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Illinois standards alignment

Designed for high school. Below is every Illinoisstandard these courses cover: the exact code, the standard's own words, and the lesson that covers it. Where we only cover part of a standard, it says so, and says which part.

37
standards mapped
18
fully covered
19
partially covered
7
frameworks

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Read this before you rely on it

  • We mapped this ourselves. This alignment was done by Learn.WitUS against the published standards. It has not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by Illinois's education authority or by anyone else.
  • Every code was fetched, then transcribed word for word. Each framework below shows the date its codes and text were retrieved from the publisher.
  • Standards get revised.A code can be renumbered or its wording changed without notice, and some states publish more than one live edition of the same document. Confirm anything you file against your own jurisdiction's current requirements, using the source links below.
  • We would rather claim less. Where the courses only partly cover a standard, this page says partially covered and explains the gap. Standards we considered and could not honestly claim are listed at the bottom, with the reasons.

Illinois · Social Studies

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science — Civics, High School (SS.CV)

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science, Grades 9-12 (2017) · Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) · retrieved 2026-07-18

Illinois's high-school Civics strand states disciplinary concepts, not course benchmarks — no standard names a state's structure. The Illinois Civics flagship (written from Illinois's own sources) therefore maps onto the institution and participation standards (SS.CV.1, SS.CV.2, SS.CV.3), and the general U.S. civics ladder onto the constitutional-system standards (SS.CV.4, SS.CV.7, SS.CV.10). Illinois's own structure — the plural executive, the Cutback Amendment, home rule — has no code that names it; see notClaimed.

Read the source document →

  • SS.CV.1.9-12

    Covered
    Distinguish the rights, roles, powers, and responsibilities of individuals and institutions in the political system.

    Covered by

    • · US Civics 101, Lesson 1 · Purpose of government and the three branches
    • · Illinois Civics, Lesson 1 · Illinois's modern Constitution of 1970
    • · Illinois Civics, Lesson 2 · Illinois's plural executive: six statewide officers
    • · Illinois Civics, Lesson 3 · The General Assembly and the partisan-elected Supreme Court
    • · Illinois Civics, Lesson 5 · Home rule and local government (the opposite of Dillon's Rule)
    • · Citizenship & Naturalization Basics, Lesson 7 · Rights and responsibilities of citizenship

    Note: The roles and powers of institutions are taught head-on at both levels: the federal three branches, and Illinois's own institutions — the plural executive of six statewide officers, the General Assembly, the partisan-elected courts, and Illinois's strong home-rule local governments — beside citizens' own roles and responsibilities.

  • SS.CV.2.9-12

    Covered
    Evaluate the opportunities and limitations of participation in elections, voting, and electoral process.

    Covered by

    • · Illinois Civics, Lesson 6 · Elections and how to take part
    • · Illinois Civics, Lesson 4 · The limited citizen initiative and the 1980 Cutback Amendment
    • · Voting & Elections 101, Lessons 1-3 · registration, primaries and caucuses, how you vote
    • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 7 · Counting, canvassing, and certifying the vote
    • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 8 · Verify your own registration and rules
    • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 1 · Registering to vote
    • · How to Help a Campaign · the whole course (volunteering, donating, canvassing, with the legal guardrails)

    Note: Participation is taught as practice — Illinois's own on-ramps (same-day and automatic registration, no-excuse vote-by-mail) and the general election ladder — and the standard's “limitations” land squarely on Illinois's uniquely narrow initiative, the only thing citizens may put on the ballot themselves.

  • SS.CV.4.9-12

    Covered
    Explain how the US Constitution established a system of government that has powers, responsibilities, and limits that have changed over time and are still contested while promoting the common good and protecting rights.

    Covered by

    • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 6 · Separation of powers and checks & balances
    • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 7 · Federalism: state and federal power
    • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 2 · Three kinds of power: enumerated, implied, reserved
    • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 3 · The enumerated powers: Article I, § 8 (the Necessary and Proper Clause)
    • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 6 · Concurrent powers: what both levels share
    • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 7 · McCulloch v. Maryland (1819): implied powers and supremacy
    • · US Constitution 101, Lessons 2-9 · the Constitution analyzed article by article
    • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 8 · The Bill of Rights (Amendments I to X)
    • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 1 · What is federalism, and why split power at all?

