Meeting Standards with Our Documents

As an assessment activity at the end of a U.S. History survey course, provide students with copies of appropriate national, state and/or local curriculum standards and a list of all of the 100 Our Documents. Divide the class into groups of three or four and assign each group an equal number of the Our Documents. Ask students to conduct secondary research to correlate their Documents to the standards. Allow each group to present their findings orally to the class. The result will be a ready-made standards correlation to all of the Our Documents and, perhaps more importantly, a student understanding of the standards and their relationship to many of the most salient aspects of American History. This exercise could be extended by asking the students to develop a lesson plan for each of the Our Documents–standards correlations.

Below are links to national standards for history, civics, and other curriculum areas.

• National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies
  from the National Council for Social Studies
  
  
• National Standards for History
  from the National Center for History in the Schools
  
  
• National History Standards
  from the Organization of American Historians
  
  
• National Standards for Civics and Government
  from the Center for Civic Education
  
  
• National Content Standards in Economics
  from the National Council on Economic Education
  
  
• The National Geography Standards
  from the National Geographic Society
  
  
• National Educational Technology Standards
  from the International Society for Technology in Education
  
  
• National Standards for the English Language Arts
  from the National Council of Teachers of English
  
  
• National Standards for Arts Education
  from the the National Arts and Education Network