Teaching 8th Grade Social Studies with Life and Land in Mexican Alta California
Students often walk into the room thinking every historical event in California starts with the Gold Rush or the missions. They see the physical environment through a narrow lens and miss the complicated shift in land ownership that happened under the Mexican... read more
Teaching 8th Grade Industrialization and the American Landscape
When we get to the middle of the eighth grade year, I always feel like the pacing has to balance the rapid expansion of the country with the physical reality of what that expansion actually meant for the land. You have probably been looking for a clean way to... read more
Teaching Water Rights in 8th Grade Social Studies
I remember a student once staring at a blank map of the American West, genuinely confused why anyone would bother fighting over a dried-up creek in the middle of nowhere. It is a common moment in 8th grade social studies. Students see the wide-open spaces of the... read more
8th grade Social Studies lesson on United States territorial growth
Eighth grade social studies requires students to look at how the maps we see today were not always fixed in place.When you teach Growth and Conflict: The Expanding United States, you are giving your students a chance to look at the messy, specific, and often tense... read more