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 Executive Summary

H I STORY
SOCIAL SCIENCE
FRAMEWORK
FOR CALIFORNIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve

January 2018
 What’s in the History–Social Science Framework for me?

}} Classroom teachers and paraprofessionals of all grades and disciplines

will find descriptions of grade-level content, areas of focus, and examples
of engaging classroom activities and assessment practices that will meet the
needs of the diverse students they serve.

}} Teacher librarians, education specialists, coaches/mentors, and

professional learning providers will find information about the key
instructional shifts in history–social science instruction across the
grade levels.

}} Site and district administrators will find information about recommended

history–social science practices, along with suggestions for creating the
collaborative culture necessary to implement the framework. They will also
find criteria for evaluating instructional materials.

}} University faculty in teacher preparation programs will find information

about the vision and key instructional shifts in history–social science
instruction. They will find the updated information that prospective
teachers and in-service teachers are expected to address.

}} Parents and community members will find grade-level content

descriptions and examples of effective instruction.

}} Curriculum developers will find expectations and evaluation criteria for

instructional materials and models of appropriate instructional approaches
and assessment practices.
The complete History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools
is available online at
https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/hs/cf/

Acknowledgments
This executive summary was produced for the Consortium for the Implementation of the Common Core
State Standards and made possible through the support of the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, the Charles and
Helen Schwab Foundation, and the Silver Giving Foundation.

The executive summary was prepared by Nancy McTygue and Beth Slutsky, two of the primary authors of
the History–Social Science Framework. They gratefully acknowledge the comments of reviewers, including
Bill Honig, chair of the History–Social Science Subject Matter Committee of the Instructional Quality
Commission, and members of the Consortium. The Consortium acknowledges the California Department
of Education, in particular the Curriculum Frameworks and Instructional Resources Division, and the
Sacramento County Office of Education for their leadership and support on this project.

This summary may be reproduced for any educational and non-commercial purposes. When referencing this summary, please use the
following citation: McTygue, Nancy, and Beth Slutsky. (2017). Executive Summary: History–Social Science Framework for California Public
Schools: Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve. Sacramento: Consortium for the Implementation of the Common Core State Standards.
 Framework Overview
A curriculum framework is a document for teachers, administrators, and the public to provide
support and guidance in the implementation of a standards-based curriculum in a specific subject
area. If content standards provide the “what” of an instructional program, a framework helps flesh
out the “how.” The purpose of the History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools,
Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve (HSS Framework) is to provide guidance, not to mandate how
instruction must be provided. The framework empowers districts, schools, and teachers to adopt
instruction to meet the needs of diverse students and select materials that are relevant to their
students and communities.

A New Approach to HSS Instruction

The HSS Framework provides both a theoretical rationale and concrete classroom examples
throughout the document to support the implementation of a new vision for history-social science
and the History–Social Science Content Standards for California Public Schools (HSS Standards).
It also organizes the grade-level content around questions of significance, designed to promote the
use of inquiry as an effective and engaging instructional method, and incorporates the most recent
scholarship in a given field. Additionally, the HSS Framework includes broad questions, such as
What does freedom mean? and How does it change over time? as well as more narrow inquiries,
such as Why was there a Columbian Exchange? Framing instruction around questions of
significance allows students to develop their content knowledge in greater depth, and to create
a narrative arc around which other information can be contextualized and utilized to address
issues and problems in modern society. The HSS Framework also allows the natural connections
between the disciplines to take center stage—for example, by examining an important event from
its economic, political, and geographic dimensions as well as its place in the chronology of the
past. Finally, it engages students in the process of “doing history,” which communicates to students
that history and the related social sciences are interpretive disciplines; that is, rather than having
a stagnant body of information to
memorize, these subjects are continually
being shaped and reinterpreted.

The HSS Framework extends the standards

in a historically nuanced and significant
direction in which students learn
history and the related social sciences
by practicing the discipline itself. This
HSS Framework should guide instruction
because it incorporates pieces of all of
the HSS Standards, but the approach
should be inquiry-based, whereby
students investigate the “how” and “why”

History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12 • Executive Summary (January 2018) 1
of historical developments. This framework also reaffirms the importance of narrative (a “story
well told”) in history and civics, and it emphasizes the use of biographies, novels, essays, plays, and
engaging activities to help make the standards come alive.

The HSS Framework also supports interdisciplinary instruction and implementation of the
California Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social
Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy), the California English Language
Development Standards (CA ELD Standards), and the English Language Arts/English Language
Development Framework for California Public Schools Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve (ELA/ELD
Framework).

Four Key Areas of Emphasis in HSS Instruction

The HSS Framework explains that a well-rounded curriculum includes four key areas of emphasis:
content, inquiry, literacy, and citizenship.

Content
California’s students deserve to learn diverse, accurate, engaging, and nuanced material in order
to understand the past and make sense of the present. At all grade levels and in all disciplines—
including history, geography, economics, ethnic studies, government, and civics—content must
be front and center in guiding instruction. The HSS Framework’s grade-level chapters are content-
driven. The latest scholarly and disciplinary research is reflected in the chapters and translated into
age-appropriate narratives and classroom examples. In kindergarten
through third grade, the HSS Framework organizes the material as
investigations into different studies of communities and ways of
exploring the world. Starting in fourth grade and extending through
high school, the grade levels are organized either with a U.S. and
California history focus or with a world history focus. Both the U.S.
and world history content are organized into themes that intentionally
cross grade levels. One key theme that unites the U.S. history course
sequence (which includes grades four, five, eight, eleven, and twelve)
is the topic of freedom. Students explore the evolution of the concept
of freedom, and as importantly, they investigate the ways in which
different groups of Americans contested and shaped freedom from the
founding of the republic through recent times. Students consider the
ways in which the quests for liberty, freedom, and equality have transformed the American populace.
Starting with the freedoms outlined by the framers of the U.S. constitution, students examine the
many contributions of Americans seeking to define the meaning of citizenship across the country,
including farmers in Jefferson’s agrarian nation, suffragists at the end of the nineteenth century, civil
rights activists putting their lives on the line to end Jim Crow laws and discriminatory social norms in
the middle of the twentieth century, and Americans seeking to bring marriage equality to same-sex
couples in the twenty-first century.

