BHP Standards

BHP STANDARDS 2014 DOCUMENT

BHP STANDARDS 2014 DOCUMENTBIG HISTORY PROJECT

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Big History was designed from the ground up to be a flexible set of tools and approaches

teachers can use to teach the course on their own terms, within the sets of standards for

which they are held accountable. The best teaching practices—informed by both the latest

research and the feedback of teachers of early versions of the course—have been incorporated

into the Big History course design. In addition, the CCSS ELA was accounted for, especially

around the writing activities in the course. At the time of the course’s design, the C3 and NGSS

were emerging, and in response, we’ve made Big History relevant to aspects of those sets of

expectations. As with any good curriculum design, the course development process is iterative

and we continue to make improvements. This document outlines the connections between BHP,

CCSS, C3, and NGSS.


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Table of Contents

Big History and Common Core State Standards 4

Major Activities and Resources for BHP and CCSS 5

Big History and C3 8

BHP and the Dimensions of C3 8

Big History and World History Standards 10

Big History and the Next Generation Science Standards 12

BHP and the Scientific and Engineering Practices 12

BHP and the Crosscutting Concepts 13

BHP and the Core Ideas 14

Conclusion 15


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Big History and Common Core State Standards

“To be ready for college, workforce training, and life in a technological society, students need

the ability to gather, comprehend, evaluate, synthesize, and report on information and ideas; to

conduct original research in order to answer questions or solve problems; and to analyze and

create a high volume and extensive range of print and nonprint texts in media forms old and

new.”

Common Core State Standards for Literacy1

“A curriculum as it develops should revisit its basic ideas repeatedly, building upon them until the

student has grasped the full formal apparatus that goes with them.”

Jerome Bruner, The Process of Education, 19602

The Big History Project (BHP) curriculum provides a wonderful opportunity for teachers to

help students meet the Common Core State Standards for Literacy, particularly the reading and

writing standards for history, social studies, science, and technical subjects, and to help their

students develop a world historical perspective.3 There are three main shifts from previous

standards that are important to note in the CCSS literacy standards: (1) regular practice with

common text and its academic language; (2) reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence

from text both literary and informational; and (3) building knowledge through context-rich

nonfiction.4 Big History’s focus on literacy gives teachers materials that can address each of

these shifts. An interdisciplinary course built around essential historical and scientific questions,

Big History requires students to analyze and synthesize a wide range of progressively complex

historical and scientific texts. Students use primary and secondary sources, graphs, charts, data

arrays, and maps to write evidence-based narratives, explanations, and arguments. Students

not only develop an understanding of the Big History narrative, they expand their independence

in working with complex texts, increase their skills in reading critically and communicating

effectively, enhance their appropriate use of evidence and logic, and expand their capacity to use

technology and digital media strategically and capably.

1. Common Core State Standards for Literacy.2. Jerome Bruner, The Process of Education (Cambridge: Harvard, 1960: 13).3. See the Common Core State Standards for Literacy in History/ Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects, 6-12, June 2014 (pages 59-66,

http://www.corestandards.org/wp-content/uploads/ELA_Standards.pdf). 4. David Coleman, et al., “Three Core Shifts to Deliver on the Promise of the Common Core State Standards in Literacy and Math,” Achieve the

Core, June 2014 (http://www.achievethecore.org).


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Connections to CCSS are embedded throughout the course. Here the major activities and

resources are highlighted:

Major Activities and Resources for BHP and CCSS

1. Reading: Texts in Big History are complicated and dense; they provide a solid base for

students’ development of literacy skills related to reading complex texts. Big History provides

resources to support teachers in increasing the complexity of texts for their students as well

as supporting students’ understanding and use of academic vocabulary. These resources

include:

• Lexile Measures—The Lexile level of each text is provided so that you can differentiate

accordingly for your students.

• Multiple Versions of Readings—Newsela, a group that provides nonfiction news articles

at varying reading levels, has edited our readings and provided three to four versions of

each, ensuring that your students can access a version of each reading regardless of

their reading level.

