LANGUAGE ARTS/SOCIAL STUDIES

Mission Statement | Social Studies

The Dalton Middle School Social Studies Department nurtures intellectually independent students who will contribute constructively to their school, local, and global communities. Dalton’s Middle School students refine their ability to observe, critique, and evaluate the past and present from multiple perspectives through study, research, written expression, collaborative projects, and class discussions. Students will learn to take intellectual risks, approach conflicts thoughtfully, and develop an active appreciation for the lessons and themes of history in their everyday lives. By challenging students to think across and make connections between different cultures, religions, and historical ideas, we build upon Dalton’s commitment to being a vibrant and diverse community.

4th Grade Language Arts

The 4th grade language arts program introduces students to a scholarly approach to literature while continuing to develop their love for reading and writing. Fourth graders are transitioning from learning to read to reading to learn. In addition to whole class explorations of a rich array of texts, including classics, historical fiction, poetry, and folk tales, they continue to select and read books of their own choice. The curriculum includes E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, Janae Marks’ From The Desk of Zoe Washington, and other historical fiction texts. Literary analysis is introduced through close reading, annotation, discussion, written responses, and creative projects. A wide variety of writing experiences are provided for fourth graders, including journal writing, letters, emails, blog posts, stories, poems, biographies, and expository pieces all within a writing process environment. Understanding that learning to write well is a lifelong process, students continue to develop their pre-writing, drafting, and copy-editing skills as they work on their writing for different audiences. Vocabulary development, fluency, comprehension strategies, and other reading skills are reinforced as needed. To further hone their writing, students have weekly lessons in spelling and writing skills (e.g. grammar, vocabulary, handwriting, keyboarding, etc).

4th Grade Social Studies

The experience of moving from the First Program to the Middle School provides the engaging metaphor of “migration” for the social studies curriculum in the 4th grade: Immigration to the United States. We emphasize the themes of continuity and change and the responsibilities of citizenship in the new land. Essential questions guide our curricular studies: What push and pull factors led people to come to (the) America(s)? Was coming to America a choice? What were their journeys like? What were their arrivals like? What challenges did they face? Were people treated as fully human? How did the injustices they faced inspire social resistance? How did coming to the United States transform immigrants’ lives and shape the racial and cultural landscape of the United States? We begin by studying current immigration with our Oral History Project. Students become historians by conducting their own oral history interviews of someone in their lives who has immigrated to the U.S. We then begin to explore historical immigration patterns of European immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s, focusing on Ellis Island, followed by a study of Angel Island and Chinese immigration. In the second half of the year, we turn to centuries past and explore the forced arrival of enslaved people from Africa. 5th Language Arts

The 5th grade language arts program focuses on the continuous development and integration of writing and reading skills. Class books are selected around the theme of “The Individual within a Community.” They are deeply tied to the interdisciplinary nature of the curriculum, as students explore the ways in which protagonists survive, evaluate, and adapt to their environments. Texts include Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me, Lois Lowry’s The Giver and others studied through small book groups. The social studies programming works hand in hand with the literature to emphasize the settlement of the first ancient cities and culture creation. An approach incorporating guided and independent reading—featuring Roger Lancelyn Green’s Tales of Ancient Egypt—fosters a love of literature and emphasizes comprehension, critical thinking, and interpretative skills. The 5th grade writing program focuses on creating structured paragraphs in expository form. In addition, the program stresses research methods, student conferencing. Creative assignments are part of the 5th grade writing curriculum, including poetry, reflections, and stories. Students begin to offer their own literary analysis and voice their opinions about what they and others have written, a necessary step in the journey to having an individual perspective, developing literary taste, and fostering an independent point of view.