California’s students also learn about the history and geography of the world beyond our national
borders (in grades six, seven, and ten). In the middle grades, students begin their study of the global
past with consideration of the ancient world from hunter-gatherer societies to the earliest civilizations

2 Executive Summary (January 2018) • History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12
in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and India. Their learning extends to the ancient Israelites, Greeks, and
Romans. Students analyze the relationships between humanity and the physical world, trade, conflict,
the development of new political institutions and philosophies (especially the rise of democracies
and democratic ideas) as well as the birth and spread of religious traditions. As in earlier grades,
students continue to learn about these developments through a variety of primary and secondary
documents, analyze multiple pieces of evidence, and use this evidence to answer broader questions
of historical significance. Through their study of medieval and early modern history and geography,
students examine the rise and fall of empires; the growth of commercial, technological, and cultural
exchange; and the consequences of increasing population density and movement in Afro-Eurasia
and the Americas. In high school, students continue to analyze the connections between events at
home and abroad as people, products, diseases, technology, knowledge, and ideas spread around
the world as never before. Students survey economic, political, and social revolutions as well as
the increasing impact of humanity on the natural and physical environment. They also investigate
imperial expansion and the growth of nation-states, two world wars, decolonization, the Cold War,
globalization, and unresolved conflicts that
continue to affect the world today.

Inquiry
Teaching history, economics, geography,
civics, and other related social sciences
demands more than telling students to
memorize disconnected content. Since the
adoption of the HSS Standards in 1998,
our state has recognized the importance of
inquiry-based disciplinary understanding
in the history–social science classroom. The
Historical and Social Science Analysis Skills highlight the importance of chronological and spatial
thinking; research, evidence, and point of view; and historical interpretation, organized in three
separate but related grade spans: K–5, 6–8, and 9–12. Embedded within these grade spans are
discrete skills vital for student learning, critical thinking, and literacy. These include understanding
relationships between events, chronological understanding, understanding perspective and bias,
and corroboration. All of the grade-level chapters of the HSS Framework center on an inquiry
model of instruction. Lower-elementary students learn about their communities by investigating
the questions How are our lives different from those who lived in the past? How are they the
same? Fourth-grade students learn about California’s history by investigating the question Why did
different groups of immigrants decide to move to California? Seventh-grade students learn about
medieval and early-modern history by investigating the question How did the environment and
technological innovations affect the expansion of agriculture, cities, and human population?
And eleventh-grade students learn about modern U.S. history by investigating the question How did
the U.S. population become more diverse over the twentieth century? These are samples of the
questions—both large unit-long ones and small lesson-based ones—that allow students to consider
the content the way that practitioners do, by asking open-ended questions and exploring a variety of
primary and secondary sources to develop a claim about the question.

History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12 • Executive Summary (January 2018) 3
Literacy
Learning how to read and write in the content areas is critical to overall student literacy development.
Text-based disciplines such as history–social science demand student proficiency in content-specific
informational text. Studying these disciplines entails vocabulary, reading, writing, and discourse
patterns that are difficult for students. The HSS Framework chapters explain that by teaching students
how to identify different kinds of texts and how to read a text closely, with different purposes each
time, students learn to slow down and read on a level that transcends simple vocabulary or content
comprehension. It also heightens students’ critical thinking. In all of the grade levels, students explore
a variety of texts (e.g., census records, religious texts, memoirs, and government propaganda), learn
to identify a document by its purpose—whether it be persuasive, narrative, or autobiographical—and
evaluate its purpose and context.

The HSS Framework chapters emphasize that cross-curricular collaboration between history–social
science and English language arts teachers should come naturally and is necessary to develop in
students a well-rounded history–social science understanding. The adoption of the CA CCSS for
ELA/Literacy in 2010 and the ELA/ELD Framework in 2014 reinforced the importance of disciplinary
literacy and understanding. The CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy include standards for reading and writing
that make clear that not only is identifying and grappling with informational text integral to a well-
rounded curriculum, but that it necessarily
involves learning to think, read, and write
with these skills. Teachers in both subject
areas should coordinate the use of literature,
biography, and informational texts in their
classrooms to support the shared goals of
literacy development, student engagement,
and content knowledge. The HSS Framework
provides several examples of how this can
be done, including a description of a unit
on European colonialism in Africa taught
concurrently in both the world literature
and world history courses at a high school.