    Note: The U.S. Constitution ladder's core: separation of powers and checks and balances, the enumerated/implied/reserved/concurrent powers taxonomy, federalism, and the Bill of Rights as a limit on government — taught as a living, contested system.

  • SS.CV.7.9-12

    Covered
    Describe the concepts and principles that are inherent to American Constitutional Democracy.

    Covered by

    • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 6 · Separation of powers and checks & balances
    • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 7 · Federalism: state and federal power
    • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 1 · What is federalism, and why split power at all?
    • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 2 · The Preamble: who, and why
    • · The Bill of Rights: Know Your Rights, Lesson 1 · What is the Bill of Rights?

  • SS.CV.10.9-12

    Covered
    Explain the role of compromise and deliberation in the legislative process.

    Covered by

    • · How a Bill Becomes Law (Federal) · the whole course, introduction to public law
    • · US Civics 101, Lesson 3 · How a bill becomes a law
    • · How a Bill Becomes Law, Lesson 8 · Tracking a bill and making your voice heard

    Note: The federal bill-to-law process is taught end to end — committee filter, floor deliberation, conference reconciliation, veto and override, the compromise the standard names — with a companion lesson tracking a live bill through it.

  • SS.CV.3.9-12

    Partially covered
    Analyze the impact of constitutions, laws, and agreements on the maintenance of order, justice, equality and liberty.

    Covered by

    • · Illinois Civics, Lesson 1 · Illinois's modern Constitution of 1970
    • · Illinois Civics, Lesson 2 · Illinois's plural executive: six statewide officers
    • · Illinois Civics, Lesson 3 · The General Assembly and the partisan-elected Supreme Court
    • · US Constitution 101, Lessons 2-9 · the Constitution analyzed article by article
    • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 1 · Why a constitution? From the Articles of Confederation
    • · Know Your Rights, Lessons 2-5 · speech, religion, press, assembly, including at school and online
    • · Know Your Rights, Lessons 6-8 · the 4th Amendment: searches, stops, and your digital life
    • · Know Your Rights, Lesson 2 · Freedom of speech: what's protected, and what isn't
    • · Know Your Rights, Lesson 5 · Speech and religion at school, and online
    • · Know Your Rights, Lesson 7 · Police stops, reasonable suspicion, and your privacy

    What we do and don't cover: Constitutions and laws are analyzed directly — Illinois's 1970 Constitution and the U.S. Constitution as a document, with landmark cases as applied rules balancing liberty and order. The standard's “agreements” (treaties and compacts) are not the courses' subject.

  • SS.CV.8.9-12

    Partially covered
    Analyze how individuals use and challenge laws to address a variety of public issues.

    Covered by

    • · How a Bill Becomes Law, Lesson 8 · Tracking a bill and making your voice heard
    • · Know Your Rights, Lessons 2-5 · speech, religion, press, assembly, including at school and online
    • · Know Your Rights, Lessons 6-8 · the 4th Amendment: searches, stops, and your digital life
    • · Know Your Rights, Lesson 2 · Freedom of speech: what's protected, and what isn't
    • · Know Your Rights, Lesson 5 · Speech and religion at school, and online
    • · Know Your Rights, Lesson 7 · Police stops, reasonable suspicion, and your privacy
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 16 · The colour bar: unions' own history of exclusion
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 17 · Randolph to Memphis: the labor half of the civil-rights movement

    What we do and don't cover: How individuals use and challenge laws is taught by example — invoking rights through the landmark-case line, tracking a live bill, and the labor and civil-rights movements' use of law and protest — not as a general survey of every avenue.

  • SS.CV.9.9-12

    Partially covered
    Evaluate public policies in terms of intended and unintended outcomes and related consequences.

    Covered by

    • · How a Bill Becomes Law, Lesson 8 · Tracking a bill and making your voice heard
    • · Ep 18 · Bolivia's Bet (Bolivia's legal coca model against U.S.-funded eradication)
    • · Ep 18 · The Balloon Effect
    • · Ep 17 · Where the Poppy Grows (Afghanistan and the Golden Crescent)
    • · Ep 16 · The Justice Gap
    • · Ep 17 · The Scott County Lesson
    • · Ep 17 · Treatment Versus Punishment

    What we do and don't cover: Taught through one worked domain — drug policy — evaluated for unintended consequences: the War on Drugs' foreign-policy and incarceration effects, and how a needle-exchange ban helped drive the Scott County HIV outbreak. Not a general public-policy-analysis unit.

