Historical Skills and Thinking

• SOL Standard VUS.1
• Focus Questions
• Essential Historical Skills
• Resources
• Benchmarks & Indicators

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Focus Questions

1. What is the correlation of geography to the study of history?
   
2. What is the difference between primary and secondary sources?
   
3. How does analyzing and verifying historical data contribute to interpreting historical events?
   
4. What are various ways in which one can present historical data?
   
5. How does the analysis of historical events contribute to decision-making used to solve current problems?
   

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Essential Historical Skills

• Students should conduct inquiries and research—acquiring, organizing, analyzing, interpreting, evaluating, and communicating facts, themes, and general principles operating in American history.

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Benchmarks & Indicators:

NOTE: Red Bolded content in the indicators is considered essential and must be taught in all classrooms. Content which is not bolded goes beyond the scope and sequence of the state standards.

Benchmark 1.1: The student will gather and organize various data and information.

Performance Indicator 1.1
Students reach this benchmark when they are able to:

1. Use primary and secondary sources, including library and museum collections, diaries, interviews, newspapers, artifacts, historic sites, and electronic technologies such as on-line sources and the Internet.
   
2. Use visual, literary, and musical sources, including fine arts, architecture, literature, folk tales, cartoons, and popular and classical music.
   
3. Use historical maps to explain geography’s influence on historical events, demonstrating an understanding of basic geographical concepts, such as:

• Scale
• Direction
• Legend
• Longitude
• Latitude
• Time-zones
• Map projection
• Elevation
• Land forms
• Map bias
• Relative location
• Distribution
  

1. Use information organized in a variety of charts, tables, graphs, and graphic organizers.
   
2. Use sources of information in the community including interviewing family and community members, inviting speakers to school, visiting local historical sites, and attending cultural events.
   
3. Group information in categories according to appropriate criteria and state relationships between categories of information.
   

Benchmark 1.2: The student will analyze, interpret, and evaluate information and data.

Performance Indicator 1.2
Students reach this benchmark when they are able to:

1. Read primary and secondary sources to reconstruct the literal meaning of the historical passage by identifying who was involved, what happened, where it happened, why it happened, and what outcomes followed.
   
2. Read for a variety of purposes: critically, analytically, to predict outcomes, to answer a question, to form an opinion, to skim for facts, and to draw inferences.
   
3. Formulate historical questions based on critical examination of relevant information in order to develop hypotheses, to test the hypotheses, and to construct a thesis about a topic in American history.
   
4. Analyze cause and effect relationships, focusing on multiple causations; the importance of the individual in history; the influence of ideas, human interests, and beliefs.
   
5. Compare and contrast different accounts of the same event assessing the credibility and authenticity of the sources.
   
6. Differentiate between historical facts and interpretation.
   
7. Challenge arguments of historical inevitability, recognizing that different choices might have led to different outcomes.
   
8. Detect bias in data presented in various forms: graphic, tabular, visual, and print.
   
9. Assess differing interpretations historians have written about the past.
   

Benchmark 1.3: The student will communicate information in various formats.

Performance Indicator 1.3
Students reach this benchmark when they are able to:

1. Create time lines to demonstrate chronological thinking.
   
2. Use a variety of maps to present information.
   
3. Present information visually, using a variety of charts, graphs, models, graphic organizers, and illustrations.
   
4. Use a variety of electronic technologies, including word processing to plan, draft, revise, edit, and publish information; telecommunications and multimedia to communicate historical understandings.
   
5. Construct a historical narrative reflecting the origins, development, and outcome of an issue, problem, or event, using a variety of written forms such as:
   • Diaries
     
   • Letters
     
   • Journals
     
   • Parodies
     
   • Dialogue
     
   • I-searches
     
   • Poems
     
   • Reviews
     
   • Learning logs
     
   • Research papers
     
   • Satire
     
   • Cartoons
     
   • Classroom games
     
   • Songs
     
   • Research projects
     
   • Newspaper articles
     
   • Essays
     
   • Interviews
     
6. Prepare an oral or visual presentation on a topic in American history such as:
   • Speeches
     
   • Simulations
     
   • Slide shows
     
   • Photo essay
     
   • Dramatizations
     
   • Posters
     
   • Graphic organizers
     
   • Panel discussions
     
   • Role plays
     
   • Multimedia presentations
     
   • Debate
     
7. Document information appropriately, including the use of citations, footnotes, or other forms of attribution to demonstrate scholarly integrity.
   

Benchmark 1.4: The student will apply knowledge of American history to make decisions and to solve problems.

Performance Indicator 1.4
Students reach this benchmark when they are able to:

1. Identify a situation in which a decision is required.
   
2. Secure needed factual information relevant to making the decision.
   
3. Recognize the values implicit in historical events and decisions.
   
4. Identify alternate courses of action and predict likely consequences of each.
   
5. Make decisions based on the data obtained.
   
6. Take action to implement the decision.

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