R9 Social Studies Support

My name is Chelsea Howells, and I am your Social Studies Specialist at Region 9 ESC! This newsletter is meant to provide you with updates on social studies standards, instructional strategies, resources, professional development opportunities, and more.

It is finally spring! I hope you are able to get out and enjoy the fresh air of spring (in between the rain, heat, and chill of Texas weather)! It is testing season, track season, and countdown to summer season, so I greatly appreciate you carving out time to read this newsletter!

This is a special edition providing resources for STAAR, AP, and classroom exam review.

Please reach out by email if you are looking for targeted resources for a specific era or unit of study.

~Chelsea

@ChelseaHowells9

chelsea.howells@esc9.net

Click here to view

STAAR Resources

STAAR Resources: grade level assessed curriculum, blueprint, & released questions

Full Length Online Practice Tests with new STAAR Item Types

Civics Test (2008 Version)
The 2008 version of the civics test is the version of the test to use to prepare students for the 10 Civics Questions that will be field test questions on the U.S. History EOC test this year. These questions will be used as data however will not impact scoring of the STAAR test.

The 5 lowest scoring standards on the 8th grade Social Studies STAAR and US History EOC are provided for your reference. There is also data comparing how our region did on the New Item Types and different types of stimuli as compared to the entire state of Texas. Please email me with questions or if you'd like more detailed explanations- chelsea.howells@esc9.net.

If we are looking at Frequency Distribution by TEKS Clusters according to Lead4Ward, these are the key areas that have appeared with the most frequency on STAAR within the past 6 years.

8th grade

⭐ 1. Constitution (39 items)

⭐ 2. Exploration and Colonization (35 items)

⭐ 3. Industrialization (33 items)

US History

⭐ 1. 1990's-21st Century (57 items)

⭐ 2. Civil Rights (48 items)

⭐ 3. Gilded Age (40 items)

Questions to ask yourself about these topics:

• What did my data look like for these units?
• What specific concepts confused students the most?
• Are there mnemonic devices for any of these units I need to review?
• Have I used STAAR released questions specific to these units?

Remember, you cannot reteach everything prior to STAAR. Prioritize what will have the most impact on your students and make the review engaging!! Please feel free to email me if I can be of assistance as you plan.

❓❔❓Did you know?

Student responses are limited to a maximum of 475 characters for a short constructed response. Punctuation counts toward the maximum number of characters, but spaces do not.

💭Strategy for answering SCR

When helping students prepare to answer short constructed responses, consider the strategy below to ensure students are answering both parts of the question. Click the image to make a copy.

Short Answer is a free formative peer feedback tool that can be used to increase the frequency of student writing without greatly increasing teachers' grading time. Students respond to prompts provided by the teacher, then participate in gamified peer feedback.

Meet Short Answer

Try Short Answer

Law Related Education offers:

• an 8th grade collection of resources
• Bee in a Box: 8th Grade resources for review and study

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• a HS US History collection of resources
  
• Citizen Bee: US History resources for review and study

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Law-Related Education's Bee in the Box website for 8th grade U.S. History and Citizen Bee website for high school U.S. History have been reorganized into eras to allow students to study the people, events, documents, and Supreme Court cases during that time in history.

Quizzes by Era - Quizzes have been added in each era so that students may use the results to gauge their learning as they move through the content.

Cumulative Quiz - The Quiz Me section is a great review at the end of the year as you are reviewing for STAAR.

🚨🚨🚨Don't forget about the Content Modules available for:

7th grade Texas History

8th grade US History

High School US History

High School Government

Look under Lessons on the left side of the page for high-quality activities organized by unit!

The Bill of Rights Institute is offering AP Preparation webinars to help you get the best possible score. Led by experienced AP teachers, these webinars contain tips, tricks, and content reviews that will make sure you are fully prepared for all versions of the exams. BORI Youtube Channel. Check it out!

Supreme Court DBQs: Exploring the Cases that Changed History helps your students develop the critical thinking skills they need to evaluate the Court's rulings and the impact of these rulings on American society. Your students will analyze primary sources spanning five centuries--colonial codes of law, the Federalist Papers, the Constitution, contemporary photographs, case law, oral arguments, the Court's majority and dissenting opinions, and others. Key tasks for each DBQ will lead them towards an understanding of the role played by the Court and an assessment of its decisions. Each DBQ also contains a section called "The Issue Endures," which highlights current applications of the case issue.