5th Social Studies

The 5th grade social studies curriculum guides students to reconstruct the past by examining artifacts and ancient texts and applying critical thinking skills necessary for an ongoing study of history. Students focus on the overarching concepts of geography, city development, kingship, religion, and trade through a year-long study of ancient civilizations from around the world. The students begin the year by questioning the methods historians and archaeologists utilize when drawing conclusions. They then delve into an overview of geography, emphasizing map reading, landform identification, and understanding water systems. The curriculum uses primary sources to introduce the students to the ancient world, and students use secondary sources critically to supplement their comprehension of life 5,000 years ago. Weaving together geographical knowledge, mythology, art, and archaeology, the children discuss, analyze, debate, and learn to form some understanding of ancient cultures and their relevance to today. Throughout the year, an array of experiences enrich the curriculum, including hands-on activities, projects, creative writing, museum trips designed to complement the readings and presentations by experts in their fields.

4th Grade - Social Studies Skills Curriculum

Social Studies Skills Objective

The 4th grade social studies program is committed to: Educating our students to: Understand emigration and social change as it applies to the United States and themselves.

Students will be introduced to the process of:

• Recognizing other viewpoints and biases and interacting with them in speech and writing • The concept of oral history as a primary source in the context of immigration

Continued reinforcement will be placed on:

• Examination and evaluation of Cause and Effect • Making and evaluating inferences based on information and evidence • Understanding basic geographic terms and place names including: oceans, continents, countries, states and physical features

5th Grade - Social Studies Skills Curriculum

Social Studies Skills Objective

The 5th grade social studies program is committed to educating our students to: Reconstruct the past through the examination of artifacts, ancient texts, and secondary sources, and the application of critical thinking skills necessary for an ongoing study of history.

Students will be introduced to the process of:

• Analyzing maps and geographic resources to make substantial inferences about the relationship between the location of human settlements and geography • Interpreting the significance of resources and resource systems in the development of human geography • Recognizing multiple viewpoints and biases • Evaluating their inferences based on further evidence • Understanding chronology and how history can be studied in eras and ages • Making connections to today from what is learned about the past

By year’s end, students will be able to:

• Analyze and interpret information from age-appropriate primary source documents, both textual and visual • Memorize locations specific to study • Acquire and understand vocabulary specific to study 4th Grade - Social Studies Reading Skills

Students will be introduced to the process of:

• Organizing and annotating primary and secondary sources • Analyzing primary and secondary sources for content, context, and significance

Continued reinforcement will be placed on:

Social Studies reading skills learned and practiced in the First Program

By year’s end, students will be able to:

• Organize and annotate primary and secondary sources • Select and recall factual information and differentiate between main ideas and supporting details Continued reinforcement will be placed on:

• Using observable and explicit information to make reasonable inferences based on that evidence • Identifying and locating important sites, geographic areas, and geographical features (rivers, mountains) on maps • Inquiry-based research of visual and textual primary sources

By year’s end, students will be able to:

• Use the experiences and activities of the study to make hypotheses and connections that apply to other civilizations • Memorize locations and events specific to the study of

Mesopotamia and Egypt • Acquire and use vocabulary specific to the study of Bronze Age cultures

5th Grade - Social Studies Reading Skills

Students will be introduced to the process of:

• Reading non-fiction secondary sources critically and with purpose to gain a wider understanding of ancient city development • Taking notes on non-fiction texts for research or study skills

Continued reinforcement will be placed on:

• Comprehending literature, as well as primary historical texts, of the time (translations and adaptations) in order to make cultural inferences. • Selecting and recalling information from non-fiction texts • Discriminating main ideas and essential information from nonessential in non-fiction texts • Organizing and annotating primary and secondary source

By year’s end, students will be able to:

• Acquire vocabulary specific to study • Reading secondary source texts for main ideas

6th Grade - Social Studies Skills Curriculum

Social Studies Skills Objective

The 6th grade social studies program is committed to educate our students to: Be historians who ask their own questions and make their own inferences about the classical past.

