Massachusetts standards alignment

• 8.T6.8

  Covered

  Explain the leadership structure of the government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the function of each branch a. the executive branch (governor and agencies) b. the legislative branch (state representatives and state senators) c. courts of law (Supreme Judicial Court, lower court system)

  Covered by

  • Massachusetts Civics: How Your State Government Works

  • · Massachusetts Civics, Lesson 2 · The three branches and the 'General Court'
  • · Massachusetts Civics, Lesson 3 · The Governor's Council and how Massachusetts picks judges

  Note: This is the flagship's home: Massachusetts's own three branches — the General Court (a 160-member House and a 40-member Senate), the plural executive, and the Supreme Judicial Court with its appoint-and-confirm-by-the-Governor's-Council judiciary — are taught in depth as Massachusetts's.

• 8.T6.10

  Covered

  Explain the major components of local government in Massachusetts, including the roles and functions of mayors, city councils, and school committees in cities; town managers, select boards, representative and open town meetings and school committees, in towns, and courts and sheriff’s departments in counties.

  Covered by

  • Massachusetts Civics: How Your State Government Works
  • US, State & Local Government: Who Does What

  • · Massachusetts Civics, Lesson 5 · Local government: towns, cities, and Massachusetts's shrinking counties
  • · Massachusetts Civics, Lesson 6 · Elections and how to take part
  • · US, State & Local Government, Lesson 5 · What LOCAL government handles (and why it VARIES)
  • · US, State & Local Government, Lesson 7 · The governments you forget: special districts & boards

  Note: Massachusetts local government is taught as Massachusetts's: mayors and city councils, town managers and select boards, representative and open town meeting, and the county layer — with the flagship adding the distinctive story of the county governments abolished around 1997–2000.

• 8.T6.1

  Covered

  Compare and contrast the functions of state government and national government.

  Covered by

  • State vs Federal Power: How American Government Is Divided
  • US, State & Local Government: Who Does What

  • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 1 · What is federalism, and why split power at all?
  • · US, State & Local Government, Lesson 5 · What LOCAL government handles (and why it VARIES)
  • · US, State & Local Government, Lesson 7 · The governments you forget: special districts & boards

  Note: The division of functions between state and nation is taught head-on in a dedicated federalism course, and the responsibilities of state and local government get their own lessons.

• 8.T6.5

  Covered

  Explain why the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is important to state government and identify the powers granted to states by the Tenth Amendment and the limits to state government outlined in it.

  Covered by

  • State vs Federal Power: How American Government Is Divided

  • · 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
  • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 1 · What is federalism, and why split power at all?

  Note: The Tenth Amendment and reserved powers are taught by name as part of the powers taxonomy, in the course that works why power is divided between state and nation.

• 8.T2.2

  Covered

  Analyze the weaknesses of the national government under the Articles of Confederation; and describe the crucial events (e.g., Shays’ Rebellion) leading to the Constitutional Convention.

  Covered by

  • US Constitution 101: The Document That Builds the Government

  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 1 · Why a constitution? From the Articles of Confederation

  Note: Why the Articles of Confederation failed and how that led to the 1787 Constitution is taught as its own lesson.

• 8.T2.5

  Covered

  Summarize the Preamble and each article in the Constitution, and the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights; explain the reasons for the addition of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution in 1791.

  Covered by

  • US Constitution 101: The Document That Builds the Government

  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 2 · The Preamble: who, and why
  • · 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)

  Note: The Preamble is worked clause by clause, the Constitution is analyzed article by article, and the Bill of Rights is taught as a document with its 1791 origin.

• 8.T3.1

  Covered

  Distinguish the three branches of government (separation of powers): • Congress as the legislative branch • the Presidency and the executive agencies as the executive branch and • the Supreme Court and other federal inferior courts as the judicial branch

  Covered by

  • US Civics 101: How American Government Works
  • US Constitution 101: The Document That Builds the Government

  • · US Civics 101, Lesson 1 · Purpose of government and the three branches
  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 6 · Separation of powers and checks & balances
  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 7 · Federalism: state and federal power

  Note: The three federal branches and the separation of powers among them are taught directly.

