Excerpts: _National Standards for History Grades K-4: Expanding Children's World in Time and Space_ Published by National Center For History in the Schools, U.C.L.A. Developing Standards in History for Students in Grades K-4 Significance of History for the Educated Citizen Setting standards for history in the schools requires a clear vision of the place and importance of history in the general education of all students. The widespread and growing support for more and better history in the schools, beginning in the early grades of elementary education, is one of the encouraging signs of this decade. The reasons are many, but none more important to a democratic society than this: knowledge of history is the precondition of political intelligence. Without history, a society shares no common memory of where it has been, of what its core values are, or of what decisions of the past account for present circumstances. Without history, one cannot undertake any sensible inquiry into the political, social, or moral issues in society And without historical knowledge and the inquiry it supports, one cannot move to the informed, discriminating citizenship essential to effective participation in the democratic processes of governance and the fulfillment for all our citizens of the nation's democratic ideals. Today's students, more than ever before, need also a comprehensive understanding of the history of the world, and of the peoples of many cultures and civilizations who have developed ideas, institutions, and ways of life different from students' own. From a balanced and inclusive world history students may gain an appreciation both of the world's many cultures and of their shared humanity and common problems. Students may acquire the habit of seeing matters through others' eyes and come to realize that by studying others, they can also better understand themselves. Historical understanding based on such comparative studies in world history does not require approval or forgiveness for the tragedies either of one's own society or of others; nor does it negate the importance of critically examining alternative value systems and their effects in supporting or denying the basic human rights and aspirations of all peoples. Especially important, an understanding of the history of the world's many cultures can contribute to fostering the kind of mutual patience, respect, and civic courage required in our increasingly pluralistic society and our increasingly interdependent world. These learning's directly contribute to the education of the public citizen but they uniquely contribute to nurturing the private individual as well. Historical memory is the key to self-identity, to seeing one's place in the stream of time, and one's connectedness with all of humankind. We are part of an ancient chain, and the long hand or the past is upon us-for good and for ill-just as our hands will rest on our descendants for years to come. Denied knowledge of one's roots and of one's place in the great stream of human history, the individual is deprived of the fullest sense of self and of shared community on which one's fullest personal development as well as responsible citizenship depends. For these purposes, history and the humanities must occupy an indispensable role in the school curriculum. beginning in the earliest years of the school curriculum. The Case for History in Grades K-4 For young children, history-along with literature and the arts-provides one of the most enriching studies in which they can be engaged. "What children of this age need," Bruno Bettelheim has written, "is rich food for their imagination, a sense of history, how the present situation came about." History enlarges children's experience, providing, in the words of Philip Phenix, "a sense of personal involvement in exemplary lives and significant events, an appreciation of values and a vision of greatness." History connects each child with his or her roots and develops a sense of personal belonging in the great sweep of human experience. Fortunately, the nation's educators are increasingly recognizing the importance of history in these early years of schooling, and of the interests and capabilities history fosters in young children. If students are to enjoy these immediate benefits of historical studies which Bettelheim Phenix, and others have observed, and to lay the foundations on which their continuing development of the major goals addressed above depend, then schools must broaden the curriculum to include historical studies from the earliest school years onward. Definition of Standards Standards in history make explicit the goals that all students should have opportunity to acquire, if the purposes just considered are to be achieved. In history, standards are of two types: 1. Historical thinking skills that enable children to differentiate past, present, and future time; raise questions: seek and evaluate evidence; compare and analyze historical stories, illustrations, and records from the past; interpret the historical record; and construct historical narratives of their own. 2. Historical understandings that define what students should know about the history of families, their communities, states, nation, and world. These under standings are drawn from the record of human aspirations, strivings, accomplishments and failures in at least five spheres of human activity: the social, political, scientific/technological, economic, and cultural (the philosophical/religious/aesthetic), as appropriate for children. Historical thinking and understanding do not, of course, develop independently of one another. Higher levels of historical thinking depend upon and are linked to the attainment of higher levels of historical understanding. For these reasons, the standards presented provide an integration of historical thinking and understanding. Basic Principles Guiding the Development of Standards for K 4 History Standards for elementary school children, grades K-4. have been developed with the following principles in mind: 1. Children can, from the earliest elementary grades, begin to build historical understandings and perspectives and to think historically. An important responsibility of schooling in these years is to support the conditions which foster children's natural curiosity and imagination, to provide them opportunities to reachout in time and space. and to expand their world of understanding far beyond the "here and now ' 2. Although young children are only in the early stages of acquiring concepts of chronology and time, they easily learn to differentiate time present, time past, and time "long, long ago"-skills on which good programs in historical thinking can then build over grades K-4. 