Planning for a Year of Study - 7th Grade

Overview

This course guidance attempts to reinforce a key conceptual idea about the world between 350 and 1750 CE - communities of people moved from being interconnected regionally and within hemispheres to interconnection on a global scale. It centers students understanding of the concept of interconnection across scales - personal, community, regional, hemispheric, and global - and invites a discussion of the short and long term consequences of interconnection.

During the 2019-2020 school year, seven teachers and a graduate student joined UCBHSSP in reenvisioning a year of study for seventh graders, informed by the California H-SS Framework's recommendations (PDF file)(link is external) and the real world considerations of seventh grade classrooms.  This page represents a synthesis of our collective learning and collaboration.

Possible Course Map to Direct Student Learning

Click on the map to explore the course outline and subsequent unit outlines.

7th grade map - updated

How to Use

This suggested course model reinforces key concepts with regard to interconnection across multiple scales. Teachers, based on context, should decide to what depth they would like to explore the concepts identified in the units of study and then identify useful case studies. We suggest reinforcing interconnection on a personal and community level, then exploring how communities of people in the Western and Eastern Hemisphere were regionally interconnected. The course can culminate in a discussion of the global interconnection that acceleration after 1450 and how the short, long, and unintended consequences of that interconnection inform the world we live in today. We chose to foreground the Western Hemisphere in light of the large number of Latinx students in California classrooms and to work to disrupt the historic patterns of Eurocentrism embedded in the study of the medieval world.

Key Skills and Concepts

Concept: Interconnection across multiple scales

Skills: Use of Evidence, Geographic Awareness(link is external), Continuity & Change, Cause and Consequence (short, long, unintended)