Relevant 8th Grade Learning Standards

• California ELA Literacy +
  Responding—Anchor Standard 8: Interpret Intent and Meaning in Artistic Work Selected 8th grade expectations:

  • Support personal interpretations of contrasting programs of music and explain how creators’ and performers’ apply the elements of music and expressive qualities, within genres, cultures, and historical periods, to convey expressive intent.

  Responding—Anchor Standard 9: Apply Criteria to Evaluate Artistic Work
  Selected 8th grade expectations:

  • Apply appropriate personally developed criteria to evaluate musical works or performances.

  Connecting—Anchor Standard 10: Synthesize and Relate Knowledge and Personal Experiences to Make Art
  Selected 8th grade expectations:

  • Examine and demonstrate how personal interests, knowledge, and ideas relate to choices and intent when creating, performing, and responding to music.

  Connecting—Anchor Standard 11: Relate Artistic Ideas and Works with Societal, Cultural, and Historical Context to Deepen Understanding
  Selected 8th grade expectations:

  • Examine and demonstrate connections between music and societal, cultural, and historical contexts when creating, performing, and responding.
• California ELA WRITING +
  With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on how well purpose and audience have been addressed.
  
  Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and present the relationships between information and ideas efficiently as well as to interact and collaborate with others.
  
  Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.
  
  Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.
  
  Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

  1. Apply grade 8 Reading standards to literature (e.g., “Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works such as the Bible, including describing how the material is rendered new”).
  2. Apply grade 8 Reading standards to literary nonfiction (e.g., “Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is sound and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; recognize when irrelevant evidence is introduced”).
• California ELA Writing for Literacy in History/Social Studies +
  Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.

  1. Introduce claim(s) about a topic or issue, acknowledge and distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.
  2. Support claim(s) with logical reasoning and relevant, accurate data and evidence that demonstrate an understanding of the topic or text, using credible sources.
  3. Use words, phrases, and clauses to create cohesion and clarify the relationships among claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
  4. Establish and maintain a formal style.
  5. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented.

  Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/experiments, or technical processes.

  1. Introduce a topic clearly, previewing what is to follow; organize ideas, concepts, and information into broader categories as appropriate to achieving purpose; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., charts, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.
  2. Develop the topic with relevant, well-chosen facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples.
  3. Use appropriate and varied transitions to create cohesion and clarify the relationships among ideas and concepts.
  4. Use precise language and domainspecific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.
  5. Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone.
  6. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the information or explanation presented.
• California VAPA Media Arts +
  Responding—Anchor Standard 8: Interpret Intent and Meaning in Artistic Work
  Selected 8th Grade expectations:

  • Analyze the intent and meanings of a variety of media artworks, focusing on intentions, forms, and various contexts.

  
  Responding—Anchor Standard 9: Apply Criteria to Evaluate Artistic Work
  

  • Evaluate media artworks and production processes with developed criteria, considering context and artistic goals.
• California VAPA Theater +
  Responding—Anchor Standard 8: Interpret Intent and Meaning in Artistic Work
  Selected 8th Grade expectations:

  • Explain and support an interpretation of the expressive intent of musical selections based on treatment of the elements of music, digital and electronic features, and purpose.
  • Connect the influence of the treatment of the elements of music, digital and electronic features, context, purpose, and other art forms to the expressive intent of musical works.
  • Examine and cite research and multiple sources to connect the influence of the treatment of the elements of music, digital and electronic features, context, purpose, and other art forms to the expressive intent of musical works.
• California History–Social Science +
  Students understand the major events preceding the founding of the nation and relate their significance to the development of American constitutional democracy.

  • Describe the relationship between the moral and political ideas of the Great Awakening and the development of revolutionary fervor.
  • Analyze the philosophy of government expressed in the Declaration of Independence, with an emphasis on government as a means of securing individual rights (e.g., key phrases such as “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”).
  • Analyze how the American Revolution affected other nations, especially France.
  • Describe the nation’s blend of civic republicanism, classical liberal principles, and English parliamentary traditions.

  Students analyze the political principles underlying the U.S. Constitution and compare the enumerated and implied powers of the federal government.

  • Discuss the significance of the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights, and the Mayflower Compact.
  • Analyze the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution and the success of each in implementing the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.
  • Evaluate the major debates that occurred during the development of the Constitution and their ultimate resolutions in such areas as shared power among institutions, divided state-federal power, slavery, the rights of individuals and states (later addressed by the addition of the Bill of Rights), and the status of American Indian nations under the commerce clause.
  • Describe the political philosophy underpinning the Constitution as specified in the Federalist Papers (authored by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay) and the role of such leaders as Madison, George Washington, Roger Sherman, Gouverneur Morris, and James Wilson in the writing and ratification of the Constitution.
  • Understand the significance of Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom as a forerunner of the First Amendment and the origins, purpose, and differing views of the founding fathers on the issue of the separation of church and state.
  • Enumerate the powers of government set forth in the Constitution and the fundamental liberties ensured by the Bill of Rights.
  • Describe the principles of federalism, dual sovereignty, separation of powers, checks and balances, the nature and purpose of majority rule, and the ways in which the American idea of constitutionalism preserves individual rights.

  
  Students understand the foundation of the American political system and the ways in which citizens participate in it.
  

  • Analyze the principles and concepts codified in state constitutions between 1777 and 1781 that created the context out of which American political institutions and ideas developed.
  • Explain how the ordinances of 1785 and 1787 privatized national resources and transferred federally owned lands into private holdings, townships, and states.
  • Enumerate the advantages of a common market among the states as foreseen in and protected by the Constitution’s clauses on interstate commerce, common coinage, and full-faith and credit.
  • Understand how the conflicts between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton resulted in the emergence of two political parties (e.g., view of foreign policy, Alien and Sedition Acts, economic policy, National Bank, funding and assumption of the revolutionary debt).
  • Know the significance of domestic resistance movements and ways in which the central government responded to such movements (e.g., Shays’ Rebellion, the Whiskey Rebellion).
  • Describe the basic law-making process and how the Constitution provides numerous opportunities for citizens to participate in the political process and to monitor and influence government (e.g., function of elections, political parties, interest groups).
  • Understand the functions and responsibilities of a free press.

  
  Students analyze the aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation.

  • Describe the country’s physical landscapes, political divisions, and territorial expansion during the terms of the first four presidents.
  • Explain the policy significance of famous speeches (e.g., Washington’s Farewell Address, Jefferson’s 1801 Inaugural Address, John Q. Adams’s Fourth of July 1821 Address).