• Vocabulary—Vocabulary activities are suggested throughout the course to help your

students memorize key terms. Knowing and understanding these terms should help

remove a barrier to understanding the course readings.

• Teaching Tips—As you move through the lessons, teaching tips are provided to help

inform how you might approach readings with your students.

2. Writing: Writing is a key component to students’ knowledge production in Big History.

Students are required to write explanations and arguments drawing from texts,

representations of data, experiences, videos, and other sources of information. Students are

asked to assess the quality of claims made by authors using “claim testers.” Students also

write compare-and-contrast essays using primary and secondary sources. To assess and

learn from these writing assignments throughout the course, a writing rubric is included in

writing activities. The rubric addresses the following categories of skills:

• Focus: The text focuses on a topic to inform a reader of ideas, concepts, and

information.


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• Development/Support: The text presents relevant facts, definitions, concrete details,

quotations, and examples. The conclusion ties to and supports the information and

explanation.

• Audience: The author anticipates the audience’s background knowledge of the topic.

• Cohesion: The text uses appropriate and varied transitions to link the major sections

of the text, creates cohesion, and clarifies the relationships among complex ideas and

concepts.

• Language and Conventions: The text presents a formal, objective tone and uses precise

language and topic-specific vocabulary to manage the complexity of the topic. The text

also demonstrates Standard English conventions.

3. Investigations: In parallel with the content of the course, Investigations challenge students to

use complex and varied texts (for example, primary and secondary sources, quantitative data,

and graphics). Students take up and “resolve” big and enduring questions (“Why do people

change their minds?” “To what extent has the Modern Revolution been a positive or negative

force?”). The Investigations engage students in short, focused research that requires them

to use a variety of texts, and culminate in a written presentation and assessment of their

findings. Each Investigation asks students to answer the unit driving question by analyzing,

synthesizing, and evaluating evidence to construct their own answers. The Investigations

encourage students to use the provided documents, artifacts, and objects to make arguments

and explanations about change over time, while developing student literacy and critical

thinking skills. Each Investigation asks students to:

• Frame a historical or social scientific problem.

• Read, analyze, corroborate, and synthesize sources from a carefully selected library of

texts and experiences.

• Develop an explanation or build an argument to resolve their research question.

• Evaluate their own and others’ claims.

4. Little Big History: The Little Big History (LBH) project demands that students use advanced

search methods to gather information and evidence from multiple authoritative print and

digital sources while maintaining and sustaining their focus on a researchable question. This

reflects our attempt to realize the goals of the Common Core in an engaging and constructive

activity. The LBH calls on students to employ at least two approaches to knowledge in addition


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to history (such as cosmology, chemistry, biology, or anthropology) and take their research

back to a time before humans. Student papers in the past have ranged from histories of an

element (such as silver or gold), to a commodity (such as bananas, tobacco, or Cheez-Its),

to events or activities (such as formation of dictatorships or the cinema). In short, the LBH

project calls upon students to conduct research framed around a self-generated question;

narrow or broaden their inquiry when appropriate; analyze and synthesize multiple sources;

and demonstrate their understanding of different audiences. To complete this sustained

research project, Big History expects students to:

• Identify a researchable topic and frame good research questions.

• Use advanced searches effectively to gather and draw relevant information and

evidence from multiple authoritative print and digital sources.

• Assesses the usefulness, credibility, and accuracy of each source in answering the

research question.

• With guidance and support from peers and adults, plan, revise, edit, and rewrite a final

paper.

• Introduce precise claims and an overall thesis to the paper.

• Develop the topic with well-chosen, relevant, and sufficient facts; extended definitions;

concrete details; and other appropriate information and examples.

• Use varied transitions and sentence structures to link the major sections of the text,

create cohesion, and clarify the relationship among ideas and concepts.

• Integrate information and BH concepts into the text selectively to maintain the flow of

ideas while avoiding plagiarism.

