Social Studies Practices Grades 9-12
A. Gathering, Interpreting, and Using Evidence
1. Define and frame questions about events and the world in which we live, form hypotheses
as potential answers to these questions, use evidence to answer these questions, and
consider and analyze counter-hypotheses.
2. Identify, describe, and evaluate evidence about events from diverse sources (including
written documents, works of art, photographs, charts and graphs, artifacts, oral traditions,
and other primary and secondary sources).
3. Analyze evidence in terms of content, authorship, point of view, bias, purpose, format, and
audience.
4. Describe, analyze, and evaluate arguments of others.
5. Make inferences and draw conclusions from evidence.
6. Deconstruct and construct plausible and persuasive arguments, using evidence.
7. Create meaningful and persuasive understandings of the past by fusing disparate and
relevant evidence from primary and secondary sources and drawing connections to the
present.
B. Chronological Reasoning and Causation
1. Articulate how events are related chronologically to one another in time and explain the
ways in which earlier ideas and events may influence subsequent ideas and events.
2. Identify causes and effects using examples from different time periods and courses of study
across several grade levels.
3. Identify, analyze, and evaluate the relationship between multiple causes and effects
4. Distinguish between long-term and immediate causes and multiple effects (time, continuity,
and change).
5. Recognize, analyze, and evaluate dynamics of historical continuity and change over periods
of time and investigate factors that caused those changes over time.
6. Recognize that choice of specific periodizations favors or advantages one narrative, region,
or group over another narrative, region, or group.
7. Relate patterns of continuity and change to larger historical processes and themes.
8. Describe, analyze, evaluate, and construct models of historical periodization that historians
use to categorize events.
C. Comparison and Contextualization
1. Identify similarities and differences between geographic regions across historical time
periods, and relate differences in geography to different historical events and outcomes.
2. Identify, compare, and evaluate multiple perspectives on a given historical experience.
3. Identify and compare similarities and differences between historical developments over
time and in different geographical and cultural contexts.
4. Describe, compare, and evaluate multiple historical developments (within societies; across
and between societies; in various chronological and geographical contexts).
5. Recognize the relationship between geography, economics, and history as a context for
events and movements and as a matrix of time and place.
6. Connect historical developments to specific circumstances of time and place and to broader
regional, national, or global processes and draw connections to the present (where
appropriate).
D. Geographic Reasoning
1. Ask geographic questions about where places are located, why their locations are
important, and how their locations are related to the locations of other places and people.
2. Identify, describe, and evaluate the relationships between people, places, regions, and
environments by using geographic tools to place them in a spatial context.
Grades 9-12 Page 2