8th grade Social Studies
10 units matched to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS).
Focus areas
- United States history to 1877: the colonies, the Revolution and the Constitution
- The new nation: early presidents, expansion west, Indian removal and the Mexican-American War
- Sectionalism, slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, with the amendments that followed
- Government and citizenship: founding documents, the Bill of Rights and landmark Supreme Court cases
Units
Unit 1
Founding Ideals
The Magna Carta, English Bill of Rights and Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the debates of 1787, the Federalist Papers, and the principles of the Constitution.
TEKS student expectation: 8.15(A); 8.15(E); 8.20(A); 8.22(A) · the ideas behind the Declaration and the Constitution, and the founders as models of civic virtue
Unit 2
Rights & Amendments
What the first ten amendments protect, the Reconstruction Amendments, and why rights come with limits and responsibilities.
TEKS student expectation: 8.16(A); 8.19(A); 8.19(B); 8.21(B); 8.25(C) · unalienable rights, the Bill of Rights, free speech and press, and why the Constitution is amended
Unit 3
Factories & Reformers
The Industrial Revolution in the North, canals, roads and railroads, immigration, public schools, and the abolition and women's rights movements before 1861.
TEKS student expectation: 8.13(B); 8.23(A); 8.24(A); 8.24(B); 8.27(A); 8.28(B) · inventions and industry, immigration, and the abolition, women's rights and school reform movements
Unit 4
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.
TEKS student expectation: 8.9(A); 8.9(B); 8.9(C); 8.16(B) · Reconstruction, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, and Black officeholders such as Hiram Rhodes Revels
Unit 5
Colonies to Independence
The key dates of US history to 1877 (1607, 1620, 1776, 1787, 1803 and 1861–1865), why Spain, France and England colonized, early representative government, the causes of the Revolution, and the people the Texas standards name, from Samuel Adams and Mercy Otis Warren to James Armistead and Bernardo de Gálvez.
TEKS student expectation: 8.1(A); 8.1(B); 8.2(A); 8.2(B); 8.3(A); 8.3(B); 8.3(C); 8.4(A); 8.4(B); 8.4(C) · key dates and eras, reasons for colonization, representative government, and the causes, people and events of the Revolution
Unit 6
The Constitution & the Courts
The strengths and weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation, the compromises of 1787, how the Constitution answered colonial grievances, the principles of the Constitution, Federalists and Anti-Federalists, states' rights and nullification, and the landmark cases Marbury v. Madison, McCulloch v. Maryland, Gibbons v. Ogden and Dred Scott v. Sandford.
TEKS student expectation: 8.4(D); 8.15(A); 8.15(B); 8.15(C); 8.15(D); 8.16(A); 8.17(A); 8.17(B); 8.18(A); 8.18(B); 8.18(C) · the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutional Convention, constitutional principles, states' rights and landmark Supreme Court cases
Unit 7
A New Nation
The problems facing the new republic, Hamilton's economic plan, the first political parties, the War of 1812, the Louisiana Purchase, and the foreign policies of George Washington through James Monroe, including the Farewell Address and the Monroe Doctrine.
TEKS student expectation: 8.5(A); 8.5(C); 8.5(D); 8.5(E); 8.5(F); 8.6(B) · problems of the early republic, the first parties, the War of 1812, and early foreign policy
Unit 8
Westward Expansion
Jacksonian democracy, the Indian Removal Act, Worcester v. Georgia and the Trail of Tears, Manifest Destiny, Texas annexation, and the causes and effects of the US–Mexican War. The Cherokee Nation and other nations are described as living, self-governing nations.
TEKS student expectation: 8.5(G); 8.5(H); 8.6(B); 8.6(C); 8.10(A) · the election of Jackson, Cherokee removal, westward growth, and the US–Mexican War
Unit 9
A Nation Divided
The effects of slavery on different regions, the lives of enslaved people and free Black Americans, the Fugitive Slave Acts, the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and abolitionists. Told factually.
TEKS student expectation: 8.5(B); 8.7(B); 8.7(C); 8.7(D); 8.7(E); 8.12(B); 8.21(C) · slavery and sectionalism, the Fugitive Slave Acts, and compromises before the Civil War
Unit 10
The Civil War
The central role of slavery in causing the Civil War, its leaders, its major battles and turning points, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Lincoln's ideas in his inaugural addresses and the Gettysburg Address. Told factually.
TEKS student expectation: 8.8(A); 8.8(B); 8.8(C); 8.8(D) · the people, causes, events and ideas of the Civil War
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