🌎 8th grade Social Studies

Units

1. Unit 1

   🏗️Reconstruction

   Reconstruction from 1865 to 1877 as a bridge to high school US history: the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, Black officeholders, the violence that opposed them and how gains were later rolled back.

   Learning standard: 8.1a; 8.1b; 8.1c · plans for Reconstruction, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, and how the rights of African Americans were attacked and rolled back

2. Unit 2

   🏭Industrial America

   Industry, railroads and inventors after the Civil War, big business and monopolies, new immigrants and growing cities, child labor and unions, farmers' movements, and federal Indian policy on the Plains.

   Learning standard: 8.2a; 8.2c; 8.2d; 8.3a · industry, big business, new immigrants, workers and unions, and federal policy toward Plains nations after the Civil War

3. Unit 3

   🗽Immigrants & the Growing City

   Why people came to America around 1900, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, life in New York City's tenements, the five boroughs, bridges, subways and skyscrapers, and conflicts over immigration and city politics.

   Learning standard: 8.2a; 8.2b; 8.2c · how industry and immigration made New York City and other cities grow, and the conflicts and corruption that followed

4. Unit 4

   🧵Workers & Progressives

   Working conditions, unions and strikes, the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and the reforms it brought, muckrakers, Progressive amendments, women's suffrage in New York and the nation, and the founding of the NAACP.

   Learning standard: 8.2d; 8.2e · how workers organized and how Progressive reformers addressed problems at the local, state and federal levels

5. Unit 5

   ⚓Expansion & Empire

   Conflict with Plains nations and federal Indian policy, Pacific trade and Hawaii, the Spanish-American War and the territories it brought, the Panama Canal, and the Roosevelt Corollary in Latin America.

   Learning standard: 8.3; 8.3a; 8.3b; 8.3c; 8.3d · westward expansion and conflict with Native Americans, and the rise of the United States as an imperial power

6. Unit 6

   🪖World War I

   The causes of World War I, why the United States entered in 1917, new weapons and trench warfare, the Harlem Hellfighters, wartime limits on civil liberties, and the debate over the Treaty of Versailles.

   Learning standard: 8.4a; 8.4b; 8.4c; 8.4d · the causes and course of World War I, the decision to enter it, its effects at home and the return to isolationism

7. Unit 7

   🎷The Roaring Twenties

   Prosperity and new technology, the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Migration, Prohibition, new opportunities for women, and the conflicts of the decade over immigration and change.

   Learning standard: 8.4e · economic prosperity and cultural change in the 1920s, the Harlem Renaissance and the conflicts of the decade

8. Unit 8

   📉Depression & New Deal

   The causes of the crash and the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, how families coped, and Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal (begun as governor of New York) and its lasting programs.

   Learning standard: 8.5; 8.5a; 8.5b; 8.5c · the causes and effects of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, and the New Deal

9. Unit 9

   ✈️World War II

   The road to war, the US entry after Pearl Harbor, D-Day and the Pacific, the Holocaust, the home front including the forced removal of Japanese Americans, and the war's results, including the United Nations in New York City.

   Learning standard: 8.6; 8.6a; 8.6b; 8.6c · the causes, course and consequences of World War II for the United States and the world

10. Unit 10

    🚀The Cold War

    The rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, containment from the Truman Doctrine to Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the space race and the end of the Cold War.

    Learning standard: 8.7; 8.7a; 8.7b · the Cold War and the US policy of containment from 1945 to 1991

11. Unit 11

    🌐A Changing World

    The United States' role after the Cold War, the September 11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, the responses to terrorism and the debates they raised, and globalization.

    Learning standard: 8.7c; 8.7d; 8.7e · US foreign policy after the Cold War, the response to terrorism and growing global interdependence

12. Unit 12

    ✊Civil Rights

    The civil rights movement from Brown v. Board of Education to the Voting Rights Act, its leaders and methods, and the efforts it inspired by women, farm workers, Native Americans, people with disabilities and the LGBT community, with key Supreme Court cases.

    Learning standard: 8.9; 8.9a; 8.9b; 8.1c · the civil rights movement, equality under the law, and renewed efforts for equality by other groups

13. Unit 13

    🏘️A Changing Population

    The baby boom, suburbs such as Levittown, the Sun Belt and Rust Belt, migration from Puerto Rico, new immigration after 1965, and environmental challenges from Love Canal to climate change.

    Learning standard: 8.8; 8.8a; 8.8b; 8.8c · population shifts after World War II, immigration and cultural diversity, and stress on the environment

14. Unit 14

    ⚖️The Great Society & Beyond

    The Great Society, the Vietnam War's effect at home, Watergate, the 1970s economy and the fiscal conservatism of the 1980s, and Supreme Court cases on civil liberties, including Engel v. Vitale from New York.

    Learning standard: 8.9c; 8.9d; 8.9e · the Great Society and Vietnam, the shift toward fiscal conservatism, and debates over civil liberties and the federal government

15. Unit 15

    🗓️Timeline 1865–2001

    Putting events from Reconstruction, the growth of New York City, two world wars, the Cold War and the civil rights movement in order.

    Learning standard: 8.1; 8.2; 8.4; 8.6; 8.7; 8.9 · the order of events in US and New York history from Reconstruction to the present