Citizenship
History and the related social sciences emphasize the development of civic and democratic values
as integral elements of citizenship. The HSS Framework encourages students to understand
the relationship between citizens and the state and to recognize their role as members of their
community. Whether studying U.S. history, world history, government, economics, or geography,
students should become familiar with the growth of representative government and democratic
institutions, ideas, and habits as well as the presence, absence, or contestation of fundamental
rights. The HSS Framework presents opportunities for civic engagement and education to help
students explicitly connect their learning to the significance of citizenship and their communities.
Most importantly, as students learn to read and think critically about their worlds, they not only
become aware of how the government functions in the abstract, but they also gain a sense of the
importance of civic participation (by as many people as possible) in the successful implementation

4 Executive Summary (January 2018) • History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12
 of a representative government. In early
elementary grades, students simulate
elections, create their own classroom
constitutions, and engage in other exercises
to acquire the knowledge and skills to
become engaged citizens. In eighth grade,
students learn about civic participation
by studying foundational documents and
simulating debates from the Constitutional
Convention. In eleventh grade, students
engage in civics through service-learning
projects such as participating in a voter
registration drive or local initiative.
The HSS Framework contains additional
examples in the grade-level chapters as
well as in the appendixes that focus on
civic education and civic learning. Across
the grade levels, the chapters encourage
students to learn about the rights of the
individual, the rights and obligations of
citizens to participate in government through voting, the rights to speak or publish freely without
governmental coercion, the rights to freedom of religion and association, the rights to trial by jury
and to be treated fairly by the criminal justice system, the rights to form trade unions, and other basic
democratic rights. Moreover, students do not study these rights in the abstract—or merely in the
present application—they study how these rights have been constructed, challenged, and contested
and continue to be reshaped to respond to an ever-changing world. Students also must understand
the responsibilities of citizens to a functioning democracy, including the values of participation,
tolerance, and the willingness to compromise and engage in productive discourse.

History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12 • Executive Summary (January 2018) 5
 Grade-Level Guidance
Kindergarten
In kindergarten, students begin the study of history–social science with concepts anchored in the
experiences they bring to school from their families and communities. Students explore being a good
citizen, national symbols, work now and long ago, geography, time and chronology, and life in the
past. The kindergarten chapter presents ways for students to identify and solve classroom and social
problems by learning about citizenship and the common good. The HSS Framework encourages
students to learn about their communities by focusing on various aspects of their neighborhoods.
And as students learn about their communities, they are introduced to early historical thinking by
learning about how their world looks different now than in the past.

Some of the questions that frame this year’s investigation

include the following: In the early elementary
• How can we learn and work together? grades, history–social
• What does it mean to be an American? science instruction is
• How are our lives different from those who lived in taught through a gradually
the past? How are they the same? expanding study of students’
• What is our neighborhood like? worlds. Teachers in these
grades should work
The classroom example in the kindergarten chapter draws collaboratively with their
from David Shannon’s picture book David Goes to School,
colleagues who teach in
in which the main character chooses to break classroom
rules. Students engage with text-dependent questions contiguous grades to build
to comprehend and analyze the story. Students connect upon content that has been
the story to their classroom as they consider their own introduced in earlier grades.
classroom rules and codes of conduct. For example, American
culture, government,
The kindergarten chapter features lesson ideas about
reading biographies such as Malala, A Brave Girl from geographic awareness, and
Pakistan/Iqbal, A Brave Boy from Pakistan: Two Stories economic reasoning are
of Bravery to learn about people who exhibit courage developed in kindergarten
and determination. The chapter suggests a lesson idea through grade three.
for learning about national symbols by reading books Teachers should utilize
and learning songs like Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is the multi-grade strands to
Your Land.” The chapter also includes a lesson idea about
develop an extended and
learning about environments and neighborhoods through
books like Barrio: Jose’s Neighborhood by George Ancona. relatively in-depth course of
study in these areas.

6 Executive Summary (January 2018) • History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12
Finally, the chapter contains a lesson idea that introduces students to historical thinking and allows
them to develop historical empathy by exploring how students ate, dressed, and lived differently in
past generations.

Grade One
The first-grade HSS Framework chapter addresses students’ expanding sense of place along with
chronological and spatial relationships. Students in first grade develop a deeper understanding of
cultural diversity and learn to appreciate people from various backgrounds and the many ways of
life that exist in the larger world. As first-grade students learn about their physical and populated
communities, the HSS Framework encourages teachers to begin addressing how human agency has
shaped the world through economic, political, and social choices.

Some of the questions that frame this year’s investigation include the following:
• What is our community like?
• How is our life different from those who lived in the past, and how is it the same?
• How do many different people make one nation?

The classroom example in the grade-one HSS

Framework chapter involves students investigating
similarities and differences between children’s
lives today and long ago. Drawing upon primary
source photographs from the Library of Congress
along with Robin Nelson’s School: Then and Now
and Gloria Houston and Susan Condie Lamb’s My
Great-Aunt Arizona, students learn to understand
multiple written and visual sources. They also are
introduced to the historical thinking concept of
continuity and change.

The first-grade HSS Framework chapter features lesson ideas about problem solving by having
students read texts like Francisco Jimenez’s La Mariposa. The chapter contains a lesson idea that uses
voting and other experiential learning activities to introduce students to direct versus representative
democracy. The chapter also contains a geographic lesson idea in which students consider texts like
Joan Sweeney’s Me on the Map. Students learn about the importance of symbols and landmarks by
constructing a class book of local, national, and international symbols. Students learn about the
community’s pluralism through a variety of story books and informational texts like Jouanah:
A Hmong Cinderella by Jewell Reinhart Coburn.

Grade Two
The second-grade HSS Framework chapter focuses on people who make a difference in students’ own
lives and those who have made a difference in the past. As second-grade students’ understanding of
their communities and environments expands, teachers are encouraged to offer a diverse, local, and
engaging history–social science course of study. The second-grade chapter includes the first reference

History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12 • Executive Summary (January 2018) 7
to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals in families, as well as families with a
wide variety of structures, religions, ethnicities, and racial identities.

Some of the questions that frame this year’s investigation include the following:
• How do families remember their past?
• How can we best describe California?
• What makes someone heroic?

The classroom example in the grade-two chapter focuses on students exploring biographies and
developing a definition of heroic or courageous. In learning about the significance of individuals such
as Dolores Huerta, Abraham Lincoln, or Yuri Kochiyama,
for example, students engage in a structured writing exercise
in which they make claims about courage and support it
with evidence.

