Standards
GRADE 10
World History, Culture, and Geography: The Modern World
Students in grade ten study major turning points that shaped the modern
world, from the late 18th century through the present, including the cause
and course of the two world wars. They trace the rise of democratic ideas
and develop an understanding of the historical roots of current world
issues, especially as they pertain to international relations. They extrapolate
from the American experience that democratic ideals are often achieved
at a high price, remain vulnerable and are not practiced everywhere in
the world. Students develop an understanding of current world issues and
relate them to their historical, geographic, political, economic, and
cultural contexts. Students consider multiple accounts of events in order
to understand international relations from a variety of perspectives.
10.1 Students relate the moral and ethical principles in ancient Greek
and Roman philosophy, in Judaism and in Christianity to the development
of Western political thought, in terms of:
- the similarities and differences in Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman
views of law; reason and faith; duties of the individual
- the development of the Western political ideas of the rule of law
and illegitimacy of tyranny, drawing from selections from Plato's Republic
and Aristotle's Politics
- the influence of the U.S. Constitution on political systems in the
contemporary world
10.2 Students compare and contrast the Glorious Revolution of England,
the American Revolution, and the French Revolution and their enduring
effects on the worldwide political expectations for self-government and
individual liberty, in terms of:
- the major ideas of philosophers and their effect on the democratic
revolutions in England, the United States, France, and Latin America
(e.g., biographies of John Locke, Charles-Louis Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, Simon Bolivar, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison)
- the principles of the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights (1689),
the American Declaration of Independence (1776), the French Declaration
of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789), and the US Bill of Rights
(1791)
- the unique character of the American Revolution, its spread to other
parts of the world, and its continuing significance to other nations
- how the ideology of the French Revolution led France to develop from
constitutional monarchy to democratic despotism to the Napoleonic empire
- how nationalism spread across Europe with Napoleon, was repressed
for a generation under the Congress of Vienna and Concert of Europe
until the Revolutions of 1848
10.3 Students analyze the effects of the Industrial Revolution in England,
France, Germany, Japan and the United States, in terms of:
- why England was the first country to industrialize
- how scientific and technological changes and new forms of energy brought
about massive social, economic, and cultural change (e.g., biographies
of James Watt, Eli Whitney, Henry Bessemer, Louis Pasteur, Thomas Edison,)
- the growth of population, rural to urban migration and growth of cities
associated with the Industrial Revolution
- the evolution of work and labor, including the demise of the slave
trade and effect of immigration, mining and manufacturing, division
of labor, and the union movement
- the connections among natural resources, entrepreneurship, labor and
capital in an industrial economy
- the emergence of capitalism as a dominant economic pattern and the
responses to it, including Utopianism, Social Democracy, Socialism,
and Communism
- the emergence of the Romantic impulse in art and literature (e.g.,
the poetry of William Blake and William Wordsworth), social criticism
(e.g., Charles Dickens' novels) and the move away from Classicism in
Europe
10.4 Students analyze patterns of global change in the era of New Imperialism
in at least two of the following regions or countries: Africa, Southeast
Asia, China, India, Latin America and the Philippines, in terms of:
- the rise of industrial economies and their link to imperialism and
colonialism (e.g., the role played by national security and strategic
advantage; moral issues raised by search for national hegemony, Social
Darwinism and the missionary impulse; material issues such as land,
resources and technology
- the location of the colonial rule of such nations as England, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Portugal, and
the United States
- imperialism from the perspective of the colonizers and the colonized
and the varied immediate and long-term responses by the people under
colonial rule
- the independence struggles of the colonized regions of the world,
including the role of leaders, such as Sun Yat-sen in China, and the
role of ideology and religion
10.5 Students analyze the causes and course of the First World War,
in terms of:
- the arguments for entering into war presented by leaders from all
sides of the Great War and the role of political and economic rivalries,
ethnic and ideological conflicts, domestic discontent and disorder,
and propaganda and nationalism in mobilizing civilian population in
support of "total war"
- the principal theaters of battle, major turning points and the importance
of geographic factors in military decisions and outcomes (e.g., topography,
waterways, distance, climate)
- how the Russian Revolution and the entry of the United States affected
the course and outcome of the war
- the nature of the war, the human costs (military and civilian) on
all sides of the conflict, including how colonial peoples contributed