• 8.T3.4

  Covered

  Explain the process of elections in the legislative and executive branches and the process of nomination/confirmation of individuals in the judicial and executive branches.

  Covered by

  • Voting & Elections 101
  • The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch

  • · 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 4 · The Electoral College: how it works
  • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 5 · Why the Electoral College exists
  • · The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch, Lesson 2 · How a judge gets there: nomination and confirmation

  Note: Elections mechanics (including the Electoral College) and the Article II nomination-and-confirmation of judges and agency heads are both taught in depth.

• 8.T4.1

  Covered

  Explain the different ways one becomes a citizen of the United States.

  Covered by

  • Citizenship & Naturalization Basics

  • · Citizenship & Naturalization Basics, Lesson 1 · Who is a U.S. citizen? Birthright and the 14th Amendment
  • · Citizenship & Naturalization Basics, Lesson 3 · Becoming a citizen: naturalization eligibility

  Note: Birthright citizenship (the 14th Amendment, jus soli), citizenship through parents, and naturalization eligibility are taught as the legal ways one becomes a citizen.

• 8.T4.2

  Covered

  Describe the rights and responsibilities of citizens (e.g., voting, serving as a juror, paying taxes, serving in the military, running for and holding elected office) as compared to non-citizens.

  Covered by

  • Citizenship & Naturalization Basics
  • Jury Duty & the Courts (the citizen's side)

  • · Citizenship & Naturalization Basics, Lesson 7 · Rights and responsibilities of citizenship
  • · Jury Duty & the Courts · the whole course (the citizen's side of the court system)

  Note: The responsibilities the standard names are taught as practices: voting, jury service (an entire course), staying informed, and running for office.

• 8.T5.5

  Covered

  Explain the principle of judicial review established in Marbury v. Madison (1803) and explain how cases come before the Supreme Court, how cases are argued, and how the Court issues decisions and dissents.

  Covered by

  • US Civics 101: How American Government Works
  • The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch

  • · US Civics 101, Lesson 4 · The courts and judicial review (Marbury v. Madison)
  • · The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch, Lesson 1 · The federal judiciary: from district courts to the Supreme Court
  • · The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch, Lesson 7 · Checks on the Court
  • · The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch, Lesson 5 · Writing the opinion: majority, concurrence, dissent, and precedent

  Note: Judicial review through Marbury v. Madison, how cases reach the Court, and how majority, concurrence, and dissent are written are all taught directly.

• 8.T6.2

  Partially covered

  Describe provisions of the United States Constitution and the Massachusetts Constitution that define and distribute powers and authority of the federal or state government.

  Covered by

  • Massachusetts Civics: How Your State Government Works
  • US Constitution 101: The Document That Builds the Government

  • · Massachusetts Civics, Lesson 1 · The Constitution of 1780, the world's oldest functioning one
  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 6 · Separation of powers and checks & balances
  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 7 · Federalism: state and federal power

  What we do and don't cover: The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 is taught as the document that structures the Commonwealth's government, alongside separation of powers and checks and balances. But a systematic walk through the specific constitutional provisions that distribute each power is not assembled here.

• 8.T5.6

  Partially covered

  Research, analyze, and report orally or in writing on one area (a, b, or c, below) in which Supreme Court decisions have made significant changes over time in citizens’ lives.

  Covered by

  • The Bill of Rights: Know Your Rights
  • The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch

  • · 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
  • · The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch, Lesson 5 · Writing the opinion: majority, concurrence, dissent, and precedent

  What we do and don't cover: The standard's own case menu names Tinker v. Des Moines and Mapp v. Ohio, which the Know Your Rights course teaches as applicable rules, along with how precedent expands rights over time. Most of the other enumerated cases are different ones, so we claim the case-application skill, not the full menu.

• 8.T7.5

  Partially covered

  Explain methods for evaluating information and opinion in print and online media (e.g., determining the credibility of news articles; analyzing the messages of editorials and op-ed commentaries; assessing the validity of claims and sufficiency of evidence).