3. To bring history alive, an important part of children's historical studies should be centered in people-the history of families and of people, ordinary and extraordinary, who have lived in children's own community, state, nation, and the world. 4. History becomes especially accessible and interesting to children when approached through stories, myths, legends, and biographies that capture children's imaginations and immerse them in times and cultures or the recent and long-ago past. 5. In addition to stories, children should be introduced to a wide variety of historical artifacts, illustrations, and records that open to them first-hand glimpses into the lives of people in the past: family photos; letters. diaries, and other accounts of the past obtained from family records, local newspapers, libraries, and museums; field trips to historical sites in their neighborhood and community and visits to "living museums" where actors reenact life long ago. 6. All these resources should be used imaginatively to help children formulate questions for study and to support historical thinking, such as the ability to marshal information; create sound hypotheses; locate events in time and place; compare and contrast past and present; explain historical causes and consequences; analyze historical fiction and illustrations for their accuracy and perspectives, and compare with primary sources that accurately portray life, attitudes and values in the past; compare different stories about an era or event in the past and the interpretations or perspectives of each; and create historical narratives of their own in the form of stories, letters such as a child long ago might have written, and descriptive accounts of events. Standards in Historical Thinking Children's study of history involves much more than the passive absorption of facts, names, dates, and places. Real historical understanding requires students to engage in historical thinking: to raise questions and to marshal evidence in support of their answers; to read historical narratives and fiction; to consult historical documents, journals, diaries, artifacts, historic sites, and other records from the past; and to do so imaginatively - taking into account the time and places in which these records were created and comparing the multiple points of view of those on the scene at the time. Real historical understanding also requires that children have opportunities to create historical narratives of their own. Such narratives may take many forms: group stories dictated to the teacher in grades K- 1, and individual stories, letters such as a child of the time may have written, journals, and reports in grades 2-4, for example. Historical understanding also requires that students thoughtfully listen to and read the historical narratives created by others. Well written historical narratives are interpretative, revealing conditions. changes, and consequences, and explaining why things happened as they did. Following such narratives, and analyzing the events they describe and the explanations they offer, promote important skills in historical thinking. Because of the importance of historical fiction in opening the past to children and engaging their interests in the people and events of long ago, it is especially important for children to learn to analyze these stories for their historical accuracy, to compare these stories and their illustrations with primary sources-historical artifacts, photos, diaries, and other records of the past-and to differentiate fact and fiction. Children should also have opportunities to compare different stories about a historical figure or event in order to analyze the facts each author includes or omits, and the interpretations or point of view communicated by each-important early steps in the development of students abilities to compare competing historical interpretations of events. Students engaged in activities or the kinds just considered will draw upon skills in the following five types of historical thinking: 1. Chronological Thinking 2. Historical Comprehension 3. Historical Analysis and Interpretation 4. Historical Research Capabilities 5. Historical Issues-Analysis and Decision-Making These skills, while presented in five separate categories, are nonetheless interactive and mutually supportive. In conducting historical research or creating a historical story of their own, for example, students must be able to draw upon skills in all five categories. Beyond the skills of conducting their research, students must, for example, be able to comprehend historical artifacts records consulted in their search, analyze their purpose and importance, and demonstrate a grasp of the historical time (e.g., long, long ago ) and geographic place in which the problem or events developed. In short, these five sets of skills, developed in the following pages as the five Standards in Historical Thinking, are statements of the outcomes we desire students to achieve. They are not mutually exclusive when put into practice, nor do they prescribe a particular teaching sequence to be followed. Teachers will draw upon all these Thinking