The second-grade HSS Framework chapter also includes

many lesson ideas that involve suggested texts. For example,
Pushpinkder (Kaur) Singh’s The Boy with the Long Hair and
Patricia Polacco’s In Our Mother’s House introduce students
to the diverse families, dress, manners, and behaviors
of members of their communities. Another lesson idea
encourages students to learn about why people move today
and have moved in the past and how this relates to the state
of California. Moreover, students learn about economic and
environmental relationships by tracing where and how food
is produced and consumed in their communities.

Grade Three
The third-grade HSS Framework chapter emphasizes local history, geography, civics, historical
thinking, chronology, and national identity. The emphasis is on understanding how some things
change and others remain the same. To understand changes occurring today, students explore the
ways in which their community continues to evolve and how they can contribute to its improvement.
Students who have constructed a family history in grade two are now ready to think about
constructing a history of the place where they live today.

Some of the questions that frame this year’s investigation include the following:
• Why did people settle in California?
• Why did people move to my community?
• How has my community changed over time?
• What issues are important to my community?

The classroom example from grade three focuses on rule-making and government. After students
participate in a whole-class discussion about the purpose of rules and representation in their
classrooms, students read grade-level appropriate informational texts about the U.S. Constitution

8 Executive Summary (January 2018) • History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12
 and other foundational documents. They make
important connections between their daily
lives and our nation’s goals and commitment to
equality under the law.

The third-grade HSS Framework chapter also

contains many lesson ideas that include
suggested literature and other resources that
provide guidance for teaching economic
reasoning, community formation, and identity.
Just as second-grade students learn about
notable figures through biographies, third-grade
students study historically significant individuals and turning points through books such as Separate
Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and her Family’s Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh, which
recounts one family’s involvement in the fight to desegregate schools in California. Likewise, as
students consider the question Why did people move to our community? they can read the bilingual
picture book My Diary from Here to There by Amanda Irma Perez, which recounts the move of one
family from Mexico to Southern California for economic reasons.

Grade Four
The fourth-grade HSS Framework chapter provides students with foundational opportunities
to learn in depth about their state, focusing upon the people who have lived and currently live
here, and how to become engaged and responsible citizens. This year’s course of study addresses
California from pre-Columbian times through the present by exploring the many groups of people
that have populated and influenced the region. A plurality of ethnic groups, religious faiths, and
national identities forms the backbone of California’s history, which students will learn characterizes
their state’s past and current place in the world. They also learn about California's increasingly
heterogeneous population and its important role in civil rights issues including labor rights for
farmworkers, desegregation of schools and housing, and early gay rights organizations. In grade four,
emphasis is also placed on the regional geography of California.
Students analyze how the different regions of the state have
developed through the interaction of physical characteristics,
cultural forces, and economic activity, and how the landscape of
California has provided different resources to different people at
different times, from the earliest era to the present.

Some of the questions that frame this year’s investigation include

the following:
• Why did different groups of immigrants decide to
move to California?
• What were their experiences like when they settled
in California?
• How did the region become a state, and how did the
state grow?

History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12 • Executive Summary (January 2018) 9
The fourth-grade HSS Framework chapter features a classroom example that addresses the question
How did the discovery of gold change California? Students use discipline-specific and academic
vocabulary to make claims about the Gold Rush’s impact upon the state’s size, diversity of population,
economic growth, and regional environments, for example. The fourth-grade chapter also provides a
classroom example in which students conduct a research project about significant Californians. Using
a variety of primary and secondary sources, students make claims about how their selected person
or organization connects to California’s history in a historically significant way. Finally, students
learn about the California state constitution by exploring the question Who decides what you learn
in school? By reading excerpts from the state constitution as well as local and national governing
documents, students learn to weigh documents against one another as they develop answers to the
question about where power resides in determining their education.

This chapter contains many lesson ideas, including a notable one about new ways to study missions.
In order to move away from the “mission project” reconstruction, the fourth-grade chapter
encourages teachers to draw from local and statewide resources and to embrace a historically
appropriate investigation into the many perspectives involved in the mission system.

Grade Five
The fifth-grade HSS Framework chapter
presents the story of the development of
the land that would eventually become
the United States of America, with an
emphasis on the period up to 1800.
This course focuses on the creation of
a new nation that would be peopled by
immigrants from all parts of the globe
and governed by institutions influenced
by a number of religions, the ideals of
the Enlightenment, and concepts of
self-government. Fifth-grade U.S. history
students are encouraged to explore the
past through the eyes of women, men, and children from a variety of historical groups. Viewing
the past from the perspectives of those who lived it is best done through primary sources presented
in different formats. Fifth-grade students should begin to understand that people in the past had
different perspectives, and that one goal of learning history is to understand why people in the past
lived the way they did. In order to understand the perspective and context of early Americans,
students examine the human and physical geography of the past by studying maps and identifying
connections with geography and the ethnic, linguistic, and religious settlement patterns that shaped
the new nation.

Some of the questions that frame this year’s investigation include the following:
• Why did different groups of people decide to settle in the territory that would become the
United States?

10 Executive Summary (January 2018) • History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12
 • How did the different regions of the area that would become the United States affect the
economy, politics, and social organization of the nation?
• What did it mean to become an independent United States?
• What did it mean to be an American?

