History - 7th Grade

Middle school history is taught in mix-aged classes of 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th graders. All students learn the same information and receive the same assignments, but the expectations for their work, testing, and grading are different according to grade level and ability. Students work on projects individually and in small groups, which allow older students to serve as mentors and model more sophisticated approaches to learning and problem solving.

The history curriculum is based on a three-year rotation.

Year 1 - Ancient History

• Human origins
• River valley civilizations
• Movement of people and ideas
• Age of first empires
• Classical Greece
• Ancient Rome
• First empires of India and China

Year 2 - Early Modern World History

• African civilizations
• The Americas
• Byzantines, Russians and Turks
• Empires of East Asia
• European middle ages
• Societies and empires of Africa
• People and empires in the Americas

Year 3 - American History

• Encounters and colonies
• The American Revolution
• The expanding nation
• Civil war and reconstruction
• New frontiers
• World War I
• World War II

Approaches to Learning

• High-level reading
• Primary sources
• Cornell note-taking
• Annotating texts
• APPARTS method of document analysis
• Seminar notes and discussions (Socratic tradition)
• Student created iMovie or video presentations
• Student created dioramas
• Student created songs
• Student created dramatic performance
• Connections project with kindergarten class
• History fair (integrated with language arts class)
• 8th grade research project and presentation (integrated with language arts class)