Standards, as appropriate, to develop their teaching plans and to guide students through challenging programs of study in history. Finally, it is important to point out that these five sets of Standards in Historical Thinking are defined in the following pages largely independent of historical content in order to specify the quality of thinking desired for each. It is essential to understand, however, that these skills do not develop, nor can they be practiced, in a vacuum. Every one of these skills requires historical content in order to function-a relationship that is made explicit in Chapter 3, which presents the standards integrating historical understandings and thinking. Overview of Standards in Historical Thinking Standard 1. Chronological Thinking A. Distinguish between past, present, and future time. B. Identify in historical narratives the temporal structure of a historical narrative or story C. Establish temporal order in constructing their [students'] own historical narratives. D. Measure and calculate calendar time. E. Interpret data presented in time lines. F. Create time lines. G. Explain change and continuity over time. Standard 2. Historical Comprehension A. Reconstruct the literal meaning of a historical passage. B. Identify the central question(s) the historical narrative addresses. C. Read historical narratives imaginatively. D. Evidence historical perspectives. E. Draw upon the data in historical maps. F. Draw upon visual and mathematical data presented in graphics. G. Draw upon the visual data presented in photographs, paintings, cartoons, and architectural drawings. Standard 3. Historical Analysis and Interpretation A. Formulate questions to focus their inquiry or analysis. B. Identify the author or source of the historical document or narrative. C. Compare and contrast differing sets of ideas, values, personalities, behaviors, and institutions. D. Analyze historical fiction. E. Distinguish between fact and fiction. F. Compare different stories about a historical figure, era, or event. G. Analyze illustrations in historical stories H. Consider multiple perspectives. I. Explain causes in analyzing historical actions. J. Challenge arguments of historical inevitability K. Hypothesize influences of the past. Standard 4. Historical Research Capabilities A. Formulate historical questions. B. Obtain historical data. C. Interrogate historical data. D. Marshal needed knowledge of the time and place, and construct a story, explanation, or historical narrative. Standard 5. Historical Issues-Analysis and Decision-Making A. Identify issues and problems in the past. B. Compare the interests and values of the various people involved. C. Suggest alternative choices for addressing the problem. D. Evaluate alternative courses of action. E. Prepare a position or course of action on an issue. F. Evaluate the consequences of a decision. Standard One: Chronological Thinking Chronological thinking is at the heart of historical reasoning. Without a clear sense of historical time-time past, present, and future-students are bound to see events as one great tangled mess. Without a strong sense of chronology-of when events occurred and in what temporal order-it is impossible for students to examine relationships among them or to explain historical causality. Chronology provides the mental scaffolding for organizing historical thought. In developing students' chronological thinking, an important share of instructional time should be given to the use of well constructed historical narratives: literary narratives including biographies and historical literature, and well written narrative histories that have the quality of "stories well told." Well crafted narratives such as these have the power to grip and hold students' attention. Thus engaged, the reader (or young listener) is able to focus on what the narrator discloses: the temporal structure of events unfolding over time, the actions and intentions of those who were there, the temporal connections between antecedents and their consequences. It is these characteristics of well structured historical narratives that probably account for the relationships that have been observed between the use of narratives and young students' developing concepts of time and temporal causation. Responding to well chosen historical narratives, myths, stories, and fables read by the teacher young children can determine their temporal structure-their "beginning," "middle," and "end"-and retell, reenact, or illustrate the story to put its important developments into correct temporal sequence. They might illustrate, too, the different ending that might have come about, had one of the characters chosen a different course of action-the beginnings of causal and contingency thinking in the elementary years. Long before young children are ready to calculate calendar time, they are able to use such concepts as "long ago," "long ago," "yesterday," "today," and "tomorrow, " and to put historical developments they have learned about in correct temporal relationships according to broad categories such as these. Children should also be developing their ability to identify examples of changes and continuity over time. Children by grade 4 have been observed to use more precise historical eras, such as the "time of empires" or the "American Revolution." By this time, mathematical understandings should be sufficiently developed to support students' meaningful use of years, decades, and centuries to calculate historical time, and to create more elaborate systems of "chronological scaffolding" on which more challenging analyses can be undertaken. Students Should Be Able to: A. Distinguish between past, present, and future time. B. Identify the temporal structure of a historical narrative or story: its beginning, middle, and end (the latter defined as the outcome of a particular beginning). C. Establish temporal order in constructing their [students'] own