The Alexandria Plan
The Alexandria Plan is Common Core’s curriculum for the teaching of United States and world history. This strategic framework identifies high-quality informational texts and narrative nonfiction that teach students history and promote mastery of the Common Core State Standards for ELA. The history studied complements the best state social studies standards. This four-volume series encompasses Grades K-2 and 3-5 for both United States and world history.
Features of each book include
- Concise Era Summaries that orient both teachers and students to the historical background of an era
- A list of suggested anchor texts that teach an essential aspect of an era
- One text study per era that draws students through a close read of an anchor text with text-dependent questions and writing-based performance assessments
- Learning Expectations that articulate the key ideas, events, facts, and figures to study in a particular grade span
This volume introduces upper elementary students to eighteen key eras in world history, from the discovery of fire to modern globalization, through stories that will captivate readers and inspire curiosity to learn more.
On the Cover : Graffiti on the west side of the Berlin Wall. Photo: Junophoto | Getty
How can art be a form of protest?
Common Core takes advantage of every opportunity to build students’ cultural literacy. That is why the cover of each book we publish is illustrated with an important work of painting, sculpture, or architecture. We select images that we know students will love to look at again and again. These works relate to ideas taken up in the book. The Berlin Wall, constructed in 1961, is the most familiar image of the Cold War. For nearly 20 years it divided the free world from the Communist block, in many cases separating families. Approximately one thousand people died trying to get to freedom on the other side. Citizens on the free side protested the wall, in part, by covering it with graffiti. Meanwhile, on the Communist side, where people were not allowed freedom of expression, the wall remained blank.
Common Core, Inc. (commoncore.org) is a non-profit organization formed in 2007 to advocate for a content-rich liberal arts education in America’s K-12 schools. To improve education in America, Common Core creates curriculum materials, conducts professional development, and also promotes programs, policies, and initiatives at the local, state, and federal levels that provide students with challenging, rigorous instruction in the full range of liberal arts and sciences. Common Core, Inc. is not affiliated with the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