Illinois · Social Studies

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science — History, High School (SS.H)

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science, Grades 9-12 (2017) · Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) · retrieved 2026-07-18

Illinois's History strand is stated as historical-thinking concepts (causation, sources, the struggle for justice) rather than an era survey, which is where the catalog's commodity, labor, civil-rights, and Cold-War history maps.

Read the source document →

  • SS.H.3.9-12

    Covered
    Evaluate the methods utilized by people and institutions to promote change.

    Covered by

    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 4 · Two ideas about who a union is for: the Knights and the AFL
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 5 · Haymarket, 1886
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 6 · Homestead, Pullman, and the weapon that actually broke strikes
    • · Poland: Solidarność, Lesson 3 · A workers' state with a worker problem
    • · Poland: Solidarność, Lesson 7 · 13 December 1981: the state answers (martial law)
    • · Poland: Solidarność, Lesson 8 · 1989: a union negotiates a state out of existence
    • · Ep 4 · The Triangular Trade and the Middle Passage
    • · Ep 4 · Resistance and Revolution
    • · Ep 11 · The Maroons
    • · Ep 11 · The Haitian Revolution
    • · Ep 11 · The Debt of Freedom
    • · Ep 11 · The Black Jacobins (C.L.R. James)

    Note: The methods of change are taught in depth: the Gilded Age labor movement's strikes and organizing, Solidarność undoing a communist state, and resistance to slavery from Maroon communities to the Haitian Revolution.

  • SS.H.7.9-12

    Covered
    Identify the role of individuals, groups, and institutions in people’s struggle for safety, freedom, equality and justice.

    Covered by

    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 16 · The colour bar: unions' own history of exclusion
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 17 · Randolph to Memphis: the labor half of the civil-rights movement
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 4 · Two ideas about who a union is for: the Knights and the AFL
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 5 · Haymarket, 1886
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 6 · Homestead, Pullman, and the weapon that actually broke strikes
    • · Ep 4 · The Triangular Trade and the Middle Passage
    • · Ep 4 · Resistance and Revolution
    • · Ep 11 · The Maroons
    • · Ep 11 · The Haitian Revolution
    • · Ep 11 · The Debt of Freedom
    • · Ep 11 · The Black Jacobins (C.L.R. James)
    • · The Great Migration, Lesson 11 · Politics & civil rights

    Note: Directly the catalog's spine: A. Philip Randolph and the labor half of the civil-rights movement, the industrial labor movement, enslaved people's resistance and the Haitian Revolution, and the Great Migration's political power.

  • SS.H.9.9-12

    Covered
    Analyze the relationship between historical sources and the secondary interpretations made from them.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 4 · Whose Voice Tells the Story, Beckford (1790) against Equiano (1789) and Mary Prince (1831) on the same plantation world
    • · Ep 3 · Two Ways of Seeing a Bean
    • · Ep 5 · Two Ways of Knowing
    • · Ep 18 · Whose Voice
    • · Ep 10 · The Oral History That Survived (recovering Nathan “Nearest” Green's erased role)
    • · Ep 19 · Peer Review Versus Press Release
    • · Every course's Sources bibliography, with per-claim verification
    • · Ep 4 · Whose Voice Tells the Story

    Note: Exactly the Whose Voice method: primary accounts read against each other and against the secondary record, and the Nathan “Nearest” Green lesson teaching why the oral and documentary records diverge — source and interpretation held apart on purpose.

  • SS.H.1.9-12

    Partially covered
    Evaluate how historical developments were shaped by time and place as well as broader historical contexts.