historical narratives: working forward from some beginning through its development, to some end or outcome; working backward from some issue, problem, or event to explain its origins and its development over time. D. Measure and calculate calendar time by days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries. E. Interpret data presented in time lines. F. Create time lines by designating appropriate equidistant intervals of time and recording events according to the temporal order in which they occurred. G. Explain change and continuity over time. Grades K-2: Examples of student achievement include: - On listening to or reading historical stories, myths, and narratives, reconstruct the basic organization of the narrative-its beginning, middle, and end-and place events in their correct sequence. - In creating historical narratives of their own, such as their family's, their school's, or community's history, establish a chronology for the story, providing a beginning, middle, and end. - Develop "picture time lines" of their own lives or of events in the history of their own or another family, using photos from home, drawing pictures to fill any gaps, and arranging the set chronologically on long sheets of butcher paper, along a "clothes line," or pasted on successive pages of a photo album. - Differentiate broad categories of historical time, such as "long, long ago," "yesterday," "today," and "tomorrow." - Measure calendar time by days, weeks, and months. - Identify examples of change and continuity in their own lives, in the history of their school and community, and in the ways people lived long ago and today. Grades 3-4: Examples of student Achievement include all of the foregoing plus: - Group historical events by broadly defined eras in the history of their local community and state. - Measure calendar time by years, decades, and centuries. - Construct time lines of significant historical developments in their community and state, identifying the dates at which each occurred and placing them sequentially along a date line that marks at evenly spaced intervals the years, decades, and/or centuries appropriate to the time period under investigation. - Interpret data presented in time lines by identifying the time at which events occurred and the sequence in which events developed. - Trace patterns of change and continuity in the history of their community, state, and nation and in the lives of people of various cultures from times long ago until today. Standard 2: Historical Comprehension One of the defining features or historical narratives is their believable recounting of human events. To read such accounts with understanding, students must learn to recognize the chronological structure through which the narrative develops-its beginning, middle, and end-and to identify such basic elements of the narrative structure as the characters involved, the situation or setting in which the narrative takes place. the sequence of events through which the story unfolds, the initiating or causal event(s) that led to these developments, and the results or consequences of these actions. Beyond providing a believable recounting of human events, historical narratives also have the power to disclose the intentions of the characters involved, the difficulties they encountered and, as Jerome Bruner has observed, the "psychological and cultural reality in which the participants in history actually lived." To read historical stories, biographies, autobiographies. and narratives with comprehension, therefore, students must develop the ability to read imaginatively, to take into account what the narrative reveals of the humanity of the individuals involved-their probable motives and intentions, their hopes, doubts, fears, strengths, and weaknesses. Comprehending historical narratives requires, also, that students develop the ability to describe the past on its own terms through the eyes and experiences of those who were there as revealed through their literature, diaries, letters, arts, artifacts and the like; and to avoid "present-mindedness," nor judging the past solely in terms of the norms and values of today, but taking into account the historical context in which the event unfolded-the values, outlook, crises, options, and contingencies of that time and place. Acquiring these skills begins in the early years of childhood through the use of superbly written stories and biographies that capture children's imagination, evoke the ethos and perspectives of the past, and provide an important foundation for students' continuing historical study. Beyond these important outcomes students in grades 3 and 4 should also develop the skills needed to comprehend historical narratives that explain as well as recount the course of events. These skills include: ( 1 ) identifying the central question the historical narrative seeks to answer. (2) defining the purpose or point of view from which the narrative has been constructed. (3) following the historical explanation with meaning; and (4) recognizing the cues that signal how the author has organized the text. Comprehending these historical narratives will also be facilitated if students are able to draw upon the data presented in historical maps, graphics, and a variety or visual sources such as historical photographs political cartoons, paintings, and architecture in order to clarify, illustrate, or elaborate upon the information presented in the text. Students Should Be Able to: A. Reconstruct the literal meaning of a historical passage by identifying who was involved, what happened, where it happened, what events led to these developments, and what consequences or outcomes followed. B. Identify the central question(s) the historical narrative addresses and the purpose, perspective, or point of view from which it has been constructed. C. Read historical narratives imaginatively, taking into account (a) the historical context in