AP Supreme Court Cases

Review the top 15 Supreme Court cases from a typical course of study for an AP Government class and better understand these landmark Supreme Court cases and the U.S. Constitution’s foundational principles. Cases include McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), Engel v. Vitale (1962), Schenck v. United States (1919), Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), Baker v. Carr (1963), and 10 more canonical cases. This is a great unit for middle school students to preview and investigate the Supreme Court cases to encourage further study of government.

Click here to check it out!

AP Founding Documents

Review America’s founding documents from a typical course of study for an AP Government class and understand these essential documents better—including their fundamental ideas and the major principles underlying the U.S. Constitution. Primary sources include the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of the Confederation, the Constitution (including the Bill of Rights), The Federalist Papers (#51, #70, #78), Brutus #1, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from the Birmingham City Jail.

Click here to check it out!

Period 7: 1890-1945

Topic 7.4 – The Progressives: Lessons from the 1912 Republican Convention: Birth of the Modern Primary

Focusing on Theodore Roosevelt’s decision to challenge President William Taft for the 1912 Republican Party nomination, this four-minute video shows students how the newly created system of direct primaries affected the race, and how Roosevelt’s failure to wrest the nomination from Taft resulted in the formation of the short-lived Bull Moose party. The video is useful to review the election of 1912 and political reforms of the Progressive Era.

Topic 7.8 – 1920s | Cultural and Political Controversies: 1924 Democratic Convention: Tension Over Immigration

This six-minute video illustrates the battle between two of the most powerful trends of the 1920s: the increasing political power of urban immigrants, and the increasing influence of the Klu Klux Klan. At the 1924 Democratic Party national convention, these two forces fought to a standstill, leading to the longest convention in the history of American politics.

Topic 7.10 – The New Deal: Whites-Only Suburbs: How the New Deal Shut Out Black Homebuyers

This 10-minute video examines how race-based federal lending rules from New Deal programs in the 1930s kept Black families locked out of suburban neighborhoods, a policy that continues to slow their economic mobility.

Topic 7.12 – World War II: Mobilization. How a 1944 Supreme Court Ruling on Internment Camps Led to a Reckoning

This 10-minute video revisits how just months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered 120,000 people of Japanese descent, most American citizens, rounded up and imprisoned in camps. Some resisted, like 23-year-old Fred Korematsu, who hid from the authorities and underwent surgery to change his appearance. Korematsu was eventually arrested and convicted of violating the president’s order. He appealed, but the Supreme Court ruled that the order was a valid wartime response to a national security threat.

Period 8: 1945-1980

Topic 8.2 – The Cold War from 1945 to 1980: Global Cold War Collection

In one of our most popular collections, have students explore issues like the Korean War, the space race, the Berlin airlift, the Cuban missile crisis and more.

Topic 8.10 – The African American Civil Rights Movement: Protests for Racial Justice: A Long History

This five-minute video introduces students to the findings of the Kerner Commission, a panel of experts President Lyndon Johnson convened to make policy recommendations following the protests, violence and disorder that occurred in over 150 cities in 1967. The commission recommended a series of sweeping changes, including reforms in policing tactics and efforts to reduce urban poverty. But Johnson largely ignored the findings of the study.

Topic 8.11 – The Civil Rights Movement Expands: Second Wave Feminism, The Equal Rights Amendment and Phyllis Schlafly

This 13-minute video documents the struggle by feminists to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, and the successful conservative response, led by Phyllis Schlafly, to prevent states from ratifying it after Congress approved it. It is useful for any lesson designed to introduce students to the E.R.A.

Period 9: 1980-Present

Topic 9.3 – The End of the Cold War: The End of the Cold War: Nuclear Winter

This 12-minute video shows students how the U.S.-Soviet nuclear escalation of the 1980s gave rise to a nationwide nuclear freeze movement that challenged assumptions that had for decades guided the American approach to the Cold War.

Topic 9.5 – Migration and Immigration in the 1990s and 2000s: Immigration in the 1990s: Prop 187

This nine-minute video illustrates how demographic trends and a changing California economy in the 1990s created a backlash against immigration, only to be followed by another swing in the ideological pendulum. The video also examines how economic and demographic forces affect the strategies of the political parties, and demonstrates how policies like Proposition 187 can produce unintended and surprising consequences.