  Covered by

  • BVC: Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
  • BVC: Tea — The Way of Tea
  • BVC: Chocolate — Food of the Gods
  • BVC: Sugar — The Sweet Revolution

  • · Ep 19 · Peer Review Versus Press Release
  • · Every course's Sources bibliography, with per-claim verification
  • · Ep 15 · Doubt Is Our Product
  • · Ep 20 · The Ban Against the Evidence (the UK banning khat against its own scientific advice)
  • · 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

  What we do and don't cover: The skill the standard asks for — determining source credibility and assessing the validity of claims and the sufficiency of evidence — is a recurring method across the curriculum, and a checkable bibliography is published. But it is practiced on advertising, marketing, and historical primary sources rather than on news articles and editorials specifically.

• GOV.T2.3

  Covered

  Explain the difference between a town and a city form of government in Massachusetts, including the difference between a representative and an open-town meeting.

  Covered by

  • Massachusetts Civics: How Your State Government Works

  • · Massachusetts Civics, Lesson 5 · Local government: towns, cities, and Massachusetts's shrinking counties
  • · Massachusetts Civics, Lesson 6 · Elections and how to take part

  Note: The town-versus-city forms and the difference between representative and open town meeting are exactly the flagship's Massachusetts local-government lesson.

• GOV.T2.6

  Covered

  Explain the functions of the courts of law in the governments of the United States and the state of Massachusetts with emphasis on the principles of judicial review and an independent judiciary.

  Covered by

  • Massachusetts Civics: How Your State Government Works
  • The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch
  • US Civics 101: How American Government Works

  • · Massachusetts Civics, Lesson 3 · The Governor's Council and how Massachusetts picks judges
  • · The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch, Lesson 1 · The federal judiciary: from district courts to the Supreme Court
  • · The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch, Lesson 7 · Checks on the Court
  • · US Civics 101, Lesson 4 · The courts and judicial review (Marbury v. Madison)

  Note: The Massachusetts courts (the Supreme Judicial Court and the appoint-confirm-serve-to-70 judiciary that keeps judges independent of elections) are taught as Massachusetts's, beside the federal judiciary and judicial review.

• GOV.T2.1

  Covered

  Compare and contrast governments that are unitary, confederate, and federal.

  Covered by

  • State vs Federal Power: How American Government Is Divided

  • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 1 · What is federalism, and why split power at all?

  Note: Why the United States is federal rather than unitary or confederate is taught head-on, with the founding cases.

• GOV.T2.2

  Partially covered

  Identify and describe provisions of the United States Constitution and the Massachusetts Constitution that define and distribute powers and authority of the federal or state government.

  Covered by

  • Massachusetts Civics: How Your State Government Works
  • US Constitution 101: The Document That Builds the Government

  • · Massachusetts Civics, Lesson 2 · The three branches and the 'General Court'
  • · Massachusetts Civics, Lesson 3 · The Governor's Council and how Massachusetts picks judges
  • · Massachusetts Civics, Lesson 1 · The Constitution of 1780, the world's oldest functioning one
  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 6 · Separation of powers and checks & balances
  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 7 · Federalism: state and federal power

  What we do and don't cover: The Massachusetts Constitution and the Commonwealth's own structure (the General Court, the plural executive) are taught, alongside separation of powers. The clause-by-clause identification of every power-distributing provision is not attempted.

• GOV.T1.6

  Partially covered

  Using founding documents of the United States and Massachusetts, research, analyze and interpret central ideas on government, including popular sovereignty, constitutionalism, republicanism, federalism, individual rights, the social contract and natural rights.

  Covered by

  • Massachusetts Civics: How Your State Government Works
  • US Constitution 101: The Document That Builds the Government
  • State vs Federal Power: How American Government Is Divided

  • · Massachusetts Civics, Lesson 1 · The Constitution of 1780, the world's oldest functioning one
  • · US Constitution 101, Lessons 2-9 · the Constitution analyzed article by article
  • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 1 · What is federalism, and why split power at all?

  What we do and don't cover: The central ideas the standard names — popular sovereignty, constitutionalism, federalism, individual rights, natural rights — are taught, using the U.S. and Massachusetts constitutions. The open-ended research-and-interpret performance across a document set is a classroom task the online course prompts rather than assesses.

• GOV.T2.9

  Partially covered

  Examine the constitutional principles of federalism, separation of powers among three branches of government, the system of checks and balances, republican government, representative democracy, and popular sovereignty. Analyze and evaluate one United States Supreme Court case that addresses these principles, and make an argument orally, in writing, or in a multimedia presentation, for either the majority or dissenting opinion in the case and explain what the case demonstrates about the relationship between the branches of government.

  Covered by

  • US Constitution 101: The Document That Builds the Government
  • US Civics 101: How American Government Works
  • State vs Federal Power: How American Government Is Divided

  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 6 · Separation of powers and checks & balances
  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 7 · Federalism: state and federal power
  • · US Civics 101, Lesson 4 · The courts and judicial review (Marbury v. Madison)
  • · 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

  What we do and don't cover: The constitutional principles the standard names are taught directly, and landmark cases (Marbury, McCulloch) are taught as rules a student can apply. The graded case-argument performance for a majority or dissenting opinion is a classroom product the online course does not assess.

• GOV.T3.2

  Partially covered

  Research, analyze, and present orally, in writing or through a multimedia presentation the historical context of two Supreme Court decisions on a topic related to individual rights and what the respective decisions demonstrate about how the protection of individual rights has evolved over time. Cite textual evidence to summarize key perspectives in the decisions and provide historical context for the particular decisions cited. Cases may include: Whitney v. California (1927), Stromberg v. California (1931), Near v. Minnesota (1931), Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), Texas v. Johnson (1989), and Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union (1997)

  Covered by

  • The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch
  • The Bill of Rights: Know Your Rights

  • · The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch, Lesson 5 · Writing the opinion: majority, concurrence, dissent, and precedent
  • · 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

  What we do and don't cover: Brandenburg v. Ohio, in the standard's own case menu, is taught in Know Your Rights as an applicable rule, and how precedent expands rights over time is taught directly. The two-decision comparison performance and most of the other enumerated cases are not covered.

• GOV.T4.5

  Partially covered

  Analyze current research on the impact of media on civic discourse and the importance of an informed citizenry that determines the credibility of sources and claims and exercises other sound media literacy skills.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
  • BVC: Chocolate — Food of the Gods

  • · Ep 19 · Peer Review Versus Press Release
  • · Every course's Sources bibliography, with per-claim verification
  • · Ep 15 · Doubt Is Our Product
  • · Ep 20 · The Ban Against the Evidence (the UK banning khat against its own scientific advice)
  • · Ep 1 · Reading a Coffee Ad
  • · Ep 3 · Reading a Chocolate Ad
  • · Ep 8 · Reading a Craft Beer Label
  • · Ep 15 · Torches of Freedom
  • · Ep 16 · Reefer Madness and the Language of Fear
  • · Ep 18 · Just Say No

  What we do and don't cover: Determining the credibility of sources and claims, and other media-literacy skills, are taught throughout the curriculum. But the practice is anchored in consumer marketing and advertising rather than in the civic and political-media discourse this standard targets.

• ECON.T7.3

  Covered

  Define trade barriers, such as quotas and tariffs.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Sugar — The Sweet Revolution

  • · Ep 4 · The Hidden Costs of Cheap Sugar

  Note: Trade barriers are taught concretely through the U.S. sugar program — its import quotas, price supports, and tariffs — worked in detail with its consumer cost.

• ECON.T1.7

  Partially covered

  Compare and contrast how the various economic systems (traditional, market, command, mixed) try to answer the questions: What to produce? How to produce it? And for whom to produce it?

  Covered by

  • BVC: Guayusa & Kola Nut — Forest Wisdom
  • BVC: Kava — The Root of Peace
  • BVC: My Daily Altar — Season Synthesis

  • · Ep 5 · The Reciprocity Economy
  • · Ep 6 · Ceremony Meets the Market
  • · Ep 7 · Two Ways of Doing Economics

  What we do and don't cover: Traditional (reciprocity) economies are contrasted with market economies directly and at length. The command and mixed systems the standard also names are reached only through the Poland case, not surveyed as economic systems.

