Social Studies Standards - History Strand

The Maine Learning Results for Social Studies includes four separate strands. The History standard and all connected performance expectations specific to history can be found in this document:

Maine Learning Results for Social Social - History (Revised 2019)

Resources to support teaching the History strand:

• National History Day promotes the development of critical-thinking and problem-solving skills; research and reading skills; oral and written communication skills; and presentation skills.
  • National History Day in Maine allows students in Maine to compete at both regional and state level competitions with the opportunity to compete at the national level.
• Stanford History Education Group
  • The Reading Like a Historian curriculum engages students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features a set of primary documents designed for groups of students with a range of reading skills.
  • Beyond the Bubble unlocks the vast digital archive of the Library of Congress to create History Assessments of Thinking (HATs). Explore over 80 easy-to-use assessments that measure students' historical thinking rather than recall of facts.
• EDSITEment! hosts resources from the National Endowment for the Humanities and they have teacher lesson plans and also have resources for student activities.
• PBS Learning Media has resources for both U.S. History and World History.
• Maine Memory Network, a project of the Maine Historical Society, provides access to thousands of historical items belonging to over 270 organizations from across Maine.
• Primary sources are available online at:
  • Library of Congress
    • TPS-Barat
  • U.S. Archives
    • DocsTeach
  • Smithsonian
  • Digital Public Library of America
  • World Digital Library
  • Ashbrook's 50 Core Documents
  • Google Arts & Culture
• Understanding Our World (K-5)
• More resources coming soon!

The introduction to the Maine Learning Results for Social Studies highlights some critical components to teaching history in Maine:

Introduction

The great architects of American public education, such as Thomas Jefferson, Horace Mann, and John Dewey, believed that every student must be well versed in our nation's history, the principles and practices which support and sustain citizenship, and the institutions that define our government. Understandings of commerce and geography were critical to their thinking as well. In essence, Jefferson, Mann, and Dewey viewed the study of social studies as critical to the mission of public schools. According to the National Council for the Social Studies: advocates of citizenship education cross the political spectrum, but they are bound by a common belief that our democratic republic will not sustain unless students are aware of their changing cultural and physical environments; know the past; read, write, and think deeply; and act in ways that promote the common good. (C3 Framework for Social Studies, 2013).

A strong Social Studies education depends upon a clear understanding of its interrelated disciplines and inclusion of Maine’s Guiding Principles. Without knowledge of the geography and economics of earlier times, history offers only lists of people, events, and dates. Without knowledge of history, the institutions of American government and the dynamics of today's global economy are difficult to understand. Although social studies curricula vary in their breadth and depth, the Social Studies Standards reflect a focus on government, history, geography, personal finance and economics as the pillars of the content, with other disciplines within the social sciences deemed important, but not essential.

Guiding Principles

The Guiding Principles guide education in Maine and should be reflected throughout Social Studies curriculum.  Examples of how students can show evidence of those guiding principles in Social Studies may include:

1. Clear and Effective Communicator:  Students research and use background knowledge to give audiovisual presentations about current and historical issues.
2. Self-Directed and Lifelong Learner:  Students generate questions and explore primary and secondary sources to answer those questions while demonstrating a growth mindset.
3. Creative and Practical Problem Solver: Students draw conclusions about current and historical problems using valid research and critical thinking.
4. Responsible and Involved Citizen: Students practice and apply the duties of citizenship through the exercise of constitutional rights
5. Integrative and Informed Thinker: Students compare and contrast to analyze point of view and differentiate between reliable and unreliable primary and secondary sources.

Skills in Social Studies:

The application of skills in Social Studies is crucial to any curriculum. Best practices in Social Studies reflect curriculum, instruction, and assessment that give students opportunities to demonstrate research and develop positions on current Social Studies issues. Students will be asked to identify key words and concepts related to research questions and locate and access information by using text features. Additionally, students will demonstrate facility with note-taking, organizing information, and creating bibliographies. Students will distinguish between primary and secondary sources as well as evaluate and verify the credibility of the information found in print and non-print sources. Equally important is that students use additional sources to resolve contradictory information.

Major Enduring Themes - The term “major enduring themes” is used in several places in the Social Studies Standards. This term refers to general topics or issues that have been relevant over a long period of time. Using a consistent set of themes can serve as a framework within which other concepts, topics, and facts can be organized. It can also help students make connections between events within and across historical eras, and use history to help make informed decisions. The Civics and Government, Personal Finance and Economics, Geography, and History Standards all include performance expectations that address individual, cultural, international, and global connections. It will be up to the School Administrative Units to determine whether they use these performance expectations as an opportunity to integrate across the disciplines of the social studies or address them separately. The “enduring themes,” some of which overlap, include:

• Freedom and Justice
• Conflict and Compromise
• Technology and Innovation
• Unity and Diversity
• Continuity and Change Over Time
• Supply and Demand

Eras – School Administrative Units (SAU) should develop a coherent curriculum that provides students with a balanced exposure to the major eras of United States and World History. The term “various eras” in this document refers to those eras that are selected by an SAU to build a cohesive, balanced understanding. The “eras,” some of which overlap, include:

Spiraling K-12 -  A course of study in which students will see the same topics throughout their school career, with each encounter increasing in complexity and reinforcing previous learning. The Social Studies Standards and performance expectations have been created in order to reflect a progression of increasing complexity from K-5 and between the 6-8, and 9-diploma grade spans.