• Use appropriate formatting, graphics, and evidence to aid comprehension.

• Establish and maintain a formal style using the norms and conventions of the

appropriate discipline.

• Provide a concluding statement or section that follows form and supports the

information and explanation presented, including articulating the significance or

implications of the topic.

• Represent their work in another format (for example, video, dramatic play, museum

exhibit, children’s book) to an audience other than their teacher.


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Overall, Big History is designed to provide teachers and students structured opportunities to

meet many of the goals in the Common Core Standards for Reading and Writing in History/Social

Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. Those standards guided our initial design, course

revisions, modifications, and additions to the curriculum as well as our assessment decisions.

With our new school partners helping, we expect to make significant progress toward ensuring

our students are career and college ready.

Big History and C3

The College, Career & Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards calls for

students to develop “the intellectual power to recognize societal problems; ask good questions

and develop robust investigations into them; consider possible solutions and consequences;

separate evidence-based claims from parochial opinions; and communicate and act upon what

they learn.”5 There are four dimensions within the C3 framework that make up an inquiry arc: (1)

developing questions and planning inquiries; (2) applying disciplinary concepts and tools, which

includes civics, economics, geography, and history; (3) evaluating sources and using evidence,

which includes gathering and evaluating sources and developing claims and using evidence;

and (4) communicating conclusions and taking informed action, which includes communicating

and critiquing conclusions. Big History’s core activities are well aligned with the dimensions of

C3—each dimension is addressed in the course. However, keep in mind that dimensions are

intertwined in Big History activities rather than presented as distinct pieces that map to each

dimension. For example, in a BH project-based learning activity students, need to evaluate

sources and communicate conclusions.

BHP and the Dimensions of C3

Dimension 1: Developing Questions and Planning Investigations

The Investigation in each unit starts with an intriguing question that allow students to use primary

and secondary sources to craft responses that require careful planning and investigation into

the resources. In Investigation activities, students need to employ interdisciplinary thinking and

understanding to develop their answers to the questions.

5. National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History (Silver Spring, MD: NCSS, 2013).


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Dimension 2: Applying Disciplinary Concepts and Tools

In the history subdimension, this means: (a) change, continuity, and context; (b) perspectives; (c)

historical sources and evidence; and (d) causation and argumentation. These four subdimensions

are included in the essential skills of the Big History course that students are expected to master

as they engage with the content. The Big History essential skills are: thinking across scale,

which aligns with C3 subdimension (a); integrating multiple disciplines, which aligns with (b);

and making and testing claims, which maps to both (c) and (d). Students use the essential skills

throughout the course to understand the complex web of information and ideas that defines Big

History.

Dimension 3: Evaluating Sources and Using Evidence

Evaluating sources and using evidence is required in every unit of Big History. Student use “claim

testers”— a strategy to evaluate sources of information they encounter in the Big History course.

Sources range from informational texts to claims shared by peers in a discussion. In Big History,

students become experts at using claim testers to evaluate sources and information from those

sources. This strategy is also important for developing students’ arguments using evidence in

their writing and other expressions of ideas (including oral presentations and infographics). All

formal writing in Big History asks students to evaluate and use information from reliable sources

as evidence for their claims or explanations. This writing ranges from short assessment-focused

essays to the unit Investigations.

Dimension 4: Communicating Conclusions and Taking Informed Action

Communicating conclusions is not just a culminating action in the Big History course. Throughout

the course, teachers are supported to engage students in academic discussions in which

students share ideas, debate claims, develop arguments, and become proficient at using

academic language to discuss the ideas of Big History. Students use rubrics to critique and give

feedback on their peers’ work to help develop stronger writing and conclusions. Little Big History

and the PBL projects are longer activities that span across the four C3 dimensions. Students

are expected to work through the four dimensions as they develop their final projects for both

activities, similar to the inquiry arc described in the C3 framework. In the presentation of work

from these activities, students share their findings and conclusions with broader audiences and if

applicable, share ideas about taking informed action within their communities.


