Common Core Aligned History and Social Studies Resources

The Sue Stickel at the Sacramento County Office of Education compiled this lists of resources for English Language Arts that are aligned with the Common Core.

This resource provides links and brief summaries of the materials and uses spanning History and Social Studies topics.

Historical Thinking Matters

• A website focused on key topics in U.S. history that is designed to teach students how to critically read primary sources and how to critique and construct historical narratives.
• Winner of the American Historical Association’s 2008 James Harvey Robinson Prize for an Outstanding Teaching Aid.
• View the tab: Why Historical Thinking Matters.
• Although the primary intention is for high school teachers, there are examples and resources that middle school teachers can use.

Reading Like a Historian (Stanford History Education Group)

• A set of 75 free secondary school lessons in U.S. history.
• The Reading Like a Historian curriculum engages students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features sets of primary documents modified for groups of students with diverse reading skills and abilities.
• This curriculum teaches students how to investigate historical questions employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on issues from King Philip’s War to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and make historical claims backed by documentary evidence.

Education and the Environment Initiative (EEI) Curriculum

• Field-tested in Kindergarten to 12th grade classrooms from San Diego to California’s North Coast, the 85 EEI Curriculum units cover selected academic content standards in both Science and History-Social Science. Each EEI Curriculum unit is designed to teach one or more standards to mastery.
• Field-tested in Kindergarten to 12th grade classrooms from San Diego to California’s North Coast, the 85 EEI Curriculum units cover selected academic content standards in both Science and History-Social Science. Each EEI Curriculum unit is designed to teach one or more standards to mastery.

The Choices Program – History and current issues for the classroom

• Nominal cost