to the war effort
- human rights and genocide, including the Ottoman government's actions
against Armenian citizens
10.6 Students analyze the effects of the First World War, in terms of:
- the aims and negotiating roles of world leaders, the terms and influence
of the Treaty of Versailles and Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, and
the causes and effects of US rejection of the League of Nations on world
politics
- the effects of the war and resulting peace treaties on population
movement, the international economy, and shifts in the geographic and
political borders of Europe and the Middle East
- the widespread disillusionment with prewar institutions, authorities,
and values that resulted in a void that was later filled by totalitarians
- the influence of World War I on literature, art, and intellectual
life in the West (e.g., Pablo Picasso, the "lost generation" of Gertrude
Stein, Ernest Hemingway)
10.7 Students analyze the rise of totalitarian governments after World
War I, in terms of:
- the causes and consequences of the Russian Revolution, including Lenin's
use of totalitarian means to seize and maintain control (e.g., the Gulag)
- Stalin's rise to power in the Soviet Union and the connection between
economic policies, political policies, the absence of a free press,
and systematic violations of human rights (e.g., the Terror Famine in
Ukraine)
- the rise, aggression, and human costs of totalitarian regimes (Fascist
and Communist) in Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union noting their
common and dissimilar traits
10.8 Students analyze the causes and consequences of the Second World
War, in terms of:
- the German, Italian, and Japanese drives for empire in the 1930's,
including the 1937 Rape of Nanking and other atrocities in China and
the Stalin-Hitler Pact of 1939
- the role of appeasement, nonintervention (isolationism), and the
domestic distractions in Europe and the United States prior to the outbreak
of World War II
- the identification and location of the Allied and Axis powers; the
major turning points of the war, the principal theaters of conflict,
key strategic decisions; and the resulting war conferences and political
resolutions with emphasis on the importance of geographic factors
- the political, diplomatic and military leadership (e.g., biographies
of Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hirohito, Adolf Hitler,
Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Douglas MacArthur, Dwight Eisenhower)
- the Nazi policy of pursuing racial purity, especially against the
European Jews, its transformation into the Final Solution and the Holocaust
resulting in the murder of six million Jewish civilians
- the human costs of the war, with particular attention to the civilian
and military losses in Russia, Germany, Britain, United States, China,
and Japan
10.9 Students analyze the international developments in the post-World
War II world, in terms of:
- the economic and military power shifts caused by the war, including
the Yalta Pact, the development of nuclear weapons, Soviet control over
Eastern European nations, and the economic recovery of Germany and Japan
- the causes of the Cold War, with the free world on one side and Soviet
client states on the other, including competition for influence in such
places as Egypt, the Congo, Vietnam, and Chile
- the importance of the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan which established
the pattern for the postwar American policy of supplying economic and
military aid to prevent the spread of communism and the resulting economic
and political competition in arenas such as Southeast Asia (i.e., Korean
War, Vietnam War), Cuba, and Africa
- the Chinese Civil War, the rise of Mao Tse-tung, and the subsequent
political and economic upheavals in China (e.g., the Great Leap Forward,
the Cultural Revolution, and the Tiananmen Square uprising)
- uprisings in Poland (1952), Hungary (1956), and Czechoslovakia (1968)
and their resurgence in the 1970's and 1980's as people in Soviet satellites
sought freedom from Soviet control
- how the forces of nationalism developed in the Middle East, how the
Holocaust affected world opinion regarding the need for a Jewish state,
the significance and effects of the location and establishment of Israel
on world affairs
- the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union, including the weakness
of the command economy, burdens of military commitments, and growing
resistance to Soviet rule by dissidents in satellite states and the
non-Russian Soviet republics
- the establishment and work of the United Nations, the Warsaw Pact,
SEATO, and NATO, Organization of American States and their purposes
and functions
10.10 Students analyze instances of nation-building in the contemporary
world in two of the following regions or countries: the Middle East, Africa,
Mexico and other parts of Latin America, or China, in terms of:
- challenges in the region, including its geopolitical, cultural, military,
and economic significance and the international relationships in which
it is involved
- the recent history of the region, including the political divisions
and systems, key leaders, religious issues, natural features, resources,
and population patterns
- the important trends in the region today and whether they appear to
serve the cause of individual freedom and democracy
10.11 Students analyze the integration of countries into the world economy,
and the information, technological and communications revolutions (e.g.,
television, satellites, computers)
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