which the event unfolded-the values, outlook, crises, options, and contingencies of that time and place; and (b) what the narrative reveals of the humanity of the individuals involved-their probable motives, hopes, fears, strengths, and weaknesses. D. Evidence historical perspectives-the ability (a) to describe the past on its own terms, through the eyes and experiences of those who were there, as revealed through their literature, diaries, letters, arts, artifacts, and the like; and (b) to avoid "present-mindedness," judging the past solely in terms of present day norms and values. E. Draw upon data in historical maps in order to obtain or clarify information on the geographic setting in which the historical event occurred, its relative and absolute location, the distances and directions involved, the natural and man-made features of the place, and critical relationships in the spatial distributions of those features and historical event occurring there. F. Draw upon the visual and mathematical data presented in graphics, including charts, tables, pie and bar graphs, flow charts, Venn diagrams, and other graphic organizers to clarify, illustrate, or elaborate upon information presented in the historical narrative. G. Draw upon the visual data presented in photographs, paintings, cartoons, and architectural drawings in order to clarify, illustrate, or elaborate upon information presented in the historical narrative. Grades K-2: Examples of student achievement include: - On listening to or reading historical stories, myths, legends. and narratives, reconstruct the literal meaning of the passage by correctly recounting who was involved; the events that occurred; where they happened; what motives disclosed in the passage led to these developments; .and the consequences or outcomes that followed. - Listen to or read historical stories, myths, legends. and narratives imaginatively by developing warranted suggestions of the probable motives, hopes, tears, strengths, and weaknesses of the individuals involved. - Read geographic ,symbols and identify the geographic features of places represented in picture maps, air photos, and terrain models of places now and in the past. - Read and interpret the visual data presented in historical photographs, paintings, and drawings of the people, places, and historical events under Grades 3-4: Examples of student achievement include: - Put themselves "in the shoes" of those who were there by describing the past as people of that time reported seeing or experiencing it. - Read geographic symbols, map scales, and directional indicators in order to obtain such information from historical maps as: the geographic features or the setting in which events occurred, their absolute and relative locations, and the distances and directions involved. - Read and interpret the visual and mathematical data presented in simple flow charts, pie graphs, and Venn diagrams. Standard 3: Historical Analysis and Interpretation One of the important tasks teachers face in helping children become critical, analytical thinkers as well as thoughtful readers of historical narratives is fostering their intellectual independence and overcoming tendencies to look to teachers for cues, to seek the one "right answer," and to accept without question the printed word as authoritative and true. Young children come to school curious, filled with imagination, eager to reach out, discover and learn, unless home or prior school experiences have thwarted their development of these natural powers in early childhood. The good teacher of young children will work to create the classroom climate and learning opportunities rich in inviting materials that capture children's interest, fuel their imagination, and pose issues and problems for thinking and resolution. Teachers will find in history many resources to foster these ends: lively, compelling stories and biographies that catch children up in the real problems, issues, and dilemmas encountered by people at various times in history, and that disclose the variety of perspectives, feelings, motivations, and responses of different peoples involved in the situation; field trips and visits to historic sites and museums; and a rich variety of historical documents, photos, artifacts, and other records of the past that present alternative voices and accounts of events, and that confront students with more than one interpretation of the past. Many of these resources will be found in local libraries and in the historical collections or files of local newspapers, local museums, and in the collections or personal experiences of parents, and other people in the community. Teachers should cultivate the professional ties and support librarians are eager to offer them, and not hesitate to ask the assistance of historians and geographers in a local college, many whom are pleased to assist. In such a classroom setting, children as young as kindergartners can become enthusiastically involved in real historical issues and events, engage actively in examining such data, and analyze and interpret the data for themselves. As has often been noted, thinking cannot occur in a vacuum. Classrooms rich in the historical resources proposed here support even the youngest children with compelling opportunities for active thinking. Among the analytic thinking skills children should be developing through inviting experiences such as these are the ability to examine a situation and raise questions or define problems for themselves; compare differing ideas, interests, perspectives, actions, and institutions represented in these sources; and elaborate upon what they read and see to develop interpretations, explanations, or solutions to the questions they have raised and the evidence before them. Students Should Be Able to: A. Formulate questions to focus their inquiry and analysis. B. Identify the author or source of the historical document or narrative and assess