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Mr. Whittle's Global Studies Website: Global Curriculum and Resources

Global Studies Learning Targets

Transformation of Western Europe and Russia 

Compelling Question: How did developments in science, culture, politics and religion influence the transformation of Western Europe and Russia?

Expected Learner Outcomes: 

  • Students will explain how changes in European thought (e.g., Humanism, Protest Reformation and the Scientific Revolution) affected European society in the 16th to 18th centuries.
  • Students will explore shifts in the Western European Medieval view of itself and the world as well as key Greco-Roman legacies that influenced Renaissance thinkers and artists.
  • Students will describe political and religious origins of the Protestant Reformation and its effects on European society, including. the reasons for the growing discontent with the Catholic Church; the main ideas of Martin Luther and John Calvin; the spread of Protestantism across Europe, and the formation of the Anglican Church. 
  • Students will summarize how the Scientific Revolution and the scientific method led to new theories of the universe and describe the accomplishments of leading figures of the Scientific Revolution, including Bacon, Copernicus, Descartes, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton.
  • Students will investigate autocratic and absolutist rule by comparing and contrasting the reigns of Louis XIV and Peter the Great.

Interaction and Disruption 

Compelling Question: How has globalization impacted society?

Expected Learner Outcomes: 

  • Students will explore the relationship between knowledge and technological innovations, focusing on how knowledge of wind and current patterns, combined with technological innovations, influenced exploration and transoceanic travel. 
  • Students will investigate European and African roles in the development of the slave trade, and investigate the conditions and treatment of enslaved Africans during the Middle Passage and in the Americas.
  • Students will identify the major economic, political, and social effects of the European colonial period in South and Central America, including the major decline in population due to disease and warfare, the enslavement of indigenous peoples, and the impact of Christian missionaries on existing religious and social structures.
  • Students will explain the political, economic, technological, and social motivations for European nations to explore the Americas, and how overseas expansion led to the growth of commerce and development of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
  • Students will examine how the demand for labor, primarily for sugar cultivation and silver mining, influenced the growth of the trade of enslaved African peoples.
  • Students will examine the development of European maritime empires and mercantilism.

Enlightenment and Political Revolutions 

Compelling Question: Based on the ideals of the Enlightenment should the French Revolution be considered a success or a failure?

Expected Learner Outcomes: 

  • Students will analyze how the Enlightenment was a shift from prior thinking about society and how it challenged existing political, economic, social, and religious structures in Europe.
  • Students will discuss and analyze the anatomy of a revolution. (ie. Crane Britton)
  • Students will analyze the various factors that impacting the people of France prior to the breakout of the revolution.
  • Students will trace the path of the French revolution through the Radical Phase.
  • Students will identify and evaluate the changes Napoleon brought to post-revolution France, Europe, and beyond.
  • Students will evaluate the internal factors (class conflicts, population growth, etc.) and or external factors which best explain the development of the Haitian Revolution and other Latin American revolutions.

Seeds of Conflict 

Compelling Question: Do the benefits of innovation outweigh the costs? For whom?

Expected Learner Outcomes:

  • Students will analyze how the Industrial Revolution gave rise to new social, political, and economic philosophies such as feminism, socialism and communism, including ideas and influence of Adam Smith and Karl Marx.
  • Students will analyze the economic, political, social, and technological factors that led to the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions.
  • Students will evaluate the historical circumstances and geographic context which led to the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain.
  • Students will identify how innovations during the Industrial Revolution changed life in Great Britain in the 19th century.
  • Students will evaluate the economic and social impact of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions in England, including population growth and the migration of workers from rural areas to new industrial cities, the emergence of a large middle class, the growing inequity in wealth distribution, the environmental impact of industrialization, and the harsh working and living conditions for the urban poor. 
  • Students will analyze how the Industrial Revolution gave rise to new social, political, and economic philosophies such as feminism, socialism and communism, including ideas and influence of Adam Smith and Karl Marx.
  • Students will describe the causes and types of 19th century European global imperialism
  • Students will investigate one example of resistance in Africa (Zulu, Ethiopia, or Southern Egypt/Sudan) and one in China (Taiping Rebellion or Boxer Rebellion and the role of Empress Dowager CiXi).
  • Students will investigate the social, political, and economic impacts of industrialization in Victorian England and Meiji Japan and compare and contrast them.
  • Students will analyze the impact of Western imperialism in Asia and Africa.

Global Conflict 

Compelling Question: How does competition between nations impact the international community and the lives of individuals in the countries involved?

Expected Learner Outcomes: 

  • Students will analyze the factors that led to the outbreak of World War I (e.g., the emergence of Germany as a great power, the rise of nationalism and weakening of multinational empires, industrial and colonial competition, militarism, and Europe’s complex alliance systems. 
  • Students will evaluate the ways in which World War I was a total war and its impact on the warring countries and beyond.
  • Students will analyze the political, social, economic, and cultural developments following World War I. 
  • Students will evaluate the negotiation of the Treaty of Versailles and how the treaty did or did not address the various issues caused by World War I. Clarification Statement: Students may address this standard by comparing and contrasting the Paris Peace Conference and the Congress of Vienna.
  • Students will analyze later developments in Russian history, including the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1922, the New Economic Plan (NEP) and the creation of a Soviet economy, artistic and cultural experimentation, the death of Lenin and the cult of his personality, and the power struggle that resulted in Stalin’s leadership. 
  • Students will identify the various causes and consequences of the global economic collapse of the 1930s and evaluate how governments responded to the effects of the Great Depression.
  • Students will identify the characteristics of fascism and totalitarianism as exhibited in the rise of the authoritarian regimes in Italy, Germany, and the Soviet Union during the 1920s and 1930s.Students should be able to compare and contrast fascism, totalitarianism, and liberal democracy and the ideas of Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin.
  • Students will evaluate the economic, social, and political conditions that allowed the rise of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin in their respective countries, and how each dictator repressed dissention and persecuted minorities. 
  • Students will Analyze the aggression of Germany, Italy, and Japan in the 1930s and early 1940s and the lack of response by the League of Nations and Western democracies. 
  • Students will analyze the effects of one of the battles of World War II on the outcome of the war and the countries involved.
  • Students will identify the goals, leadership, strategies, and post-war plans of the Allied leaders (i.e., Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin) and how wartime diplomacy affected the outcome of the war and the emergence of the Cold War.
  • Students will describe the Holocaust, including its roots in Christian anti-Semitism, 19th century ideas about race and nation, and the Nazi dehumanization and planned extermination of the Jews and persecution of LGBT and Gypsy/Roma people.
  • Students will analyze the decision of the United States to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to bring the war with Japan to a swift conclusion and its impact on relations with the Soviet Union
  • Students will evaluate the global political, economic, and social consequences of World War II.

Unresolved Global Conflict 

Compelling Question: How did the Cold War manifest itself in conflicts and shifting alliances in the second half of the 20th century?  What are the factors that brought about globalization in the 21st century?