The fifth-grade chapter features a classroom example in which students compare and analyze multiple
pieces of art and writing that express the roots of the American Revolution. As a class, students
collect, weigh, and corroborate evidence to develop a nuanced explanation of why, according to
different historical actors, there was an American Revolution. Then, individually, students evaluate
this information and compose a claims-based essay utilizing these pieces of evidence. The chapter
also features a classroom example in which students address the question What was the purpose
of the Preamble to the Constitution? They engage in a guided sentence-deconstruction activity in
order to read and compare two different drafts of the preamble.

This chapter also contains many lesson ideas, including 1) a comparative exploration of
native/settler conflicts; 2) a comparative study of British Atlantic colonies in which students
analyze the geographic, agricultural, religious, and economic features of the regions; and
3) western expansion in the Early Republic by focusing on different groups of people whose lives
were upended by movement.

Grade Six
The sixth-grade HSS Framework chapter focuses on the earliest human history through ancient
times. Students in sixth-grade world history and geography classrooms learn about the lives of the
earliest humans; the development of tools; the foraging way of life; agriculture; and the emergence of
civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, ancient Israel, the Indus River valley, China, Mesoamerica, and
the Mediterranean basin. Although teachers should keep the focus on ancient events and problems,
this course gives students the opportunity to grapple with geography; environmental issues; political
systems and power structures; civic engagement; and the fundamental ideas of citizenship, freedom,
morality, and law. Students practice history as an interpretative discipline. Some of the patterns that
connect across the sixth-grade HSS Framework chapter are 1) the movement of early humans across
continents and their adaptations to the geography and climate of new regions; 2) the rise of diverse
civilizations, characterized by economies of surplus, centralized states, social hierarchies, cities,
networks of trade, art and architecture, and systems of writing; 3) the development of new political
institutions (monarchy, empire, democracy) and new ideas (citizenship, freedom, morality, law); and
4) the birth and spread of religious and philosophical systems, including Judaism, Greek thought,
Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Some of the content in the grade-six standards relating to
the early history of Christianity has been shifted to grade seven in the framework.

Some of the questions that frame this year’s investigation include the following:
• How did the environment influence human migration, ancient ways of life, and the development
of societies?
• What were the early human ways of life (hunting and gathering, agriculture, civilizations, urban
societies, states, and empires), and how did they change over time?

History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12 • Executive Summary (January 2018) 11
 • How did the major religious and philosophical systems (Judaism, Greek thought, Hinduism,
Buddhism, Confucianism) support individuals, rulers, and societies?
• How did societies interact with each other? How did connections between societies increase
over time?

The sixth-grade chapter features a classroom example in which students consider the question
How did people’s lives change under the rule of Hammurabi and the civilization in Mesopotamia?
In order to form an understanding about change over time and to fully consider the question,
students do a close reading of excerpts from Hammurabi’s laws and learn about social hierarchy
pyramids. The chapter also features a classroom example in which students address the question
How did the philosophical system of Confucianism support individuals, rulers, and societies?
Students read various primary sources such as excerpts from Ban Zhao’s Admonitions for Women in
order to understand the relationship between individual behavior and the social expectations of
Confucian behavior.

This chapter also contains a variety of lesson ideas, including 1) an exercise in cave paintings and
other archaeological products; 2) a comparison between Athens and Sparta; 3) a discussion of the
Ramayana (a Hindu text); and 4) an exploration into the growth of the Roman Empire.

Grade Seven
The seventh-grade HSS Framework chapter focuses
on medieval and early modern world history.
The chapter provides students with opportunities
to study the rise and fall of empires; the diffusion of
religions and languages; and significant movements
of people, ideas, and products. Although societies
were quite distinct from one another, exchanges
of people, products, and ideas increased in every
subsequent century. For this reason, the study of
this period in world history may become a
bewildering catalog of names, places, and events that impacted individual societies—while the
larger patterns that affected the world may get lost. To avoid this, the focus must be on questions
that address the larger world geographical, historical, economic, and civic patterns. To answer
these questions, students study content-rich examples and case studies, rather than superficially
surveying all places, names, and events. To facilitate this, the framework takes the topics listed in the
content standards and reorganizes them into a more thematic narrative. The grade-six standards on
early Christianity have been moved to grade seven to better connect with the idea of exchange and
movement of ideas. There is also a new unit on medieval India that ties this region of the world into
these broader global trends.

The seventh-grade chapter introduces the concept of a site of encounter, a place where people from
different cultures meet and exchange products, ideas, and technologies. A site of encounter is a
specific place, such as Sicily, Quanzhou, or Tenochtitlán/Mexico City; students analyze concrete
objects, such as a porcelain vase or the image of a saint, exchanged or made at the site. As students
investigate the exchanges that took place and the interactions of merchants, bureaucrats, soldiers, and

12 Executive Summary (January 2018) • History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12
artisans at the site, they learn to consider not only what was happening in one culture but also how
cultures influenced each other.

Some of the questions that frame this year’s investigation include the following:
• How did the distant regions of the world become more interconnected through medieval and
early modern times?
• What were the multiple ways people of different cultures interacted at sites of encounter?
What were the effects of their interactions?
• How did the environment and technological innovations affect the expansion of agriculture,
cities, and human population? What impact did human expansion have on the environment?

The seventh-grade chapter features a classroom example in which students use excerpts from Vergil’s
Aeneid to examine how the Roman Empire exerted power and to consider the question What did
the poet Vergil think about the Roman Empire’s power over people and territories? The chapter
provides a classroom example in which students explore Quanzhou as a site of encounter by reading
primary sources about laws and customs that helped people from different cultures live together
in the city. The chapter also contains a classroom example in which students do close readings of
excerpts from the Letters of Cortés and True History of Díaz del Castillo, for example, to assess the
impact of the Spanish conquest in Mexico.

