• Strand: History

  Content Standard I: Students are able to identify important people and events in order to analyze significant patterns, relationships, themes, ideas, beliefs, and turning points in New Mexico, United States, and world history in order to understand the complexity of the human experience. Students will:

  • Grade 6 Benchmark I-A—New Mexico:

    Explore and explain how people and events have influenced the development of New Mexico up to the present day.

    Performance Standards

    1. Describe the relationships among ancient civilizations of the world (e.g., scientific discoveries, architecture, politics, cultures and religious systems) and their connection to the early development of New Mexico.

  • Grade 6 Benchmark I-B—United States:

    Analyze and interpret major eras, events and individuals from the periods of exploration and colonization through the civil war and reconstruction in United States history.

    Performance Standards

    1. Explain and describe the origins, obstacles and impact of the age of exploration, to include: improvements in technology (e.g., the clock, the sextant, work of Prince Henry the navigator), voyages of Columbus to the new world and the later searches for the northwest passage, introduction of disease and the resulting population decline (especially among indigenous peoples), exchanges of technology, ideas, agricultural products and practices.

  • Grade 6 Benchmark I-C—World:

    Compare and contrast major historical eras, events and figures from ancient civilizations to the age of exploration.

    Performance Standards

    1. Describe and compare the characteristics of the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and China and explain the importance of their contributions to later civilizations, to include:
       • a. significance of river valleys; early irrigation and its impact on agriculture;
       • b. forms of government (e.g., the theocracies in Egypt, dynasties in China);
       • c. effect on world economies and trade;
       • d. key historical figures;
       • e. religious traditions, cultural, and scientific contributions (e.g., writing systems, calendars, building of monuments such as the pyramids);
    2. Describe and analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious and social structures of early civilizations of India, to include:
       • a. location and description of the river systems and other topographical features that supported the rise of this civilization;
       • b. significance of the Aryan invasions;
       • c. structure and function of the caste system;
       • d. important aesthetic and intellectual traditions (e.g., Sanskrit literature, medicine, metallurgy, mathematics including Hindu-Arabic numerals and the number zero);
    3. Describe and analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious and social structures of the early civilizations in China, to include:
       • a. location and description of the origins of Chinese civilization in the Huang-He valley, Shang dynasty, geographical features of China that made governance and movement of ideas and goods difficult and served to isolate the country;
       • b. life of Confucius and the fundamental teachings of Confucianism and Taoism;
       • c. rule by dynasties (e.g., Shang, Qin, Han, Tang, and Ming);
       • d. historical influence of China on other parts of the world (e.g., tea, paper, wood-block printing, compass, gunpowder);
    4. Describe major religions of the world to include Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam (e.g., founding leaders, traditions, customs, beliefs).
    5. Compare and contrast the geographic, political, economic, and social characteristics of the ancient Greek, ancient Roman, Ottoman, Indian, Arabic, African and middle eastern civilizations and their enduring impacts on later civilizations, to include:
       • a. influence of Mediterranean geography on the development and expansion of the civilizations;
       • b. development of concepts of government and citizenship (e.g., democracy, republic, codification of laws, Code of Hammurabi);
       • c. scientific and cultural advancements (e.g., networks of roads, aqueducts, art, architecture, literature, theater, philosophy);
       • d. contributions and roles of key figures (e.g., Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Augustus).
    6. Compare and contrast the political and economic events and the social and geographic characteristics of medieval European life and their enduring impacts on later civilizations, to include:
       • a. creation and expansion of the Byzantine empire;
       • b. reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire;
       • c. new forms of government, feudalism and the beginning of limited government with the Magna Carta;
       • d. role of the roman catholic church and its monasteries;
       • e. causes, course and effects of the Crusades; impact of the black plague; contributions and roles of key figures (e.g., Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, Marco Polo).

  • Grade 6 Benchmark I-D—Skills:

    Research historical events and people from a variety of perspectives.

    Performance Standards

    1. Organize information by sequencing, categorizing, identifying cause-and-effect relationships, comparing and contrasting, finding the main idea, summarizing, making generalizations and predictions, drawing inferences and conclusions.
    2. Identify different points of view about an issue or topic.
    3. Use a decision-making process to identify a situation that requires a solution; gather information, identify options, predict consequences and take action to implement that solution.

• Strand: Geography

  Content Standard II: Students understand how physical, natural, and cultural processes influence where people live, the ways in which people live, and how societies interact with one another and their environments.

  • Grade 6 Benchmark II-A:

    Analyze and evaluate the characteristics and purposes of geographic tools, knowledge, skills and perspectives and apply them to explain the past, present and future in terms of patterns, events and issues.

