Middle School Social Studies
The Middle School Social Studies curriculum emphasizes instruction in Maryland’s core learning goals for Social Studies: History, Geography, Economics, Political Systems and Peoples and Nations of the World. The WCPS curriculum is built on the foundations of Maryland’s State Curriculum. Teachers utilize reading, discussion, writing and participation in various Social Studies skillsets, such as collaborative problem solving, visual discovery and experiential activities in order to challenge and engage students while increasing their understanding of history, politics, geography, economics and culture.
Social Studies Vision: All WCPS students have the right to expand their understanding of the world, its people, and themselves. Instruction, grounded in content knowledge and critical-thinking skills, empowers confident and informed students to address questions, form opinions, and solve problems relevant to their role as citizens in a global society.
Maryland State Standards and Frameworks in Social Studies
6TH & 7th GRADE
Grades 6 and 7 social studies is a two-year experience in which students employ geographic, economic, civic, and historical tools to understand how big geographic questions link the past to the present. Grade 6 and 7 social studies builds on the elementary social studies courses by aligning a progression of skills and student understanding of civics, geography, economics, and history. This two-year sequence ensures that students understand the global context for the events they will study in Middle School United States History as well as establish a foundation for launching their high school experience in Modern World History. Exploration of each topic will begin with an examination of how location affects the events, ideas, and individuals being investigated. In addition, students will work to understand the broader historical context for each topic. Significant opportunities exist within the class to integrate claim construction, evidence evaluation, multiple perspectives, and argumentative writing so that grades 6 and 7 scaffold to support student success on the middle school assessment administered at the end of grade 8.
Organizationally, grades 6 and 7 social studies require students to shift between spatial scales to emphasize interactions between different scales of study and to find connections across time and geography. The spatial scales incorporated in this framework are: Global, Regional, and Local. Rather than chronology, the Grade 6 and 7 Social Studies Framework is organized around a series of big questions related to enduring geographic understandings that link student investigation of the past and present. The enduring geographic understandings that structure the course are: Movement, Human Systems, Human Interactions with the Environment, and Place and Region. Throughout the framework selected cases studies allow for the analysis of the geographic understandings. To help students in acquiring these understandings, the content of the framework is structured according to the six state social studies standards.
Modules of study in Sixth Grade include:
- Geographic Thinking
- Human Interaction with the Environment
- Human Systems: Political Structures
- Movement of Pathogens and Ideas
Modules of study in Seventh Grade include:
- Movement of Humans
- Human Systems: Economics
- Place and Region
- Regional Case Studies of Geographic Thinking
8TH GRADE
Eighth grade United States History focuses on developing students’ understanding of American History from Colonization until the dawn of the 20th Century. In United States History students interpret historical evidence and identify significant trends and major turning points that define the first 300 years of the American experience. The study of United States History will enable students to understand the development and expansion of a market economy and the economic forces that drove the growth of a continental power. In addition, students will examine the foundational documents and democratic practices that define the growth of the American Republic. Students will analyze the processes and mechanisms that increased the body politic and the impact of different cultures on the development of an American identity. By considering events from multiple perspectives students will understand that women, African Americans, American Indians and other minorities. To help students in acquiring these understandings, the content of the framework is structured according to the six state social studies standards.
Modules of study include:
- Three Worlds Meet
- Revolutionary North America
- The New Nation
- Division and Reform
- Expansion and Conflict
- Civil War and Reconstruction
- Growth and Change