This chapter also contains many lesson ideas, including 1) Rome as a site of encounter; 2) a gallery
walk about Baghdad as a site of encounter; 3) exchanges in Cairo; 4) the samurai influence on the
government of Japan; 5) a writing assignment about the effects of exchanges at Calicut, India; and
6) the scientific revolution and the ideas of the Enlightenment.

Grade Eight
The eighth-grade HSS Framework chapter
focuses on U.S. history from the founding of
the American Republic through the end of
the nineteenth century. Throughout their
eighth-grade U.S. history and geography course,
students confront the themes of freedom, equality,
and liberty, and their changing definitions over
time. This course will also explore the geography
of place, movement, and region, starting with the
Atlantic Seaboard and then exploring American
westward expansion and economic development, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and finally,
industrialization. Covering parts of three centuries, the historical content outlined in this chapter
is both substantial and substantive, which poses a significant challenge for teachers with limited
time for in-depth study. In order to address this challenge, teachers are encouraged to rely upon the
guiding questions that frame the content around inquiries of historical significance. As in earlier
grades, students should be encouraged to read multiple primary and secondary documents in order
to understand multiple perspectives and to recognize how some things change over time while others
tend not to. They should also appreciate that each historical era has its own context, and it is up to the
student of history to make sense of the past by asking questions about it.

History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12 • Executive Summary (January 2018) 13
Some of the questions that frame this year’s investigation include the following:
• What did freedom mean to the nation’s founders, and how did it change over time?
• How and why did the United States expand?
• Who is considered an American?

The eighth-grade chapter features a classroom example in

which students read and discuss multiple primary-source
documents from nineteenth-century intellectuals like
Benjamin Rush and Catherine Beecher to investigate the
question Why go to school? The chapter also contains a
classroom example about the abolitionist Frederick Douglass
in which students do a close reading of his 1855 speech to the
Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society and analyze his use of
reference devices as rhetorical tools. This classroom example
suggests ways for the history–social science teacher and the
ELD specialist to work collaboratively. The final classroom
example asks students to consider the question How did leading
American thinkers (such as artists, intellectuals, and religious and government leaders) justify
America’s westward expansion in the nineteenth century? Examining different motivations and
expressions of manifest destiny encourages students to collect multiple pieces of evidence that explain
the diverse motivations for western expansion.

This chapter also contains many lesson ideas, including 1) the similarities and differences in
Jefferson’s and Hamilton’s visions for the new American government; 2) slavery as the cause of the
Civil War; and 3) the immigrant experience in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In an effort
to provide opportunities for students to apply their acquired learning, the chapter also includes
examples of civic engagement.

Grade Nine
During the ninth grade, students can take elective courses in history–social science. These elective
courses may consist of a two-semester sequence focused on a single topic or they may be two separate
courses on two different subjects. Ideally, these courses will build on the knowledge and experiences
students have gained during their previous years of school. These courses help prepare students for
the history–social science courses required for graduation from high school and the standards that
will be covered in each of these courses. The choice to offer history–social science electives and the
selection of those courses is a local decision for districts and individual schools.

All history–social science elective courses should be consistent with the curricular goals provided
by the HSS Framework. Counselors at the school level should assist in the placement of students
in elective courses by determining their interests, needs, and abilities. Electives provide an
excellent opportunity for teachers to prepare students for advanced course work and to integrate
research-based practices in civic education, including simulations of the democratic process,
service-learning, and current events.

14 Executive Summary (January 2018) • History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12
The recommended elective courses in the HSS Framework include the following:
• World and Regional Geography. How does a society’s geographic location and environment
shape work and living opportunities as well as relationships with people outside of that society?
• Modern California. What enabled California’s rapid growth?
• Physical Geography. How do the Earth’s systems operate independently and in relationship to
one another, and what has this meant for humans over time?
• Survey of World Religions. What do people believe, what practices do they follow as a result of
their beliefs, and why is it important to understand these various religions?
• The Humanities. What does the evidence tell us about how an individual understands, justifies,
and orders his/her own existence, role in society, and relationship to the cosmos and the divine?
• Anthropology. Why are people who they are, and why do they do what they do?
• Psychology. What principles govern and affect an individual’s perception, ability to learn,
motivation, intelligence, and personality?
• Sociology. What external forces shape people’s lives and make them who they are?
• Women in United States History. How did American women shape the nation’s history?
• Ethnic Studies. How have race and
ethnicity been constructed in the United
States, and how have they changed
over time? How do race and ethnicity
continue to shape the United States and
contemporary issues?
• Law-related Education. How can the
legal system protect civil rights and
promote justice in American society?
• Financial Literacy. How can I best
manage my money to make sure I have
enough to reach my financial goals?

Grade Ten
The tenth-grade HSS Framework chapter covers more than 250 years of world history by highlighting
the intensification of a truly global history as people, products, diseases, knowledge, and ideas
spread around the world as never before. The course begins with a turning point: the transition in
European systems of governance from divine monarchy to a modern definition of a nation-state
organized around principles of the Enlightenment, including representative government; liberty and
freedom; and legal, social, and economic equality. The course ends with the present, providing ample
opportunities for teachers to make connections to the globalized world in which students live. As
students move through the years 1750 through the present, they consider how a modern system of
communication and exchange drew peoples of the world into an increasingly complex network of
relationships in which Europe and the U.S. exerted great military and economic power. The chapter
encourages students to explore how people, goods, ideas, and capital traveled throughout and
between Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe. They analyze the results of these exchanges.

History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12 • Executive Summary (January 2018) 15
The ability to see connections between events and larger social, economic, and political trends may be
developed by having students consider the most fundamental changes of the era.