    Covered by

    • · The Commodity Map itself, every episode pinned at its origin
    • · The Growing Belts map, production regions by latitude band and country
    • · Ep 1 · The Coffee Belt: Where Coffee Grows and Why
    • · Ep 3 · The Cacao Tree and the Narrowest Belt
    • · Ep 6 · Why Volcanic Soil Only
    • · Ep 1 · Climate Change Is Redrawing the Map
    • · Ep 3 · A Two-Degree Threat
    • · Ep 10 · Karst Limestone and Bourbon
    • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option B, assess a producing country's climate viability and defend the assessment
    • · Ep 3 · Conquest and the Great Reversal
    • · Ep 4 · The Triangular Trade and the Middle Passage
    • · Ep 11 · The Triangular Trade
    • · Ep 12 · Burning the Books (the destruction of the Mesoamerican codices)
    • · Ep 15 · From Sacred to Commodity
    • · Ep 2 · The Tea Plant and Its Climate Zones
    • · Ep 3 · The Big Producers and the Cacao Varieties
    • · Ep 4 · From New Guinea to the New World

    What we do and don't cover: Taught as the series' method — how climate, latitude, and place shaped where commodities grew and what happened there (the Columbian Exchange, the agricultural hearths) — that lens applied to commodity history, not a general survey of causation.

  • SS.H.8.9-12

    Partially covered
    Analyze key historical events and contributions of individuals through a variety of perspectives, including those of historically underrepresented groups.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 4 · The Triangular Trade and the Middle Passage
    • · Ep 4 · Whose Voice Tells the Story (Equiano, 1789; Mary Prince, 1831)
    • · The Great Migration, Lesson 6 · The Black press as engine: the Chicago Defender
    • · The Great Migration, Lesson 7 · The Harlem Renaissance & the New Negro
    • · Ep 4 · Whose Voice Tells the Story, Beckford (1790) against Equiano (1789) and Mary Prince (1831) on the same plantation world
    • · Ep 3 · Two Ways of Seeing a Bean
    • · Ep 5 · Two Ways of Knowing
    • · Ep 18 · Whose Voice

    What we do and don't cover: Underrepresented perspectives are centered — formerly enslaved writers (Equiano, Mary Prince) on the Middle Passage and plantation, the Harlem Renaissance and the Black press — but as commodity and labor history, not a comprehensive multi-perspective survey.

  • SS.H.10.9-12

    Partially covered
    Analyze the causes and effects of global conflicts and economic crises.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 17 · The Opium Wars
    • · Ep 17 · Lin Zexu's Letter
    • · Poland: Solidarność, Lesson 3 · A workers' state with a worker problem
    • · Poland: Solidarność, Lesson 7 · 13 December 1981: the state answers (martial law)
    • · Poland: Solidarność, Lesson 8 · 1989: a union negotiates a state out of existence

    What we do and don't cover: Taught through two worked cases — the Opium Wars and their long consequences for China, and the Cold War's end in Poland — rather than as a survey of global conflicts and crises.

Illinois · Social Studies

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science — Economics and Financial Literacy, High School (SS.EC)

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science, Grades 9-12 (2017) · Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) · retrieved 2026-07-18

The BVC series supplies the Economics strand through real commodity markets — scarcity and incentives, market regulation, trade, and globalization. Illinois's Financial Literacy sub-strand (SS.EC.FL) is not taught here; see notClaimed.

Read the source document →

  • SS.EC.10.9-12

    Covered
    Explain how globalization trends and policies affect social, political, and economic conditions in different nations.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 3 · The Commodity Trap
    • · Ep 7 · Who Captures the Value
    • · Ep 21 · The Smile Curve, Confirmed
    • · Ep 3 · Conquest and the Great Reversal
    • · Ep 5 · How Coca-Cola Got Its Name (biopiracy)
    • · Ep 7 · The Same Story, Six Times
    • · Ep 11 · The Debt of Freedom (the 1825 French indemnity and Haiti's modern poverty)
    • · Mexico, Lesson 7 · Mexico rewrites its labor law, and the 68-year gap that explains why
    • · Mexico, Lesson 10 · The Rapid Response Mechanism: an international labor rule with teeth
    • · Mexico, Lesson 12 · The limits, honestly: the cases the United States lost

    Note: Globalization's effects are traced through real chains — the commodity trap that keeps producing nations poor, how colonial patterns persist, and NAFTA→USMCA's effect on labor on both sides of the border.