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Big History and World History Standards

Though Big History is “bigger” than the typical course in world history, the standards in world

history played an important role in the framing of the course. For teachers and schools that seek

to expand the latter portions of the course or use Big History as an “on-ramp” to world history or

AP world history, attention to the national standards can be invaluable.

Students of Big History expand their thinking about history by using multiple scales of time and

space to frame their inquiry. Of course, the Big History story begins well before the typical course

in world history, extending back 13.8 billion years. The first four units in the course deal with

nonhuman history. The next six units address human history, covering time and events that follow

the shape and contour of more-typical courses in global history. We have used the National World

History Standards and relevant state standards in shaping our course content. Further, the Big

History Project is currently working to provide guidance for districts wishing to spend more time

on the units that cover history on a human scale.

The national and state standards in world history are reflected in the course outcomes and

student assignments, including the Investigations. For example, in the Big History course students

should be able to:

• Use archaeological and anthropological evidence to describe the physical and cultural

changes of humans from our earliest foraging ancestors (Paleolithic) through to the

development of agrarian civilizations such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India, Greece,

Rome, and pre-Columbian/1492 world zones.

• Investigate the differences between foraging communities and agrarian communities,

evaluating the differences in lifeways.

• Analyze the growth and impact of human language on human culture, considering the

impact of language on collective learning.

• Evaluate the changing ways humans have come to understand the Universe, the life and

death of stars, the Solar System and the Earth, life, chemistry, and the development of new

ways to study human societies.

• Analyze the work of important scientific and historical thinkers and inventors of new

technology and tools, such as the work of Copernicus, Galileo, Leavitt, Newton, Hubble,

Aristotle, Mendeleev, and Kuhn.


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• Describe the changes caused by the Modern Revolution generated by oceanic travel and

global networks of exchange.

• Evaluate the degree to which the Modern Revolution has been a force for good or bad by

describing and weighing the impact of the spread of democracies, industrial systems of

production, new systems of governance, international associations, warfare, and global

events.

• Describe the international networks of exchange that alter the world’s economy and its

system of information and communication exchanges.

• Using a range of texts, documents, data, and maps, make claims about the similarities and

regional variations within and among each of the four world zones, focusing on the impact

of geography and climate, biological forces, historical and cultural variations. Students

conduct research in groups, and then publish and present to the class.

• Evaluate the argument made by historians on the use of four world zones of interaction—

Afro-Eurasia, Australasia, Americas, and Pacific—to organize thinking about human life

prior to 1500 CE, and explain why other categories, such as “continents” or “cultures,” are

less useful for making Big History claims.

• Comparatively describe the emerging economic and political systems and the economic

and political systems of the previous eras. Students do research independently and in pairs,

write in response, and share in small groups and with the class.


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Big History and the Next Generation Science Standards

Big History is not a science course. However, scientific ideas are introduced throughout the

course to support students’ historical analyses and understanding. The Next Generation Science

Standards (NGSS) were designed — from the vision presented in A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas6— to support students in gaining

understanding of core ideas in the sciences through participation in the scientific practices

with attention to the crosscutting concepts. While Big History does not directly align with this

goal, the course is well suited to support students’ understanding of core ideas in the Earth

and space sciences as well as enhance their use of crosscutting concepts to make connections

across scientific and historical disciplines. Big History’s framework aligns with each of the three

dimensions of the NGSS in the following ways:

BHP and the Scientific and Engineering Practices

• Asking questions (science) and defining problems (engineering)

• Developing and using models

• Planning and carrying out investigations

• Analyzing and interpreting data

• Using mathematics and computational thinking

• Constructing explanations (science) and designing solutions (engineering)

• Engaging in argument from evidence

• Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

There are differences and nuances in the practices specific to science and engineering, so

analyzing text to write an argument during a historical analysis is not the same as analyzing data

from an investigation and writing a scientific argument. However, there are key overlaps between

science and literacy in the practices that students will experience in Big History and that will help

them to develop both scientific and literacy skills.