Some of the questions that frame this year’s investigation include the following:
• How did ideas associated with the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution, the Age of Reason,
and a variety of democratic revolutions develop and impact civil society?
• Why did imperial powers seek to expand their empires? How did colonies respond? What were
the legacies of these conquests?
• Why was the modern period defined by global conflict and cooperation, economic growth and
collapse, and global independence and connection?

The tenth-grade chapter features a classroom

example in which students learn about the
divine monarch as it was articulated in a 1610
speech from King James I. Investigating the
question How did King James I argue that
kings are like gods? encourages students
to search for claims, evidence, and logic
in the construction of political arguments.
The chapter also contains a classroom
example about tyranny and the rule of law
as articulated by ancient philosophers and
Enlightenment thinkers. Students consider the
question How did tyranny and the rule of law influence revolutionaries? by reading excerpts from
Rousseau as well as Plato and Aristotle. In addition, there is a classroom example in which students
address the questions What were the causes and effects of imperialism? and How did Europeans
justify the expansion of their colonial empires? This classroom example focuses on collaborative
teaching by the history–social science and English language arts teachers. Students read Chinua
Achebe’s Things Fall Apart in their English language arts class as they learn about colonization from
a variety of other primary and secondary perspectives that represent the colonists’ and colonizers’
voices in their history–social science class. Finally, the chapter contains a classroom example in which
students consider the question How did China pursue an “alternative path” to reform in the 1980s?
by examining China’s economic transformations and humanitarian crises at the end of the Cold War.

This chapter also contains lesson ideas on a number of topics in world history, including 1) the
impact of industrialization upon nation-states and ordinary people; 2) the causes and effects of the
Mexican Revolution; 3) World War I and its effects on nations and people; 4) the Russian Revolution;
5) the way the Cold War was waged in multiple spots around the globe; and 6) the impact of
globalization in recent times.

16 Executive Summary (January 2018) • History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12
Grade Eleven
In eleventh grade, students examine major developments and turning points in U.S. history from the
late nineteenth century to the present. This was a period when the nation experienced significant
economic, political, and social transformations, which created incredible benefits as well as new
challenges for its citizens. Given the breadth of content addressed throughout eleventh grade, the
HSS Framework encourages teachers to approach the span of modern American history by relying
upon the guiding questions and key themes that unite the material. This strategy allows teachers to
develop some topics in greater or lesser detail, provided that they connect to broader questions of the
course. Four themes that organize the eleventh-grade HSS Framework chapter are 1) the expanding
role of the federal government; 2) changes in racial, ethnic, and gender dynamics in American
society; 3) the U.S. as a major world power; and 4) the evolving definition of American citizenship
and freedom. These themes allow for disciplinary understanding—such as learning to identify cause
and effect or context—to take shape in a historically significant sequence.

Some of the questions that frame this year’s investigation of the past include the following:
• How did the federal government grow between the late nineteenth and twenty-first centuries?
• What does it mean to be an American in modern times?
• How did the United States become a superpower?
• How did the United States’ population become more diverse over the twentieth century?

The classroom examples in the eleventh-grade chapter include a lesson on child labor during
industrialization in which students wrestle with the question How old should you have to be to work?
In this classroom example, students explore a variety of primary sources, such as Lewis Hines’s
photographs, and engage in a structured academic conversation and claims-based writing activity by
developing an opinion piece for a newspaper. The eleventh-grade chapter also features a classroom
example about Langston Hughes’ 1926 poem, “I, too, sing
America.” Students, individually and in groups, engage in
a close read, breaking apart the text to identify the poem’s
purpose. The chapter draws from the History Blueprint
curriculum from the California History–Social Science
Project, a free curriculum resource, and it includes
classroom examples that address America’s involvement
in Cold War struggles around the globe. One of the
Cold War activities is a project in which students research
and construct a physical or virtual museum exhibit
that addresses the question How did the U.S. contain
communism at home? by focusing on gender and family
norms (including sources that explain the scope of the
Lavender Scare), Soviet and American spying and espionage,
and changes in atomic and environmental policies. Another
classroom example that appears in the eleventh-grade
chapter is one in which students research and prepare an
essay on the question What did the U.S. lose in Vietnam?

History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12 • Executive Summary (January 2018) 17
Using a variety of writing supports—including the voices of American military and political leaders,
soldiers, and ordinary Americans—students are guided through the process of selecting evidence and
developing arguments and counterarguments to support their responses.

The eleventh-grade chapter also features lesson ideas for 1) the cultural changes of the 1920s,
including LGBT-oriented sub-cultures; 2) a lesson in which students explore the relationship
between movements for equality (including the civil rights movements of African Americans,
Mexican Americans, native Americans, Asian Americans, LGBT Americans, American women, and
Americans with disabilities) by considering the question How did various movements for equality
build upon one another?; and 3) a comparison between the immigrant experience in recent times
versus a century earlier. The chapter also includes examples of civic engagement in which students
might participate in voter registration drives or attend local government meetings.

Grade Twelve: Principles of American Democracy

In the twelfth-grade Principles of American Democracy one-semester course, students pursue
a deeper understanding of American government. The HSS Framework chapter explains that this
course is the culmination of the civic literacy strand of history–social science that prepares students
to vote and to be informed, skilled, and engaged participants in civic life. As this course progresses,
students will learn about the responsibilities and rights they have or will soon have as voting
members of an informed electorate. Students
will review how, over time, these rights and
responsibilities expanded, including the broadening
of the franchise from white males with property to
all white males, then to men of color who were born
or naturalized in this country, then to women, and
finally to citizens 18–21 years old. The chapter also
highlights the American system of government in
relation to other systems. Students conclude their
study of American government with an exploration
of both historical and modern problems of
American democracy.