Topic 9.6 – Challenges of the 21st Century: Teaching About 9/11 Collection

This collection features films about the Sept. 11 attacks, the 20-year arc of the war in Afghanistan and approaches to the war on terror.

Check out Retro Report's U.S. Supreme Court Collection, which includes films related to a number of required cases, including:

• New York Times Co. v. United States
• Citizens United v. F.E.C.
• Shaw v. Reno
• Brown v. Board of Education.

For students looking to prepare for the SCOTUS Comparison FRQ, check out:

• The Battle for Votes: Gerrymandering, which includes discussion of Shaw v. Reno.
• Presidents v. Press: How the Pentagon Papers Leak Set Up First Amendment Showdowns, which examines New York Times v. United States.

Unit 2: Interaction Among Branches of Government

• 2.6 Expansion of Presidential Power: Our film about the Korean War looks at how war powers migrated from Congress to the President after World War II.
• 2.11 Checks on the Judicial Branch: Why Supreme Court Confirmations Have Become So Bitter is a great short film to help review the interplay among the three branches of government.

Unit 5: Political Participation

• 5.1 Voting Rights and Models of Voting Behavior: Use our films Suffrage for Black Women or Dr. Martin Luther King at Gee’s Bend.
• 5.3 Political Parties: We have a collection looking at historic Political Parties and Conventions, including examinations of 1860, 1912, 1968 and more.

To help students review concepts connected to voting rights highlighted in Units 3 and 5, view the following video:

• Campaigns and Elections: The 2000 Election.
  

• Topic 2.6 - Malthusian Theory: What is overpopulation and when will it happen? Watch Human Geography: The Population Bomb to explore a theory that failed to materialize.

• Topic 4.6 - Internal Boundaries: Watch The Battle for Votes: Gerrymandering to examine the impact that redrawn districts can have on election results.

• Topic 5.11 - Challenges of Contemporary Agriculture: Explore the history behind GMOs and their impact on food production by watching Genetically Modified Food.

• Topic 6.7 - Infrastructure: How does infrastructure impact economic and social development? Check out Crumbling Bridges: US Infrastructure 10 Years After Minneapolis.

Retro Report's library of films has many options for Psych, including nearly all of the nine course units.

Unit 1: Scientific Foundation of Psychology

To review this unit, have your students watch:

Influencing Public Policy: The Story of Thalidomide – Students will recognize some of the key ideas of designing and implementing research studies.

Influencing Policy: Evolution and the First Amendment – Examine issues with research methods, and connect to Unit 9 principles like confirmation bias.

Unit 2: Biological Bases for Behavior

Tackle Unit 2 by examining the following films:

Biotechnology: Sequencing the Human Genome and the connection with Topic 2.1 Interaction of Heredity and Environment.

Hallucinogens As Treatment? explores Topic 2.5 Influence of Drugs on Neural Firing.

Unit 9: Social Psychology

Topic 9.2 Attitude Formation and Change: Our collection of Political Ads That Shaped the Battle for the White House has examples of persuasion and cognitive dissonance.

Topic 9.4 Group Influences on Behavior: To teach about the Bystander Effect, students can examine the incident that popularized the theory.

Topic 9.5: Bias, Prejudice and Discrimination: Explore issues like stereotyping with The Civil Rights Movement: Black Power and Sports or Second Wave Feminism, the Equal Rights Amendment and Phyllis Schlafly.

Check them out below:

2023-2024

Volume 3, Issue 2 ✒️ Volume 3, Issue 1 📰 2023-2024 Student Opportunities Special Edition 🏫 Celebrate Freedom Week Special Edition 🎆

2022-2023

Volume 2, Issue 4, Volume 2, Issue 3 Volume 2, Issue 2 Volume 2, Issue 1 TEKS Revision Special Edition

2021-2022

Secondary Edition

Apr/May 2022 Feb/Mar 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 Aug/Sept 2021

Elementary Edition

Apr/May 2022 Feb/Mar 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 Aug/Sept 2021

Social Studies Specialist

Region 9 ESC

#GCT #iCivicsEducator #MIE #GridGuide #EdPuzzleCoach

Email: chelsea.howells@esc9.net
Website: https://www.esc9.net/393857_4
Location: 301 Texas 11 Loop, Wichita Falls, TX, USA
Phone: 940-397-8106
Twitter: @ChelseaHowells9