This report summarizes results from the 1994 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), specifically those results concerning geography and U. S. history. The 1994 NAEP asked 4th-, 8th-, and 12th-grade students a series of questions designed to assess their knowledge level and skills applications in specific subjects. This report provides an in-depth look at the type of tasks that made up the assessments in geography and U. S. history and how the students performed on those tasks. It makes extensive use of examples of student work and of exercise-level statistics in examining performance in different skills areas and on particular assessment exercises. Specific attention is given to the ways that students use the tools and resources of history and geography. The questions reflected the content and cognitive dimensions deemed essential for an understanding of these subjects. One content dimension included four themes: change and continuity in U.S. democracy: ideas, institutions, practices, and controversies; the gathering and interaction of peoples, cultures, and ideas; economic and technological changes and their relation to society, ideas, and the environment; and the changing role of the United States in the world. A second content dimension covers eight time periods: Three Worlds and Their Meeting in the Americas (beginnings to 1607); Colonization, Settlement, and Communities (1607 to 1763); The Revolution and the New Nation (1763 to 1815); Expansion and Reform (1801 to 1861); Crisis of the Union: Civil War and Reconstruction (1850 to 1877); Development of Modern America (1865 to 1920); Modern America and the World Wars (1914 to 1945); and Contemporary America (1945 to present). At every grade, the overall geography performance of males was higher than that of females; however, in U.S. history overall performances for males and females was significantly different at 12th grade only where males slightly outperformed females. In both subject areas, the performance of White students was higher than that of Black or Hispanic students. (MJP)

Chronicles the history of the world from 1600 to 1850; discussing important events and prominent figures. Includes maps and illustrations.

A history of the ancient world, from 6000 B.C. to 400 A.D.

Winner of the 2003 Trillium Book Award "Stories are wondrous things," award-winning author and scholar Thomas King declares in his 2003 CBC Massey Lectures. "And they are dangerous." Beginning with a traditional Native oral story, King weaves his way through literature and history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest, gracefully elucidating North America's relationship with its Native peoples. Native culture has deep ties to storytelling, and yet no other North American culture has been the subject of more erroneous stories. The Indian of fact, as King says, bears little resemblance to the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the construct so powerfully and often destructively projected by White North America. With keen perception and wit, King illustrates that stories are the key to, and only hope for, human understanding. He compels us to listen well.

Presents a history of the ancient world, from 6000 B.C. to 400 A.D.

A one-voume reference to the history of ideas that is a compendium of everything that humankind has thought, invented, created, considered, and perfected from the beginning of civilization into the twenty-first century. Massive in its scope, and yet totally accessible, A HISTORY OF KNOWLEDGE covers not only all the great theories and discoveries of the human race, but also explores the social conditions, political climates, and individual men and women of genius that brought ideas to fruition throughout history. Crystal clear and concise...Explains how humankind got to know what it knows. Clifton Fadiman Selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the History Book Club