    Performance Standards

    1. Identify the location of places using latitude and longitude.
    2. Draw complex and accurate maps from memory and interpret them to answer questions about the location of physical features.

  • Grade 6 Benchmark II-B:

    Explain the physical and human characteristics of places and use this knowledge to define regions, their relationships with other regions, and their patterns of change.

    Performance Standards

    1. Explain how places change due to human activity.
    2. Explain how places and regions serve as cultural symbols and explore the influences and effects of regional symbols.
    3. Identify a region by its formal, functional or perceived characteristics.

  • Grade 6 Benchmark II-C:

    Understand how human behavior impacts man-made and natural environments, recognize past and present results and predict potential changes.

    Performance Standards

    1. Compare and contrast the influences of man-made and natural environments upon ancient civilizations.

  • Grade 6 Benchmark II-D:

    Explain how physical processes shape the earthís surface patterns and biosystems.

    Performance Standards

    1. Describe how physical processes shape the environmental patterns of air, land, water, plants and animals.

  • Grade 6 Benchmark II-E:

    Explain how economic, political, cultural and social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations and their interdependence, cooperation and conflict.

    Performance Standards

    1. Explain how human migration impacts places, societies and civilizations.
    2. Describe, locate and compare different settlement patterns throughout the world.
    3. Explain how cultures create a cultural landscape, locally and throughout the world, and how these landscapes change over time.

  • Grade 6 Benchmark II-F:

    Describe how natural and man-made changes affect the meaning, use, distribution, and value of resources.

    Performance Standards

    1. Understand how resources impact daily life.

• Strand: Civics and Government

  Content Standard III: Students understand the ideals, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship and understand the content and history of the founding documents of the United States with particular emphasis on the United States and New Mexico constitutions and how governments function at local, state, tribal, and national levels.

  • Grade 6 Benchmark III-A:

    Demonstrate understanding of the structure, functions and powers of government (local, state, tribal and national).

    Performance Standards

    1. Describe the concept of democracy as developed by the Greeks and compare the evolution of democracies throughout the world.
    2. Describe the concept of republic as developed by the Romans and compare to other republican governments.

  • Grade 6 Benchmark III-B:

    Explain the significance of symbols, icons, songs, traditions and leaders of New Mexico and the United States that exemplify ideals and provide continuity and a sense of unity.

    Performance Standards

    1. Describe the significance of leadership in democratic societies and provide examples of local, national and international leadership, to include: qualities of leadership; names and contributions of New Mexico leaders; names and contributions of national leaders.

  • Grade 6 Benchmark III-C:

    Compare political philosophies and concepts of government that became the foundation for the American revolution and the United States government.

    Performance Standards

    1. Explain how Greek and Roman societies expanded and advanced the role of citizen.
    2. Identify historical origins of democratic forms of government (e.g., early civilizations, Native American governments).

  • Grade 6 Benchmark III- D:

    Explain how individuals have rights and responsibilities as members of social groups, families, schools, communities, states, tribes and countries.

    Performance Standards

    1. Understand that the nature of citizenship varies among societies.

• Strand: Economics

  Content Standard IV: Students understand basic economic principles and use economic reasoning skills to analyze the impact of economic systems (including the market economy) on individuals, families, businesses, communities, and governments.

  • Grade 6 Benchmark IV-A:

    Explain and describe how individuals, households, businesses, governments and societies make decisions, are influenced by incentives (economic as well as intrinsic) and the availability and use of scarce resources, and that their choices involve costs and varying ways of allocating.

    Performance Standards

    1. Explain and predict how people respond to economic and intrinsic incentives.

  • Grade 6 Benchmark IV-B:

    Explain how economic systems impact the way individuals, households, businesses, governments and societies make decisions about resources and the production and distribution of goods and services.

    Performance Standards

    1. Describe the characteristics of traditional, command, market and mixed economic systems.
    2. Explain how different economic systems affect the allocation of resources.
    3. Understand the role that ìfactors of productionî play in a societyís economy (e.g., natural resources, labor, capital, entrepreneurs).

  • Grade 6 Benchmark IV-C:

    Describe the patterns of trade and exchange in early societies and civilizations and explore the extent of their continuation in todayís world.

    Performance Standards

    1. Compare and contrast the trade patterns of early civilizations.
    2. Analyze the impact of the Neolithic agricultural revolution on mankind, and the impact of technological changes in the bronze age and the iron age.

AL.6 Standard: United States Studies—Industrial Revolution to the Present

Sixth-grade content standards focus on the history of the United States from the Industrial Revolution to the present. Historical events studied by sixth graders include the rise of the United States as an industrial nation, World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War Era.

