8th Grade:History Alive! The United States Through Industrialism - TCI

Content
History Alive! The United States Through Industrialism, developed by Teachers’ Curriculum Institute (TCI),
allows students with diverse learning styles to “experience” history. Based on the principles of Multiple
Intelligences, spiral curriculum, and cooperative groupwork, TCI’s powerful teaching strategies offer students
many forms of access to historical content, including solving complex problems in groups, learning social
studies skills in pairs, and reliving key moments in history through experiential exercises. History Alive! The
United States through Industrialism contains twenty nine lessons that tightly integrate classroom activities,
reading passages, and a standards-based assessment. Each lesson revolves around a graphic organizer that helps
students make sense of, and remember, key historical information.
Student Experiences
History Alive! The United States through Industrialism provides students with many opportunities to be
successful in social studies. The program incorporates a variety of teaching strategies and taps into students’
multiple intelligences so that all students, even those who are challenged by linguistic skills, learn and truly
understand important moments in our nation’s history. Because content spirals from basic to more complex,
students are challenged to think critically and often at a higher level than with traditional social studies
programs. A set of color overhead transparencies offers large image stimuli for students who are visual learners.
An audio CD supplies aural inputs for students who learn via musical-rhythmic intelligence. Placards designed
to be posted at stations around the classroom provide students with an opportunity to do
cooperative/collaborative group learning with other students.
Assessment
History Alive! The United States through Industrialism offers a variety of ways to measure students’
understanding of historical content. The Interactive Student Notebook pages can become part of a portfolio
showing a student’s progress through the year. An assessment in the Lesson Guide for each chapter measures
learning of key terms, historical information, and critical thinking issues.
Organization
Each of History Alive! The United States through Industrialism’s twenty nine chapters are sequenced
chronologically and thematically, then arranged into lessons. The lesson starts with an overview, objective, and
material list for the teacher. A simple Preview activity starts off the lesson. This “Preview” is designed to
motivate students and help them drawn on prior knowledge and experience to access the lesson’s content.
Suggested replacement for the next PP: The lesson then employs a graphic organizer found in the student edition
and reading notes in the students’ Interactive Student Notebooks. The graphic organizer gives student a visual
metaphor and inspires them to think carefully about what they have read as they record main ideas in a form that
engages both their visual and linguistic intelligences. Graphic organizers help students see the underlying logic
and interconnections among concepts. Reading notes guide notetaking and lend structure to the chapter reading.
The next element of the lesson uses the Graphic Organizer found in the Student Edition. This provides a visual
metaphor to further organize learning. Reading notes are then distributed to students. These are designed around
the graphic organizer, and guide student note taking. The Reading Notes lend structure to the chapter and help
students understand and record information on the main ideas.
Finally, students participate in a classroom activity based on one of the multiple intelligences. These multiple
intelligence teaching strategies incorporate six types of activities: Social Studies Skill Builder, Experiential
Exercise, Problem Solving Groupwork, Visual Discovery, Response Groups and Writing for Understanding.
Each strategy concludes with a “Processing” assignment that challenges students to use higher order thinking
skills as they reflect on the lesson. These Processing assignments could be essays, poems, advertisements,
annotated diagrams, mosaics, or a host of other differentiated assignments.

Resource Materials
Gratis Items To Be Provided And Under What Conditions
User’s Guide with Reading Toolkit, a CD-Rom of digitized resources of the lesson guides, student notebook,
transparencies, and assessment builder, and Lesson Guides 1 and 2 are provided gratis to each teacher with
purchase of program. In addition, along with each Student Edition purchased, you will receive one Interactive
Student Notebook gratis.
Available Ancillary Materials
There are no ancillary materials with this program.
RESEARCH DATA/EVIDENCE OF EFFECTIVENESS**
The TCI Approach—a series of instructional practices that allows students of all abilities to experience key
social studies concepts—has been implemented by schools throughout the nation. The input gathered from these
schools shows that TCI programs engage students in active learning, provide opportunities for students to use
and improve critical thinking skills, encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning, and are
narrowing the achievement gap. Data suggests that school systems that implement the TCI Approach have seen
a bump in assessment scores rates in history. In a recent study, researchers found that students in History Alive!
classrooms using active learning principles, scored higher in critical thinking tests than their peers in traditional
classrooms. In a Masters thesis study, it was concluded that students in TCI classrooms reported higher levels of
energy and awareness in class. Teachers report higher levels of retention among TCI students and a greater
understanding of broad historical concepts than students taught using a more traditional approach. Objective
third party reports on the effectiveness of TCI products are available upon request.

