STANDARD 6.1 (SOCIAL STUDIES SKILLS) ALL STUDENTS WILL UTILIZE HISTORICAL THINKING, PROBLEM SOLVING, AND RESEARCH SKILLS TO MAXIMIZE THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF CIVICS, HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, AND ECONOMICS. 

Descriptive Statement: The purpose of this standard is to develop the requisite skills needed to fully appreciate, comprehend, and apply knowledge of the other five social studies standards:  civics, world history, United States and New Jersey history, geography, and economics.  These skills must be integrated across all five standards.  Students must understand basic concepts such as time, location, distance, and relationships and must be able to apply these concepts to the study of people, places, events, and issues.  These skills focus on the importance of historical research as well as the need to distinguish fact from fiction and to understand cause and effect.  These skills should not be taught in isolation; rather, students must use these skills in the study of all social studies disciplines.

By the end of Grade 2, students will:

A.      Social Studies Skills

 1.         Explain the concepts of long ago and far away.

 2.         Apply terms related to time including past, present, and future.

 3.         Identify sources of information on local, national, and international events (e.g., books, newspaper, TV, radio, Internet).

 4.         Retell events or stories with accuracy and appropriate sequencing.

 5.         Develop simple timelines.

Building upon knowledge and skills gained in preceding grades, by the end of Grade 4, students will:

A.     Social Studies Skills

 1.         Explain how present events are connected to the past.

 2.         Apply terms related to time including years, decades, centuries, and generations.

 3.         Locate sources for the same information (e.g., weather forecast on TV, the Internet or in a newspaper).

 4.         Organize events in a time line.

 5.         Distinguish between an eyewitness account and a secondary account of an event.

 6.         Distinguish fact from fiction.

Building upon knowledge and skills gained in preceding grades, by the end of Grade 8, students will:

A.     Social Studies Skills                     

 1.         Analyze how events are related over time.

 2.         Use critical thinking skills to interpret events, recognize bias, point of view, and context.

 3.         Assess the credibility of primary and secondary sources.

 4.         Analyze data in order to see persons and events in context.

 5.         Examine current issues, events, or themes and relate them to past events.

 6.         Formulate questions based on information needs.

 7.         Use effective strategies for locating information.

 8.         Compare and contrast competing interpretations of current and historical events.

 9.         Interpret events considering continuity and change, the role of chance, oversight and error, and changing interpretations by historians.

 10.     Distinguish fact from fiction by comparing sources about figures and events with fictionalized characters and events.

 11.     Summarize information in written, graphic, and oral formats.

Building upon knowledge and skills gained in preceding grades, by the end of Grade 12, students will:

A.     Social Studies Skills

 1.         Analyze how historical events shape the modern world.

 2.         Formulate questions and hypotheses from multiple perspectives, using multiple sources.

 3.         Gather, analyze, and reconcile information from primary and secondary sources to support or reject hypotheses.

 4.         Examine source data within the historical, social, political, geographic, or economic context in which it was created, testing credibility and evaluating bias.

 5.         Evaluate current issues, events, or themes and trace their evolution through historical periods.

 6.         Apply problem-solving skills to national, state, or local issues and propose reasoned solutions.

 7.         Analyze social, political, and cultural change and evaluate the impact of each on local, state, national, and international issues and events.

 8.         Evaluate historical and contemporary communications to identify factual accuracy, soundness of evidence, and absence of bias and discuss strategies used by the government, political candidates, and the media to communicate with the public.