its credibility. C. Compare and contrast differing sets of ideas, values, personalities, behaviors, and institutions by identifying likenesses and differences. D. Analyze historical fiction on such criteria as the accuracy of the story's historical details and sequence of events; and the point of view or interpretation presented by the author through the words, actions, and descriptions of the characters and events in the story. E. Distinguish fact and fiction by comparing documentary sources on historical figures and events with the fictional characters and events included in the story and its illustrations. F. Compare different stories about a historical figure, era, or event and analyze the different portrayals or perspectives they present. G. Analyze illustrations in historical stories for the information they reveal and compare with historic sites, museum artifacts, historical photos, and other documents to judge their accuracy. H. Consider multiple perspectives in the records of human experience by demonstrating how their differing motives, beliefs, interests, hopes, and fears influenced individual and group behaviors. I. Explain causes in analyzing historical actions, including (a) the importance of the individual in history, of human will, intellect, and character; (b) the influence of ideas, human interests, and beliefs; and (c) the role of chance, the accidental. and the irrational. J. Challenge arguments of historical inevitability by giving examples of how different choices could have led to different consequences. K. Hypothesize the influences of the past, including both the limitations and opportunities made possible by past decisions. Grades K-2: Examples of student achievement include: - Formulate questions to direct their investigation and analysis of family artifacts, historical, documents, sites, and other records of the past. - In listening to or reading historical stories, myths, legends, and narratives, compare and contrast the different experiences of people in the narrative and their possible motives, beliefs, and reactions in the situation. - In listening to or reading historical stories, myths, legends, and stories, identify the differing motives, beliefs, interests, hopes, and fears of different people caught up in the event, and analyze how those feelings influenced their behaviors. - in studying family and community life, compare and contrast likenesses and differences between people's lives, actions, beliefs, tradition, family structures, institutions, and so on at various times in the past and present, and among various groups with differing ethnic, religious, and national backgrounds. - Suggest how things might have turned out differently if a character in a historical story, legend, myth, or narrative had acted differently. Grades 3-4: Examples of student achievement include a11 of the foregoing plus: - Identify the author's main points and the purpose or point of view from which the narrative has been written. - Distinguish between historical facts presented in historical documents and narratives, and the generalizations or interpretations an author draws concerning those facts. - Suggest how things might have turned out differently if those involved in a historical event in their state or nation's history had chosen a different course of action. - Analyze historical narratives to identify the facts the author has provided and to evaluate the credibility of the generalization or interpretation the author has presented. - Compare two or more historical sources and develop a sound interpretation of the issue or event depicted. - Compare historical biographies or stories written about historical events by contrasting the facts included or omitted in each and the point of view of the author(s) of each. - Compare the characters and events described in historical fiction with primary sources such as the historic sites themselves; artifacts of the time available in museums; journals, diaries, and photos of the historical figures in the story; and news articles and other records from the period in order to judge the historical accuracy of the story. Standard 4: Historical Research Capabilities Perhaps no aspect of historical thinking is as exciting to students or as productive of their growth in historical thinking as "doing history." Such inquiries can be generated by encounters with historical documents, eyewitness accounts, letters, diaries, artifacts, photos, a visit to a historic site, a record of oral history, or other evidence of the past. Worthy inquiries are especially likely to develop if the documents students encounter are rich with the voices of people caught up in the event and sufficiently diverse to bring alive to students the interests, beliefs, and concerns of peoples with differing backgrounds and opposing viewpoints or perspectives of the events. Meaningful historical inquiry proceeds with the formulation of a problem or set of questions worth pursuing. In the most direct approach, students might be encouraged to analyze the document, record, or site itself. Who produced it, when, how, and why? What is the evidence of its authenticity, authority and credibility? What does it tell them of the point of view, background, and interests of its author or creator? What else must they discover in order to construct a story, explanation, or narrative of the event of which this document or artifact is a part. Obtaining needed background information can send students on a search for additional resources. Providing students access to a school library, history books, interviews with experts in the community, knowledgeable parents and community residents, or other documents will sometimes be required. In this process the teacher, too, can join in the search and share in the process of discovery, thereby communicating to students that historical inquiry is a search in which answers are not known in advance, and that finding