  • SS.EC.1.9-12

    Partially covered
    Analyze how scarcity and incentives influence choices to consume or produce for different individuals and groups.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 5 · The Reciprocity Economy
    • · Ep 6 · Ceremony Meets the Market
    • · Ep 7 · Two Ways of Doing Economics
    • · Ep 1 · Price Shocks and Why You Keep Buying
    • · Ep 4 · From Luxury to the Cheapest Calorie

    What we do and don't cover: Scarcity and incentives are taught through real commodity markets — reciprocity versus market economies, and inelastic coffee demand absorbing a price spike — not as a general choice-and-incentives unit.

  • SS.EC.5.9-12

    Partially covered
    Analyze the ways in which competition and government regulation influence what is produced and distributed in a market system.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 4 · The Hidden Costs of Cheap Sugar
    • · Ep 1 · Follow the Money: Bean to Cup
    • · Ep 2 · Who Gets Paid, Tea and Coffee Compared
    • · Ep 3 · The Commodity Trap
    • · Ep 12 · The Jimador's Share
    • · Ep 14 · Pattern 3: Labor Captures the Smallest Share (the smile curve)
    • · Ep 21 · The Smile Curve, Confirmed

    What we do and don't cover: Worked through the U.S. sugar program — how quotas, tariffs, and price supports reshape what is grown, imported, and sold, and who captures the value. One case, not a general treatment of market structure.

  • SS.EC.9.9-12

    Partially covered
    Analyze the role of comparative advantage in global trade of goods and services.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 1 · Follow the Money: Bean to Cup
    • · Ep 2 · Who Gets Paid, Tea and Coffee Compared
    • · Ep 3 · The Commodity Trap
    • · Ep 12 · The Jimador's Share
    • · Ep 14 · Pattern 3: Labor Captures the Smallest Share (the smile curve)
    • · Ep 21 · The Smile Curve, Confirmed
    • · The Commodity Map itself, every episode pinned at its origin
    • · The Growing Belts map, production regions by latitude band and country
    • · Ep 1 · The Coffee Belt: Where Coffee Grows and Why
    • · Ep 3 · The Cacao Tree and the Narrowest Belt
    • · Ep 6 · Why Volcanic Soil Only

    What we do and don't cover: The geography of who produces what and who earns from it is the series' spine (coffee, sugar, chocolate), but comparative advantage as a named formal model is not taught.

Illinois · Social Studies

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science — Geography, High School (SS.G)

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science, Grades 9-12 (2017) · Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) · retrieved 2026-07-18

The BVC Commodity Map's climate-and-place, migration, and globalization work maps onto Illinois's human- and environmental-geography standards.

Read the source document →

  • SS.G.8.9-12

    Covered
    Evaluate how short and long term climate variability impacts human migration and settlement patterns, resource use and land uses.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 1 · Climate Change Is Redrawing the Map
    • · Ep 3 · A Two-Degree Threat
    • · Ep 6 · Why Volcanic Soil Only
    • · Ep 10 · Karst Limestone and Bourbon
    • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option B, assess a producing country's climate viability and defend the assessment
    • · Ep 6 · Islands Under Pressure
    • · Ep 8 · Beer Geography Is Shifting
    • · The Commodity Map itself, every episode pinned at its origin
    • · The Growing Belts map, production regions by latitude band and country
    • · Ep 1 · The Coffee Belt: Where Coffee Grows and Why
    • · Ep 3 · The Cacao Tree and the Narrowest Belt

    Note: This is the Growing Belts map: climate and latitude deciding where each commodity can grow and be settled, and climate change redrawing that map for coffee, cacao, and more.

  • SS.G.12.9-12

    Covered
    Evaluate how competition for scarce natural resources contributes to conflict and cooperation within and among countries.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 17 · The Opium Wars
    • · Ep 17 · Lin Zexu's Letter
    • · Ep 2 · Who Grows the Tea (colonial and plantation labour)
    • · Ep 5 · Whose Knowledge Is It
    • · Ep 6 · Kava Governs
    • · Ep 20 · The Ban Against the Evidence
    • · Ep 3 · Conquest and the Great Reversal
    • · Ep 5 · How Coca-Cola Got Its Name (biopiracy)
    • · Ep 7 · The Same Story, Six Times
    • · Ep 11 · The Debt of Freedom (the 1825 French indemnity and Haiti's modern poverty)

    Note: Competition for commodities as a driver of conflict is taught directly — European imperialism run through cash crops, and the Opium Wars fought over trade — with the colonial patterns that outlast them.

  • SS.G.6.9-12

    Partially covered
    Analyze how historical events and the diffusion of ideas, technologies, and cultural practices have influenced migration patterns and the distribution of human population.

    Covered by

    • · The Great Migration, Lesson 4 · Routes and railroads: the three streams
    • · The Great Migration, Lesson 5 · Arrival: Chicago, Detroit, New York, and the Pacific Northwest
    • · The Great Migration, Lesson 9 · Faith, family & mutual aid
    • · Ep 1 · The Coffee Belt: Where Coffee Grows and Why
    • · Ep 2 · The Tea Plant and Its Climate Zones
    • · Ep 3 · The Big Producers and the Cacao Varieties
    • · Ep 4 · From New Guinea to the New World

    What we do and don't cover: Taught at case depth through the Great Migration — its streams and arrival cities — and the diffusion of crops from their agricultural hearths. Not a general treatment of migration and population.

  • SS.G.11.9-12

    Partially covered
    Explain how globalization impacts the cultural, political, economic, and environmental characteristics of a place or region.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 3 · The Commodity Trap
    • · Ep 7 · Who Captures the Value
    • · Ep 21 · The Smile Curve, Confirmed
    • · Ep 1 · Follow the Money: Bean to Cup
    • · Ep 2 · Who Gets Paid, Tea and Coffee Compared
    • · Ep 12 · The Jimador's Share
    • · Ep 14 · Pattern 3: Labor Captures the Smallest Share (the smile curve)
    • · Ep 3 · Conquest and the Great Reversal
    • · Ep 5 · How Coca-Cola Got Its Name (biopiracy)
    • · Ep 7 · The Same Story, Six Times
    • · Ep 11 · The Debt of Freedom (the 1825 French indemnity and Haiti's modern poverty)

    What we do and don't cover: Globalization's economic and political imprint on producing regions is taught through commodity case studies — value capture along the chain and the commodity trap — rather than a full four-characteristics analysis.

Illinois · Social Studies

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science — Inquiry Skills, High School (SS.IS)

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science, Grades 9-12 (2017) · Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) · retrieved 2026-07-18

Illinois threads Inquiry Skills through every social-science discipline; the catalog's media-literacy method and the Coffee project's sourced research map onto the source-evaluation and evidence standards.

Read the source document →

  • SS.IS.4.9-12

    Covered
    Gather and evaluate information from multiple sources while considering the origin, credibility, point of view, authority, structure, context, and corroborative value of the sources.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 19 · Peer Review Versus Press Release
    • · Every course's Sources bibliography, with per-claim verification
    • · Ep 1 · Reading a Coffee Ad
    • · Ep 2 · Reading a Tea Ad
    • · Ep 3 · Reading a Chocolate Ad
    • · Ep 4 · Whose Voice Tells the Story (reading a text for what it leaves out)
    • · Ep 11 · Tiki and the Tropical Paradise
    • · Ep 15 · The Language of Doubt
    • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option B, 3+ peer-reviewed sources and an APA bibliography
    • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option C, interview ethics: informed consent, right to review
    • · Spotting Misleading Marketing, Lesson 3 · Weasel words and what the fine print takes back
    • · Spotting Misleading Marketing, Lesson 5 · Fake reviews, astroturfing, and undisclosed #ads

    Note: Source evaluation — origin, credibility, point of view, corroboration — is modelled in every media-literacy episode and required in the Coffee project's sourced, cited research.

  • SS.IS.5.9-12

    Partially covered
    Identify evidence that draws information from multiple sources to revise or strengthen claims.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 15 · Doubt Is Our Product
    • · Ep 19 · Peer Review Versus Press Release
    • · Ep 20 · The Ban Against the Evidence (the UK banning khat against its own scientific advice)
    • · Ep 1 · Assignment, all four options are 2-3 week research projects requiring synthesis across sources

    What we do and don't cover: Building and testing claims against multiple sources is taught through the fallacy-and-evidence lessons and the Coffee project's synthesis. Only the Coffee episode ships the graded version.