6.1

• 6.1. Students will:

  Explain the impact of industrialization, urbanization, communication, and cultural changes on life in the United States from the late nineteenth century to World War I. (Economics, Geography, History, Civics and Government)

6.2

• 6.2.1 Students will:

  Describe reform movements and changing social conditions during the Progressive Era in the United States. (Economics, Geography, History, Civics and Government)

• 6.2.1 Students will practice:

  • Relating countries of origin and experiences of new immigrants to life in the United States

  • Grade Level Example:

    Mobile, Boston, New York, New Orleans, Savannah

  • Identifying workplace reforms, including the eight-hour workday, child labor laws, and workers’ compensation laws
  • Identifying political reforms of Progressive movement leaders, including Theodore Roosevelt and the establishment of the national park system
  • Identifying social reforms of the Progressive movement, including efforts by Jane Adams, Clara Barton, and Julia
    Tutwiler
  • Recognizing goals of the early civil rights movement and the purpose of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
  • Explaining Progressive movement provisions of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-first Amendments to the Constitution of the United States

6.3

• 6.3.1 Students will:

  Identify causes and consequences of World War I and reasons for United States’ entry into the war. (Economics, Geography, History, Civics and Government)

  • Grade Level Example:

    sinking of the Lusitania, Zimmerman Note, alliances, militarism, imperialism, nationalism

• 6.3.2 Students will practice:

• Describing military and civilian roles in the United States during World War I
• Explaining roles of important persons associated with World War I, including Woodrow Wilson and Archduke Franz Ferdinand
• Analyzing technological advances of the World War I era for their impact on modern warfare

• Grade Level Example:

  machine gun, tank, submarine, airplane, poisonous gas, gas mask

• Locating on a map major countries involved in World War I and boundary changes after the war
• Explaining the intensification of isolationism in the United States after World War I

• Grade Level Example:

  reaction of the Congress of the United States to the Treaty of Versailles, League of Nations, and Red Scare

• Recognizing the strategic placement of military
  bases in Alabama

6.4

• 6.4.1 Students will:

  Identify cultural and economic developments in the United States from 1900 through the 1930s. (Economics, History, Civics and Government)

• 6.4.2 Students will practice:

  • Describing the impact of various writers, musicians, and artists on American culture during the Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age

  • Grade Level Example:

    Langston Hughes, Louis Armstrong, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Andrew Wyeth, Frederic Remington, W. C. Handy, Erskine Hawkins, George Gershwin, Zora Neale Hurston

  • Identifying contributions of turn-of-the-century inventors

  • Grade Level Example:

    George Washington Carver, Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Alva Edison, Wilbur and Orville Wright

  • Describing the emergence of the modern woman during the early 1900s

  • Grade Level Example:

    Amelia Earhart, Zelda Fitzgerald, Helen Keller, suffragettes, suffragists, Susan B. Anthony, flappers, Margaret Washington

  • Identifying notable persons of the early 1900s

  • Grade Level Example:

    Babe Ruth, Charles A. Lindbergh, W. E. B. Du Bois, John T. Scopes

  • Comparing results of the economic policies of the Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover Administrations

  • Grade Level Example:

    higher wages, increase in consumer goods, collapse of farm economy, extension of personal credit, stock market crash, Immigration Act of 1924

6.5

• 6.5.1 Students will:

  Explain causes and effects of the Great Depression on the people of the United States. (Economics, Geography, History, Civics and Government)

  • Grade Level Example:

    economic failure, loss of farms, rising unemployment, building of Hoovervilles

• 6.5.2 Students will practice:

• Identifying patterns of migration during the Great Depression
• Locating on a map the area of the United States known as the Dust Bowl
• Describing the importance of the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt as President of the United States, including the New Deal alphabet agencies
• Locating on a map river systems utilized by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

6.6

• 6.6.1 Students will:

  Identify causes and consequences of World War II and reasons for entry of the United States into the war. (Geography, History, Civics and Government)

• 6.6.2 Students will practice:

  • Locating on a map Allied countries and Axis Powers
  • Locating on a map key engagements of World War II, including Pearl Harbor; the battles of Normandy, Stalingrad, and Midway; and the Battle of the Bulge
  • Identifying key figures of World War II, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Sir Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Michinomiya Hirohito, and Hideki Tōjō
  • Describing the development of and the decision to use the atomic bomb
  • Describing human costs associated with World War II

  • Grade Level Example:

    the Holocaust, civilian and military casualties

  • Explaining the importance of the surrender of the Axis Powers ending World War II

6.7

• 6.7.1 Students will:

  Identify causes and consequences of World War II and reasons for entry of the United States into the war. (Economics, History, Civics and Government)

  • Grade Level Example:

    rationing

• 6.7.2 Students will practice:

