Social Studies

At Magruder, Social Studies classes are active learning centers for exploring, researching and building an understanding of the lives of people who have come before us.   Students will get a fuller understanding and multi perspective insight of historic times. Emphasis is placed not just with names and dates but on economics, environment, culture, geography, situational conflicts analyzing causes and effects, and government or ruling policies. These classes are more intensive than what was learned in elementary school.

Magruder students are taught and asked to use their reasoning, research, analyzing and communication skills.   When reading text and communicating (in written or oral formats) students will adhere to the same standards that are used in their ELA classes.

Time periods covered by each grade level are as follows:

6th Grade: Early Man to Ancient Rome

7th Grade: Medieval to Early Modern Times 

8th Grade: United States History through the Civil War

Textbooks
All TUSD middle schools use the same Social Studies textbook series: TCI: History Alive.  
Our teachers have a class set in their rooms. Students are able to take home a hard copy or use the online version at home.  Our teachers strongly encourage the use of the online textbook because of the many extra features it has such as: audio reading of text, Spanish translation, additional support materials like videos and interactive exercises.

Links for further reading:
History-Social Science  California Department of Education (CDE)  main page
History Social Science Content Standards  (CDE) pdf
History Social Science Framework (CDE)