Basal ISBN 1-58371-401-4
Basal Title:
Publisher:
History Alive! The United States Through Industrialism
Teachers' Curriculum Institute
Basal type: P1 P2 E1 E2
Copyright: 2005
Edition: 1st
Grade(s): K 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Subject:
Readability: 7.04819
Social Studies
Verify that the information above exactly matches the information provided on/in the
basal itself.
Evaluators
Date of evaluation
Is there a Teachers Guide indicated for this ISBN
Directions: Complete one form for each basal resource you review. Evaluate the basal
resource according to the criteria below. First, determine the extent (STRONG
EVIDENCE, MODERATE EVIDENCE, or LITTLE OR NO EVIDENCE) to which the
numbered criteria (1, 2, 3 …) are met by the resource. [Consider the bulleted items in
making this determination.] Based on these initial ratings, assign a rating for the major
sections (A, B, C and D) Use the comment section under each major section to give the
reasons for your ratings. After completing sections A through D, determine whether to
Recommend as a Basal Resource or Not Recommend as a Basal Resource, and
write comments about your decision. Finally complete section E indicating the extent to
which the free-with-purchase/gratis items and the ancillary items as groups (not
individual items) support the basal.
Yes
If any of the major categories A, B, C or D has a rating of Little or No Evidence for the
qualities considered for the category as a whole, Do Not Recommend as Basal.
The rating of major category E should not be considered in determining the rating of the
other four major categories.
Overall Recommendation:
Recommend as BASAL
Overall Strengths, Weaknesses, Comments:

CRITERIA
This basal resource ….
A. Encompasses KY Content Standards and Grade Level Expectations
choose from list
1. Includes the 5 strands of social studies to the following extent: choose from list
Historical Perspective ------------------------choose from list
Geography --------------------------------------choose from list
Economics --------------------------------------choose from list
Government and Civics----------------------choose from list
Cultures and Societies -----------------------choose from list
2. Addresses content-specific enduring understandings * choose from list
3. Addresses content-specific concepts and skills * choose from list
4. Makes explicit connections/ integration among strands choose from list
5. Strengths, Weaknesses, Comments:
* Use the appropriate pages from the Program of Studies for reference.
B. Incorporates Other Related Concepts and Skills choose from list
1. Incorporation of content from subject areas other than social studieschoose from list
• Promotes interdisciplinary teaching and learning through incorporation of skills and content
from other subject areas
2. Balanced and Unbiased Representations of People and Perspectiveschoose from list
• Presents a balanced and unbiased representation of people and perspectives on issues
such as race, ethnicity, gender, religion, environment, business, industry, and political
orientation; is free of stereotyping or bias of any kind
• Reflects the pluralistic, multi-ethnic nature of society, past and present, with a wide variety
of examples in both pictorial and written content
• Is free of factual errors
3. Connections to Literacy choose from list
• Employs a variety of reading levels and is grade/level appropriate
• Provides opportunities for summarizing, reviewing, and reinforcing vocabulary skills and

concepts at multiple levels of difficulty for a variety of learning styles.
• Integrates reading and writing in the student text
• Uses vocabulary that is age and content appropriate
• Identifies key vocabulary through definitions in both text and glossary
4. Connections to Technology choose from list
• Integrates technology and reflects the impact of technological advances
5. Strengths, Weaknesses, Comments:
C. Supports Best Practices of Teaching and Learning choose from list
1. Engages Students choose from list
• Includes content geared to the needs, interests, and abilities of students
• Engages and motivates students using components such as real-life situations, primary
sources, simulations, experiments, and data gathering.
• Includes information and activities that assist students in seeing relevance of concepts to
their own lives and experiences
• Provides a variety of strategies, activities, and materials to enhance student learning at the
appropriate learning levels
2. Promotes Inquiry, Research and Application of Learning choose from list
• Provides opportunities for inquiry and research that includes activities such as self-selecting
topics, formulating authentic questions, gathering information, researching resources,
observing, interviewing, evaluating information, analyzing and synthesizing data, and
communicating findings and conclusions.
• Requires students to use higher-level cognitive skills (analysis, synthesis, evaluation, etc.)
• Provides activities and project for students to deepen their knowledge and cultivate and
strengthen problem-solving and decision-making skills
• Provides opportunities for application of learned concepts
• Uses a variety of relevant charts, graphs, diagrams, time lines, and other illustrations to
invite and motivate students to engage in discussion, problem solving, and other higherorder
thinking skills
• Emphasizes conceptual understandings that invite students to predict, conclude, evaluate,
develop, and extend ideas to support reasoning
3. Uses Assessment to Inform Instruction choose from list
• Includes multiple means of assessment as an integral part of instruction
• Provides evaluation measures in the teacher edition that supports differentiated learning
activities
4. Strengths, Weaknesses, Comments:

D. Has an Organization/ Format that Supports Learning and Teaching
choose from list
• Presents chapters/lessons in an organized and logical sequence
• Provides clearly stated objectives for each lesson.
• Uses text features (e.g., titles, headings, subheadings, review questions, goals, objectives,
space, print, type size, color) to enhance readability.
• Makes use of various forms of media (e.g., CD’s, recordings, videos, cassette tapes,
computer software, web-based components)
• Includes clear, accurate and appropriate illustrations and/or graphics that reinforce content
standards.
• Provides clear explanations of illustrations
• Incorporates a glossary, footnotes, recordings, pictures, and/or tests that aid pupils and
teachers in using the book effectively
• Uses grade-appropriate type size
• Includes user-friendly electronic materials that are easy to operate and allow user control.
(Students can shift among activities.)
• Includes media that are durable, easy to use and have technical merit
• Is accompanied by a teacher’s edition that offers clear and accurate background information
• Is constructed in what appears to be durable and able to withstand normal use
Strengths, Weaknesses, Comments:
E. Has available Ancillary/ Gratis Materials choose from list
• Coordinates teacher resources easily with student material (e.g., accompaniments included,
student pages shown, instructional technology indicated).
• Are well-organized and easy to use
Strengths, Weaknesses, Comments: