cultural, economic and social changes in MD during the early 1800s

  • Describe Maryland’s role in the War of 1812

Grades 3-6

Standard 6.0 Social Studies

Topic A.Learn to Read and Construct Meaning about Social Studies

Indicator 3: Use strategies to monitor understanding and derive meaning from text and portions of text (during reading)

  • Identify and use knowledge of organizational structures, such as chronological order, cause/effect, main ideas and details, description, similarities/differences, and problem/solution to gain meaning

Topic B. Write to Learn and Communicate Social Studies Understandings

Indicator 1: Use informal writing strategies, such as journal writing, note taking, quick writes, and graphic organizers to clarify, organize, remember and/or express new understandings

  • Identify key ideas
  • Connect ideas to prior knowledge (personal experience, text and world)

Topic F. Analyze Social Studies Information

Indicator 1: Interpret information from primary and secondary sources

  • Interpret information in maps, charts and graphs
  • Analyze a document to determine point of view
  • Analyze the perspective of the author

Indicator 3: Synthesize information from a variety of sources

  • Recognize relationships in and among ideas or events, such as cause and effect, sequential order, main idea and details

Topic G. Answer Social Studies Questions

Indicator 1: Describe how the country has changed over time and how people have contributed to its change, drawing from maps, photographs, newspapers, and other sources

  • Present social studies information in a variety of ways, such as mock trails, simulations, debates and skits

Indicator 2: Use historic contexts to answer questions

  • Use historically accurate resources to answer questions, make predictions and support ideas

Virginia History and Social Studies Standards of Learning

VS.1 The student will demonstrate skills for historical and geographical analysis and responsible citizenship, including the ability to

  • identify and interpret artifacts and primary and secondary source documents to understand events in history;
  • determine cause-and-effect relationships;
  • compare and contrast historical events;
  • draw conclusions and make generalizations;
  • make connections between past and present;
  • interpret ideas and events from different historical perspectives;
  • evaluate and discuss issues orally and in writing;
  • analyze and interpret maps to explain relationships among landforms,water features, climatic characteristics, and historical events.

USI.1 The student will demonstrate skills for historical and geographical analysis and responsible citizenship, including the ability to

  • identify and interpret primary and secondary source documents to increase understanding of events and life in United States history to 1865;
  • make connections between the past and the present;
  • interpret ideas and events from different historical perspectives;
  • evaluate and discuss issues orally and in writing;
  • interpret patriotic slogans and excerpts from notable speeches and documents;
  • identify the costs and benefits of specific choices made, including the consequences, both intended and unintended, of the decisions.

USI.7 The student will demonstrate knowledge of the challenges faced by the new nation by

  • describing the major accomplishments of the first five presidents of the US.

National Center for History in the Schools History Standards

Grades 3-4

2A: The student understands the history of his or her local community

Therefore the student is able to

  • Identify historical figures in the local community and explain their contributions and significance
  • Identify a problem in the community’s past, analyzing the different perspectives of those involved, and evaluate choices people had and the solution they chose

Grades 5-6

1A: The student understands the international background and consequences of the Louisiana Purchase, the War of 1812, and the Monroe Doctrine

Therefore the student is able to

  • Explain Madison’s reasons for declaring war in 1812 and analyze sectional divisions over the war
  • Assess why many Native Americans supported the British in the War of 1812 and the consequences of this policy

History Thinking Standards Grades 3-6

Standard 1: Chronological Thinking

The student is able to: Distinguish between past present and future; Interpret data presented in time lines and create timelines

Standard 2: Historical Comprehension

The student is able to: Reconstruct the literal meaning of a historical passage; Appreciate historical perspectives; Utilize visual and mathematical data; Draw upon the visual, literary, and musical sources

Standard 3: Historical Analysis and Interpretation

The student is able to: Compare and contrast differing sets of ideas; Consider multiple perspectives; Analyze cause-and-effect relationships

Standard 5: Historical Issues

The student is able to: Identify issues and problems in the past; Formulate a position or course of action on an issue; Evaluate the implementation of an issue