TAKS Objectives

1-The students will demonstrate an understanding of issues and events in U.S. history.

2-The students will demonstrate an understanding of geographic influences on historical issues and events.

3-The students will demonstrate an understanding of economic and social influences on historical

      issues and events.

4-The students will demonstrate an understanding of political influences on historical issues and events.

5-The students will use critical-thinking skills to analyze social studies information.

Students will demonstrate an understanding of the following topics:

• Locate the major physical features in the United States.
• Recall the following dates-1607, 1776, 1787,1803 and 1861-1865.
• Identify the major eras in United States history through 1877.
  • Exploration, Colonization, and Revolutionary War Era
• Describe European Exploration and Settlement of North America.
• Discuss the economic, social and political reasons for establishing the English Thirteen Colonies.
• Evaluate the life and culture in the English Thirteen Colonies.
• Reenact the debate over declaring independence.
• Examine the events that led the colonists to declare independence.
• Discuss the Declaration of Independence.
• Organize the major battle of the American Revolution in sequence.
• Compare the major people of the Revolutionary Era.
• Justify the reasons for fighting the Revolutionary War.
• Analyze the Articles of Confederation, plus the weaknesses.
• Evaluate the creation of the United States Constitution, including the events at the Constitutional Convention.
• Discuss the compromises made at the Constitutional Convention and the new plan to govern the nation.
• Describe the system of checks and balances, and separation of powers between the three branches of government.
• Analyze the contents of the United States Constitution.
• Explain the importance of Northwest Ordinance to U.S. expansion.
• Explain the amendment process and ratifications of the Constitution.
• Explain the need for adding the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, and discuss the reasons for each of the first ten amendments.
• Describe and define unalienable rights.
• Discuss Hamilton's economic plan for the new republic in the late 1700s.
• Identify and analyze the first five presidents of the United States, including their domestic and foreign polices.
• Compare and Contrast the influences of Jefferson and Hamilton's political views on the early Republic.
• Describe the beginnings of political parties in America.
• Discuss the debate over foreign policy as our nation faces threats from powerful European nations.
• Evaluate the neutrality of the United States in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
• Discuss the causes of the War of 1812 and reasons for not staying neutral.
• Step back in time and experience life in a northern city and on a southern plantation.
• Explore the differences that would ultimately shatter the unity of the country.
• Evaluate Andrew Jackson, one of the most colorful presidents in American History.
• Discuss the formation of the modern Democratic Party.
• Discuss Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion.
• Debate the actions of the United States as it acquired territory across the continent.
• Explain the Monroe Doctrine.
• Describe the Mexican contributions to the Southwest.
• Describe the impact of science and technology on the economic development of the U.S.
• Compare the different reform movements that changed the American culture.
• Analyze slavery from the beginning to the end in United States history.
• Experience the frustration of those who tried to save the country from Civil War.
• Discuss the attempts to compromise between the North and the South in the mid-1800s.
• Discuss the annexation of Texas in the United States.
• Describe the causes of the war with Mexico and the Mexican Cession.
• Analyze landmark Supreme Court cases.
• Discuss the movement of people to the western United States.
• Discuss the causes of the Civil War.
• Analyze the major people and battles of the Civil War.
• Explain the outcome of the Civil War and the period of Reconstruction.

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