  • SS.IS.6.9-12

    Partially covered
    Construct and evaluate explanations and arguments using multiple sources and relevant, verified information.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option D, a 1,200-1,500 word research paper with a required counterargument section
    • · Ep 1 · Assignment, all four options are 2-3 week research projects requiring synthesis across sources
    • · Ep 4 · Blood-Sweetened Luxury (the abolitionist sugar boycott)
    • · Ep 8 · Selling Prohibition
    • · Ep 15 · Torches of Freedom
    • · Ep 17 · Lin Zexu's Letter (using Britain's own values against its opium policy)

    What we do and don't cover: The Coffee project's argument paper asks for exactly this — a thesis defended from verified, cited sources with a counterargument — but it is one optional project in one episode, not a programme.

Illinois · English/Language Arts

Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy

Grades 11-12 · Common Core State Standards Initiative · retrieved 2026-07-13

The Illinois State Board of Education adopted the Common Core State Standards for English language arts and mathematics on June 24, 2010, as the Illinois Learning Standards (the “New Illinois Learning Standards Incorporating the Common Core”), with full implementation in 2013-14. Illinois incorporated the CCSS text verbatim under the same code numbering, so the RH/RI/WHST literacy strands this catalog touches are Illinois's ELA standards. We claim no mathematics standards.

Read the source document →

Illinois · Science

Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)

HS-ESS1 Earth's Place in the Universe; HS-ESS2 Earth's Systems; HS-ESS3 Earth and Human Activity · NGSS Lead States / nextgenscience.org · retrieved 2026-08-10

Illinois was an NGSS lead state. ISBE adopted the Next Generation Science Standards as the Illinois Learning Standards in science in January 2014 (effective February 27, 2014, full implementation 2016-17), using the NGSS performance-expectation codes verbatim. This is not a science course, so we claim exactly one NGSS performance expectation, partially — see the note on it.

Read the source document →

  • HS-ESS1-3

    Covered
    Communicate scientific ideas about the way stars, over their life cycle, produce elements.

    Covered by

    • · 7 · Reading a star: the HR diagram
    • · 13 · What stars make

    Note: Lesson 13 is this expectation. It gives the mechanism without equations (hydrogen to helium, heavier elements as the core contracts and heats, the stop at iron because fusion past it no longer releases net energy, and the extreme conditions of stellar death for what comes after), and then sets out the four independent lines of evidence that support it. Communicating the idea IS the lesson, which is why this one is full rather than partial.

  • HS-ESS2-2

    Partially covered
    Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth's surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.

    Covered by

    • · 2 · Where a river's water comes from
    • · 6 · Sediment, and what a dam does to it
    • · 9 · Why the oxygen runs out
    • · 10 · A thousand miles of nitrogen

    What we do and don't cover: The best NGSS fit in the catalog for a feedback argument. The River and the Watershed is built out of them: paving a watershed raises flood peaks AND lowers baseflow through one mechanism (lesson 2); a dam trapping sediment starves the channel below and stops resupplying the delta a thousand miles away (lesson 6); fertiliser on an Indiana field ends as an oxygen-depleted zone in the Gulf (lessons 9 and 10). PARTIAL because of the first verb: the learner ANALYZES geoscience data only in the capstone, where they read a USGS gauge record and an EPA impairment listing for their own watershed. The lessons supply the analysis; the student repeats it once.

  • HS-ESS2-5

    Partially covered
    Plan and conduct an investigation of the properties of water and its effects on Earth materials and surface processes.

    Covered by

    • · 5 · The river shapes the land
    • · 6 · Sediment, and what a dam does to it
    • · 9 · Why the oxygen runs out

    What we do and don't cover: PARTIAL, and the gap is the entire first half of the sentence. The CONTENT is taught directly and at length: water's properties drive erosion and deposition, meanders, cut banks and point bars (lesson 5), sediment transport and what a dam does to it (lesson 6), and density stratification, which is why the Gulf hypoxic zone persists through the summer (lesson 9). But the learner never PLANS AND CONDUCTS AN INVESTIGATION. There is no laboratory work in this catalog and no fieldwork is required to finish this course. If your science requirement is assessed on students conducting investigations, this contributes and does not discharge. Course 4 of this track teaches how to design one; running it is still the student's own project.

  • HS-ESS1-2

    Partially covered
    Construct an explanation of the Big Bang theory based on astronomical evidence of light spectra, motion of distant galaxies, and composition of matter in the universe.