and interpreting the results is a genuine process of knowledge-building. Students Should Be Able To: A. Formulate historical questions from encounters with historical documents, eyewitness accounts, letters, diaries, artifacts, photos, historical sites, art, architecture, and other records from the past. B. Obtain historical data from a variety of sources, including: library and museum collections, historic sites, historical photos, journals, diaries, eyewitness accounts, newspapers, and the like; documentary films; and so on. C. Interrogate historical data by determining by whom and when it was created; testing the data source for its credibility, authority and authenticity; and detecting and evaluating bias, distortion, and propaganda by omission, suppression, or invention of facts. D. Marshal needed information of the time and place in order to construct a story, explanation, or historical narrative. Grades K-2: Examples of student achievement include: - In obtaining information about family life in the recent and long-ago past, develop questions, conduct interviews, collect family photos and other records from the past, and present their information orally through illustrations, and through stories. Grades 3-4: Examples of student achievement include: - In researching the history of their local community and state, formulate questions, obtain information from interviews, field trips, historic records available from local newspapers, libraries, government offices, and museums, and use the information they obtain to create data retrieval charts, displays, and historical narratives describing events in the past. Standard 5: Historical Issue-Analysis and Decision-Making Issue-centered analysis and problem solving activities place students squarely in the center of historical dilemmas with which people have coped at critical moments in the past and near-present. Providing children in grades K-4 opportunity to examine such issues in historical literature and in the history of their local community, state, and nation fosters their personal involvement in these events. If well chosen these activities promote the development of skills and attitudes essential to citizenship in a democratic society. Among those skills appropriate for grades K-4 are the ability to analyze a situation: define the issue problem. or dilemma confronting people in that situation; suggest alternative choices for addressing the problem; evaluate the possible consequences-costs as well as benefits-of each; propose an action; and judge its consequences. The problems confronting people in well written historical fiction, fables, legends, and myths as well as in historical records of the past are usually value-laden. For this reason, examining these dilemmas, the choices before the people who confronted them, and the consequences of the decisions they made provide opportunities for children to consider the values and beliefs that have influenced human decisions both for good and for ill. They provide opportunities, as well, for students to deepen their understanding and appreciation of such democratic principles and values is individual responsibility concern for the rights and welfare of others, truth, justice, freedom. and equality of opportunity. Students Should Be Able To: A. Identify problems and dilemmas confronting people in historical stories, myths, legends, and fables, and in the history of their schools, community, state, nation, and the world. B. Analyze the interests, values, and points of view of those involved in the dilemma or problem situation. C. Identify causes of the problem or dilemma. D. Propose alternative ways of resolving the problem or dilemma and evaluate each in terms of ethical considerations (is it fair? just?), the interests of the different peoples involved, and the likely consequences of each proposal. E. Formulate a position or course of action on an issue by identifying the nature of the problem, analyzing the underlying factors contributing to the problem, and choosing a plausible solution from a choice of carefully evaluated options. F. Identify the solution chosen by characters in the story or in the historical situation; or, recommend a course of action themselves. G. Evaluate the consequences of the actions taken. Grades K-2: Examples of student achievement include: - Examine the problems and dilemmas confronting people in stories and biographies about historical people who "made a difference." and define the problem, the action(s) taken to resolve it, and the consequences or results. - Formulate an alternative course of action that might have been taken, and analyze how things might have turned out differently if that choice had been made. - Identify the interests, values, and points of view of different people caught up in a problem situation portrayed in a fable, myth, legend, or selection of historical fiction, and analyze how their interests and values influenced the choices they made. - Propose a plan of action for solving a problem in their school or local community. What were some of the causes (e.g., in past decisions) that contributed to the problem? How will their proposed action affect others and contribute to resolving the problem? Does it show concern for the rights and welfare of others? Is it fair and just? Grades 3-4: Examples of student achievement include the foregoing plus: - Identify issues and problems in the history of their community and state, the various people involved, and the interests and perspectives of each. - Evaluate the alternative actions that were proposed or might have been offered for resolving the problem, the consequences of the action taken, and compare with the consequences that might have followed had an alternative choice been made. - Apply these same skills to the analysis of a contemporary issue in the students' local community or state which has its roots in past decisions and which requires resolution today.