Students will be introduced to the process of:

• Examining and evaluating Cause and Effect • Archaeological Site Mapping, i.e., Developing a hypothesis from information on a map about a culture or to determine the effects of geography on a culture

Continued reinforcement will be placed on:

• Analyzing and interpreting information from documents and textual evidence • Analyzing and interpreting information from visual evidence • Understanding chronology and how history can be studied as periods and eras • Making and evaluating inferences based on information and evidence • Recognizing other viewpoints and biases and interacting with them in speech and writing

By year’s end, students will be able to:

• Acquiring vocabulary specific to study and demonstrate understanding • Memorize locations specific to study • Demonstrate mastery of basic geographic terms and place names (country names, physical features, and cities as they relate to curriculum)

6th Grade - Social Studies Reading Skills

Students will be introduced to the process of:

Analyzing the language of primary sources for the author’s perspective, audience, tone, and objective

Continued reinforcement will be placed on:

Organizing and annotating primary and secondary sources

By year’s end, students will be able to:

Acquiring vocabulary specific to study and demonstrating understanding

7th Grade - Social Studies Skills Curriculum

Social Studies Skills Objective

The 7th grade social studies program is committed to educating our students to: Continue the journey of becoming mature and sophisticated historians by studying the early modern period of Europe and the Middle East.

Students will be introduced to the process of:

• Integrating their understanding of the early modern world with what is unfolding in the world today • Making meaning of history in terms of the content, context, and significance of a primary or secondary source • Recognizing the variety of resources that are available to help them make these connections

Continued reinforcement will be placed on:

• Make connections between the history they are studying and current events • Analyze primary sources and secondary sources for Content,

Context, and Significance • Acquiring and integrating the vocabulary and concepts appropriate to the topic

By year’s end, students will be able to:

• Explain and support with details or quotations, information they have gained from primary and secondary sources, visual, and textual and then to begin to analyze this information critically • Speak and write confidently about their understanding of chronology and how history can be studied as periods and eras

7th Grade - Social Studies Reading Skills

Students will be introduced to the process of:

Reading and analyzing more difficult primary source material with greater independence

Continued reinforcement will be placed on:

• Acquiring vocabulary specific to study and demonstrating understanding • Organizing and annotating primary and secondary sources • Understanding how to analyze a piece of text

By year’s end, students will be able to:

• Reading and outlining a secondary source • Assessing a primary source for content, context, and significance • Annotating both primary and secondary source material

8th Grade - Social Studies Skills Curriculum

Social Studies Skills Objective

The 8th grade social studies program is committed to educating our students to: Become responsible and prepared students, ready to assume the demands of high school history study through a chronological survey of the US.

Students will be introduced to the process of:

Independently managing the research and writing process, especially as it relates to structuring an essay or presentation, and developing a valid argument based on historical evidence

Continued reinforcement will be placed on:

• Analyzing and interpreting information from documents and textual evidence • Analyzing and interpreting information from visual evidence • Analyzing maps and geographic resources to make substantiated inferences about the relationship between the location of human settlements and geography

By year’s end, students will be able to:

• Examine and evaluate Cause and Effect • Make and evaluate inferences based on information and evidence • Recognize other viewpoints and biases and interact with them in speech and writing

8th Grade - Social Studies Reading Skills

Students will be introduced to the process of:

Reading and independently selecting primary and secondary sources for the purposes of research and building an argument

Continued reinforcement will be placed on:

• Organizing and annotating primary and secondary sources • Analyzing the language of primary sources for perspective, audience, tone, and the writer’s objective

By year’s end, students will be able to:

• Analyzing primary and secondary sources for content, context, and significance to support and defend an original thesis • Selecting and recalls factual information and can differentiate between main ideas and supporting details • Acquiring vocabulary specific to study and demonstrates understanding

Social Studies 6

Our 6th grade social studies curriculum could easily be called “The Student as Historian” because it revolves around teaching the student the nature of historical inquiry and enabling them to take on the role of historian.

Early in the year, our study focuses on the minor kingdoms of the Eastern Mediterranean during the Iron Age. These include the Phoenicians, the Philistines, and the Hebrews. Soon after, the young student, as historian turned archaeologist, begins a simulated excavation of a provincial Assyrian site. There, they discover materials from the petty kingdoms of the Eastern Mediterranean to bring as a tribute and booty en route to the heartland of an ever-expanding Assyrian Empire. Our study of the Greek World complements the 6th Grade Greek Festival Curriculum. The Greeks and the institutions that set the stage for Western Civilization are studied comprehensively.