Some of the questions that frame this semester-long investigation of the American government
include the following:
• How much power should government have over its citizens?
• What rights and responsibilities does a citizen have in a democracy?
• What problems are posed by representative government, and how can they be addressed?

One of the classroom examples from the twelfth-grade government chapter focuses on the executive
branch of the federal government by directing students to construct a multimedia museum exhibit
about presidential powers. By working in groups to research a particular event or presidential act,
students conduct guided research and curate artifacts that explain how their exhibit symbolizes the
presidency of their assigned leader. The chapter also contains a classroom example in which students
engage in judicial review by analyzing historical U.S. Supreme Court decisions relating to freedom of
speech, religion, or privacy.

18 Executive Summary (January 2018) • History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12
Twelfth-grade government lesson ideas include 1) a close read of key Federalist Papers; 2) a study
of the distribution of power and influence within and around the federal government; 3) ways to
research current events and struggles of governments around the world; and 4) a research project on
a social problem or issue.

Grade Twelve: Principles of Economics

The twelfth-grade economics chapter provides students with an opportunity to consider the impact
of choice upon individuals, groups, and institutions. In this one-semester course, students examine
more deeply the economic choices they make and explore how these choices have consequences that
ripple across the world. They also study the forces that can constrain those choices and impose costs
on economic decisions. Students will deepen their understanding of fundamental economic concepts
like cost-benefit analysis by learning about economics through investigative questions that often put
them at the center as consumers or producers. This chapter also encourages students to analyze the
American economy in a global setting. Students will explore how the federal government affects the
American economy. They will learn about the labor market in a national and global setting and see
themselves in it by identifying which jobs will be growing in the near future and what the education
requirements are for certain jobs. They will analyze aggregate economic behavior of the U.S. to learn
about how unemployment and interest rates, for example, affect the country. And they will explore
issues related to international trade. To achieve all of this, students learn to apply basic economic
principles and methods of analysis, building on the knowledge of economics gained in their studies
in earlier grade levels.

Some of the questions that frame this semester-long

investigation of the principles of economics include
the following:
• How is economics about scarcity, investment,
growth, employment, competition, protection,
entrepreneurship, and markets?
• What does it mean to be financially literate?
• How do worldwide markets affect me?

The classroom example in the twelfth-grade

economics chapter encourages students to investigate
the question How does globalization affect me?
Students get an up-close and broad view of how
globalization affects their daily lives by identifying
one personal item, such as a smartphone or backpack, and tracing how that item (and they, by
extension) participated in the global economy from inception and collection of raw materials to
processing and trade.

Twelfth-grade economics lesson examples include 1) an initial activity about personal budgeting and
financial literacy; 2) an examination of the role of producers and consumers in a market economy,
including the processes of supply and demand, along with the government’s intervention in some
marketplaces; 3) an activity about the functioning of banks and markets; and 4) a study of the labor
market, with an exploration of wages and unions.

History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12 • Executive Summary (January 2018) 19
 Topic-Specific Guidance
The remaining chapters of the HSS Framework provide additional support for effective instructional
practice in history–social science. These chapters support teachers, administrators, and other
educators as they implement the new framework. A brief summary of each chapter is provided in
this section.

Assessment
The “Assessment” chapter opens with the question Am I using this assessment for the purpose for
which it is intended? The chapter provides both a theoretical rationale for the use of formative and
summative assessments, as well as concrete examples that highlight how assessment can be used
to deepen student content knowledge, increase literacy, and improve critical thinking. The most
important takeaway from this chapter is that assessments should provide teachers with meaningful
and timely feedback that they can use to modify instruction to meet the needs of their students.

Access and Equity

The “Access and Equity” chapter offers both an overview of the needs of specific student groups, as
well as discipline-specific tools that educators can use to differentiate instruction in order to promote
student learning across diverse classrooms. This chapter provides extensive guidance—aligned with
the CA ELD Standards—for instruction of English learners. In addition, there are suggestions for
addressing the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students—who often suffer bullying
and other harassment that make them feel unsafe and interfere with learning—and a section
on culturally responsive teaching that helps teachers address the needs of the diverse California
classroom.

Instructional Strategies
The “Instructional Strategies” chapter provides greater context for the pedagogical approach to
student learning in history–social science embedded throughout the grade-level course descriptions
by detailing the disciplinary practices in history, geography, economics, and civics. This chapter
also provides an extended discussion about the development of student literacy in history–social
science through an integrated approach that both improves student content knowledge and expands
academic literacy.

Professional Learning
Teachers will likely need substantive and high-quality professional learning support in order
to implement the instructional shifts embedded within this new framework. The “Professional
Learning” chapter provides a vision for that learning, suggestions for assessing the quality and
learning goals for this work, and advice for administrators seeking to integrate history–social science
support within their larger professional learning communities.

20 Executive Summary (January 2018) • History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12
Appendixes
The HSS Framework includes a number of extensive appendixes designed to provide additional
guidance and support for educators seeking to improve student learning. Appendix A details the
capacities of literate individuals. Appendix B offers teachers suggestions for questions that enable
students to explore the past at different scales of time, place, and subject matter and through different
themes. Appendix C lists the California HSS Standards including the Historical and Social Sciences
Analysis Skills. Appendix D offers suggestions for high school teachers on teaching the contemporary
period. Appendix E provides an extended examination of the benefits of civic learning. Appendix F
offers concrete and helpful advice for teachers on teaching about religion in history–social science.
Appendix G lists the Environmental Principles and Concepts, as well as summaries of the
history–social science curriculum units created by the Education and the Environment Initiative.
Finally, Appendix H provides an overview and examples of service learning.

History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12 • Executive Summary (January 2018) 21