    Covered by

    • · 5 · Light itself
    • · 11 · Redshift and an expanding universe
    • · 12 · The Hubble tension
    • · 16 · Capstone: trace a number down the ladder

    What we do and don't cover: The strongest CONTENT match in this catalog: the performance expectation names light spectra, the motion of distant galaxies, and the composition of matter, and those are lessons 5, 11 and 13 of How We Know What's Out There. PARTIAL, and the missing piece is the practice rather than the content: the course supplies and examines the evidence, and the student is asked to construct an explanation only in the graded capstone, where they trace a published number down the chain of inference. If your science requirement is assessed on the three-dimensional NGSS performance, this contributes to it and does not discharge it.

  • HS-ESS1-1

    Partially covered
    Develop a model based on evidence to illustrate the life span of the sun and the role of nuclear fusion in the sun's core to release energy that eventually reaches Earth in the form of radiation.

    Covered by

    • · 7 · Reading a star: the HR diagram
    • · 13 · What stars make

    What we do and don't cover: PARTIAL, and the gap is the verb. Fusion as the sun's energy source and the arc of a star's life are taught (lessons 7 and 13, via the main sequence and stellar evolution), but the student never DEVELOPS A MODEL, which is the performance the expectation actually requires. Do not round this up.

  • HS-ESS3-1

    Partially covered
    Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 1 · Climate Change Is Redrawing the Map
    • · Ep 3 · A Two-Degree Threat
    • · Ep 6 · Why Volcanic Soil Only
    • · Ep 10 · Karst Limestone and Bourbon
    • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option B, assess a producing country's climate viability and defend the assessment

    What we do and don't cover: Read this one carefully before you rely on it. This is NOT a science course, it has no laboratory work, no investigations and no scientific modelling. What it does have is precisely the content of HS-ESS3-1: resource availability and climate change shaping what humans do and where. The lessons supply the evidence; the STUDENT constructs the explanation only in the Coffee project (Option B). If your science requirement is assessed on the three-dimensional NGSS performance, this contributes to it, it does not discharge it.

What we don't claim

A standards page is only worth reading if the omissions are honest too. We looked at these and left them out:

  • Mathematics — nothing. This catalog does no mathematics instruction, so it meets no Illinois Common Core (Illinois Learning Standards) mathematics standard.
  • Science — one partial claim, via the shared NGSS file. Illinois adopted the NGSS verbatim (January 2014) as its science standards, so our one honest science claim — HS-ESS3-1, partial — comes through the shared NGSS mapping with the limit stated on the entry. There is no laboratory work, investigation, or modelling in this catalog, and we will not claim more.
  • Financial Literacy (SS.EC.FL) — nothing. Illinois's Economics strand carries a six-standard Financial Literacy sub-strand (income strategies, budgeting, interest and inflation, credit, investing, insurance). This catalog teaches no personal finance, so it claims none of SS.EC.FL.1-6.
  • The Illinois Civics flagship's Illinois-specific structure has no Illinois code to cite. Illinois Civics teaches the 1970 Constitution, the plural executive (uniquely both a Comptroller and a Treasurer), the partisan-elected Supreme Court, the uniquely narrow Legislative-Article initiative and the 1980 Cutback Amendment, and one of the nation's strongest home-rule traditions — from Illinois's own official sources. But the 2017 Social Science Standards are DISCIPLINARY CONCEPTS: no standard names a state's structure, so these lessons map only onto the abstract institution and participation standards (SS.CV.1, SS.CV.2, SS.CV.3). The gap is in the standards, not the course.
  • Civics standards we checked and rejected. SS.CV.5 (civic dispositions and diverse perspectives as a named concept) and SS.CV.6 (political parties, the media, and public interest groups — our media literacy is consumer protection, not political-media analysis) are not genuinely taught, so we do not claim them.
  • The disciplinary standards we read and did not claim. Across History, Economics, and Geography we claim only the concept standards the catalog genuinely teaches. SS.H.2/4/5/6/11/12, SS.EC.2-4/6-8, and SS.G.1-5/7/9/10 were checked and not claimed — the change-and-continuity, market-mechanics, macroeconomic-indicator, mapping-tool, and culture standards are not this catalog's subject. The reject list is the evidence the map was not padded.

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