The year concludes with an exploration of “Rome, the Model Empire.” Students construct provincial cities using the Roman Model to understand better how Rome unified and made the cultures of those living in the areas from the Persian Gulf to the south of Scotland “Roman.”

Essential Questions:

• What is History? • How do you go about writing history? • How do you identify what is important in the existing historical record? • What is a monarchy? Empire? Democracy? How do societies govern themselves? • How did ancient nations acquire their goods? • What is the role of religion? • What is the role of geography?

Social Studies 7

Seventh grade social studies begins with an in-depth study of Islam and its impact on the medieval and early modern world. Students examine the Islamic world between the 7th and 16th centuries, focusing on the basic tenets (beliefs and practices) of Islam and the life of Muhammad, Muslim expansion, art, architecture, trade, and travel. After learning about the development of Islam in Arabia, we will examine the emergence of the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman Empires. The focus then shifts westward to Europe, where students investigate the political, economic, religious, geographic, and social factors that shaped people’s identities during the medieval era. Students will bridge their medieval Europe study with the medieval Middle East as their attention swings eastward with the Crusades. Their examination of the “Crusading” period will focus on the intersection of “East” and “West,” and the study will enable students to assess how this critical juncture set off a series of causes and effects that laid the foundation for the early modern era. Students will also examine the legacy of the “early modern era” in our modern world. We will return to the Middle East and investigate how the ideologies that came to the fore in Western Europe (secularism, individualism, nationalism, colonialism) helped shape and alter the landscape, both literally and figuratively, of the Middle Eastern world in the 19th and 21st centuries.

Essential Questions:

• How do maps and globes reflect changes in history, politics, and economics? • How is power gained, used, and justified? • Why do some people conform while others rebel? • How are ideas transmitted? • How do technology, science, and information impact and transform societies? • How does religion unite people? Divide people? Confront/integrate/ define modernity? • In what ways do geographical, cultural, social, political contexts transform the views we have of the past? • In what ways do diverse global societies create varied perspectives, contributions, and challenges? • What issues from our study of the past inform the present and shape the future? • How have our ideas of history changed in a media-driven world?

Social Studies 8

Eighth grade history is a survey of notable moments in American History. The class explores this subject chronologically, though not necessarily linearly, focusing on themes such as American culture and values, American democracy, conflict and unity, diversity, citizenship, technological change, geography, and the relationship of the US to the world. These are themes that weave themselves through the development of our nation. Also, students pay considerable attention to acquiring and refining the tools that one needs to become a historian. Throughout the year, students develop note-taking, research skills, presentation, and writing skills. The class uses a wide variety of primary sources; however, each assignment includes secondary source supplements, including textbooks and literary sources. Assignments encourage students to explore alternative interpretations and perspectives of American History. The main topics covered in the course are: Colonial America and the Revolutionary era, the Constitution, a Model Congress Assignment, Westward Expansion, the Civil War, the rise of Industrial and Urban America, a research paper considering some aspect of the New Deal and World War II eras, and a study of Civil Rights and the Supreme Court.

Essential Questions:

• What are American values? What were the key values upon which

Jamestown and Plymouth were founded? To what extent are the values of Jamestown and Plymouth still evident in American society? • How does one read history relative to a traditionalist, revisionist, or other historical perspectives, and what is the responsibility of the historian to voices that are silent? • What justifies dissent? • What is the impact of earlier political theorists and Enlightenment philosophers on the thinking of the revolutionary American colonists? How do those same theories impact current American thinking? • Under what circumstances can rights be limited? • What are the roles and obligations of a citizen? • From where are power and authority derived? What is the difference? • How does the Constitution work as a “living document”? How do

Supreme Court decisions and legislative actions shift our understanding of the “law of the land”? • What are the goals and ends, intended and unintended, of westward expansion? How do the elements of manifest destiny from the beginnings of the nation to the current era shift? What is the psychology manifest in an expanding nation?