• Analyzing texts to obtain and evaluate information is key to investigations in history and

sciences. Students need the skills to search for and evaluate the credibility and usefulness

of information across disciplines. In Big History, students use claim testers, which are a tool

they can use across courses and disciplines, as a strategy for evaluating information. 6 National Research Council. A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas. Washington, DC: The

National Academies Press, 2012.


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• Constructing explanations and engaging in argument from evidence are historical practices

that show up frequently in Big History activities. Although they are slightly different in

science, understanding how to explain a phenomenon using credible resources or how to

argue or persuade others of an idea or explanation using data and evidence are important

in both science and history and draw on literacy skills outlined in the CCSS.

BHP and the Crosscutting Concepts

The crosscutting concepts were included in the NGSS to highlight a layer of concepts that

connect across disciplines. Gaining an understanding of these disciplines in the context of the Big

History course will serve students well in both their historical and scientific understanding. The

crosscutting concepts at the forefront of Big History include:

• Cause and effect: mechanisms and explanation – What conditions led to the Big Bang?

The Goldilocks Conditions of each threshold in Big History are examples of cause and effect

in the course.

• Scale, proportions, and quantity – Thinking across scale is an essential skill in Big

History. Students are required to consider the scales from the immense (the massive

expanse of the Universe), to the minuscule (the smallest of atoms). Students develop this

skill throughout the course in the context of historical, social, and scientific events.

• Energy and matter: flows, cycles, and conservation – In the beginning of Big History,

students use this crosscutting concept to understand how the Universe came to be.

• Stability and change – Exploring the conditions of stability and change at the intersection

of historical, social, and scientific events is key to following Big History throughout time.

Secondary crosscutting concepts:

• Patterns – Humans’ ability to share, preserve, and build knowledge over time—collective

learning—is a key concept in Big History.

• Systems and systems models – Defining a system with a set of parameters allows for

interrogation of that system model. Students may encounter times when they construct

historical systems in their historical analyses.

• Structure and function – The way an object, molecule, or living thing is shaped impacts

the way it interacts with the world and how it functions. Students may run into this as they

explore objects and events in their Little Big Histories.


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BHP and the Core Ideas

There are three core ideas in the Earth and space sciences (ESS), each with sub-ideas. Although

some of these ideas show up throughout the course, Big History is not intended to replace an

Earth and space sciences course.

• Core Idea ESS1: Earth’s Place in the Universe

• ESS1.A: The Universe and Its Stars [Unit 2/Unit 3]

• ESS1.B: Earth and the Solar System [Unit 4]

• ESS1.C: The History of Planet Earth [Unit 4]

• Core Idea ESS2: Earth’s Systems

• ESS2.A: Earth Materials and Systems

• ESS2.B: Plate Tectonics and Large-Scale System Interactions [Unit 4]

• ESS2.C: The Roles of Water in Earth’s Surface Processes [PBL Unit 7]

• ESS2.D: Weather and Climate [Unit 10]

• ESS2.E: Biogeology [Unit 5]

• Core Idea ESS3: Earth and Human Activity

• ESS3.A: Natural Resources [PBL Unit]

• ESS3.B: Natural Hazards [Unit 10]

• ESS3.C: Human Impacts on Earth Systems

• ESS3.D: Global Climate Change

In addition to being relevant to Earth and space science core ideas, Big History Units 5 and 6 also

cover core ideas from life sciences (LS), specifically LS4: Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity.


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Conclusion

The Big History Project was designed to support the latest research in learning and teaching,

which naturally brings it into alignment with a broad range of national, state, and institutional

level standards and classroom practices. We have been asked, by teachers and administrators

alike, to show how BHP aligns to individual state standards. Although far from comprehensive,

this document (together with other state-level documentation for both the United States

and Australia), is meant to provide a view into that alignment. For more information, visit the

Big History Community site. If you have specific questions, feel free to contact us at help@

bighistoryproject.com.