• Recognizing the retooling of factories from consumer to military production
• Identifying new roles of women and African Americans in the workforce
• Describing increased demand on Birmingham steel
  industry and Port of Mobile facilities
• Describing the experience of African Americans and Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II, including the Tuskegee Airmen and
  occupants of internment camps

6.8

• 6.8.1 Students will:

  Describe how the United States’ role in the Cold War influenced domestic and international events. (Economics, Geography, History, Civics and Government)

• 6.8.2 Students will practice:

  • Describing the origin and meaning of the Iron Curtain and communism
  • Recognizing how the Cold War conflict manifested itself through sports

  • Grade Level Example:

    Olympic Games, international chess tournaments, Ping-Pong diplomacy

  • Identifying strategic diplomatic initiatives that intensified the Cold War, including the policies of Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy

  • Grade Level Example:

    trade embargoes, Marshall Plan, arms race, Berlin blockade and airlift, Berlin Wall, mutually assured destruction, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Warsaw Pact, Cuban missile crisis, Bay of Pigs invasion

  • Identifying how Cold War tensions resulted in armed conflict

  • Grade Level Example:

    Korean Conflict, Vietnam War, proxy wars

  • Describing the impact of the Cold War on technological innovations

  • Grade Level Example:

    Sputnik; space race; weapons of mass destruction; accessibility of microwave ovens, calculators, and computers

  • Recognizing Alabama’s role in the Cold War

  • Grade Level Example:

    rocket production at Redstone Arsenal, helicopter training at Fort Rucker

  • Assessing effects of the end of the Cold War Era

  • Grade Level Example:

    policies of Mikhail Gorbachev; collapse of the Soviet Union; Ronald W. Reagan’s foreign policies, including the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI or Star Wars)

6.9

• 6.9.1 Students will:

  Critique major social and cultural changes in the United States since World War II. (Economics, History, Civics and Government)

• 6.9.2 Students will practice:

  • Identifying key persons and events of the modern Civil Rights Movement

  • Grade Level Example:

    persons—Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Fred Shuttlesworth, John Lewis
    events—Brown versus Board of Education, Montgomery Bus Boycott, student protests, Freedom Rides, Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights March, political assassinations

  • Describing the changing role of women in United States’ society and how it affected the family unit

  • Grade Level Example:

    women in the workplace, latchkey children

  • Recognizing the impact of music genres and artists on United States’ culture since World War II

  • Grade Level Example:

    genres—protest songs; Motown, rock and roll, rap, folk, and country music
    artists—Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Hank Williams

  • Identifying the impact of media, including newspapers, AM and FM radio, television, twenty-four hour sports and news programming, talk radio, and Internet social networking, on United States’ culture since World War II

6.10

• 6.10.1 Students will:

  Analyze changing economic priorities and cycles of economic expansion and contraction for their impact on society since World War II.(Economics, History, Civics and Government)

  • Grade Level Example:

    shift from manufacturing to service economy, higher standard of living, globalization, outsourcing, insourcing, ―boom and bust, economic bubbles

• 6.10.2 Students will practice:

• Identifying policies and programs that had an economic impact on society since World War II

• Grade Level Example:

  G. I. Bill of Rights of 1944, Medicare and Medicaid, Head Start programs, space exploration, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), environmental protection issues

• Analyzing consequences of immigration for their impact on national and Alabama economies since World War II

6.11

• 6.11. Students will:

  Identify technological advancements on society in the United States since World War II. (Economics, History)

  • Grade Level Example:

    1950s—fashion doll, audio cassette
    1960s—action figure, artificial heart, Internet, calculator
    1970s—word processor, video game, cellular telephone
    1980s—personal computer, Doppler radar, digital cellular telephone
    1990s—World Wide Web, digital video diskette (DVD)
    2000s—digital music player, social networking technology, personal Global Positioning System (GPS) device

6.12

• 6.12.1 Students will:

  Evaluate significant political issues and policies of presidential administrations since World War II. (Economics, Geography, History, Civics and Government)

• 6.12.2 Students will practice:

  • Identifying domestic policies that shaped the United States since World War II

  • Grade Level Example:

    desegregation of the military, Interstate Highway System, federal funding for education, Great Society, affirmative action, Americans with Disabilities Act, welfare reform, Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind Act

  • Recognizing domestic issues that shaped the United States since World War II

  • Grade Level Example:

    desegregation of the military, Interstate Highway System, federal funding for education, Great Society, affirmative action, Americans with Disabilities Act, welfare reform, Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind Act

  • Identifying issues of foreign affairs that shaped the United States since World War II

  • Grade Level Example:

    Vietnam Conflict, Richard Nixon’s China initiative, Jimmy Carter’s human rights initiative, emergence of China and India as economic powers