• ECON.T2.10

  Partially covered

  Use concepts of price elasticity of demand and supply to explain and predict changes in quantity as price changes.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
  • BVC: Sugar — The Sweet Revolution

  • · Ep 1 · Price Shocks and Why You Keep Buying
  • · Ep 4 · From Luxury to the Cheapest Calorie

  What we do and don't cover: Price elasticity of demand is taught explicitly — inelastic coffee demand absorbing a sharp price spike — but as one concept in context, not a full elasticity unit covering the supply side with schedules and graphs.

• ECON.T7.8

  Partially covered

  Evaluate the arguments for and against free trade.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
  • BVC: Tea — The Way of Tea
  • BVC: Chocolate — Food of the Gods
  • BVC: My Daily Altar — Season Synthesis
  • BVC: Sugar — The Sweet Revolution

  • · 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
  • · Ep 7 · Who Captures the Value
  • · Ep 4 · The Hidden Costs of Cheap Sugar

  What we do and don't cover: Who wins and who loses from global trade is the series' spine — value captured downstream, the commodity trap, and a protected market's costs. But it is taught as distribution and power along real commodity chains rather than as the formal for-and-against free-trade debate the standard frames.

• USI.T6.2

  Partially covered

  Make connections among the important consequences of the Industrial Revolution (e.g., economic growth and the rise of big business; environmental impact of industries; the expansion of cities; the emergence of labor unions such as the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor under Samuel Gompers; workers’ distrust of monopolies; the rise of the Populist Party under the leadership of William Jennings Bryan or the rise of the Socialist Party under Eugene Debs).

  Covered by

  • The History of Unions: America and the World

  • · 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
  • · The History of Unions, Lesson 8 · The Triangle fire, 1911, and what it actually changed
  • · The History of Unions, Lesson 6 · Homestead, Pullman (Eugene Debs and the socialist movement)

  What we do and don't cover: The emergence of labor unions the standard names — the Knights of Labor, the AFL under Gompers, and the socialist movement under Debs — is taught in real depth (Haymarket, Homestead, Pullman, the Triangle fire). The strand's other consequences (big business, environmental impact, the Populist Party) are not this catalog's subject.

• USII.T2.1

  Partially covered

  Analyze primary sources (e.g., documents, audio or film recordings, works of art and artifacts), to develop an argument about how the conflict between traditionalism and modernity manifested itself in the major societal trends and events in first two decades of the 20th century.

  Covered by

  • The Great Migration: How Six Million People Remade America

  • · Ep 8 · Prohibition, the Experiment That Failed
  • · Ep 8 · Selling Prohibition (the rhetoric that drove the movement)
  • · The Great Migration, Lesson 6 · The Black press as engine: the Chicago Defender
  • · The Great Migration, Lesson 7 · The Harlem Renaissance & the New Negro
  • · 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

  What we do and don't cover: Three of the standard's named early-20th-century trends are taught in depth — Prohibition (its causes, rhetoric, and results), the Harlem Renaissance and the Black press, and the first Great Migration — through primary sources. The full traditionalism-versus-modernity survey the standard frames (the Red Scare, the Scopes Trial, the eugenics movement) is not attempted.

• WHII.T3.3

  Partially covered

  Analyze the impact of Western imperialism in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Tea — The Way of Tea
  • BVC: Guayusa & Kola Nut — Forest Wisdom
  • BVC: Kava — The Root of Peace
  • BVC: Chocolate — Food of the Gods
  • BVC: My Daily Altar — Season Synthesis

  • · Ep 2 · Who Grows the Tea (colonial and plantation labour)
  • · Ep 5 · Whose Knowledge Is It
  • · Ep 6 · Kava Governs
  • · Ep 17 · The Opium Wars
  • · Ep 20 · The Ban Against the Evidence
  • · Ep 17 · Lin Zexu's Letter
  • · 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: European imperialism is analyzed through the commodities it moved — including the British East India Company's opium trade between India and China, which the standard names — and how colonial patterns persist today. The full continent-by-continent survey (India, Japan, all of Africa, Latin America) is not attempted.

• WHII.T3.2

  Partially covered

  Describe the causes of 19th century European global imperialism.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Chocolate — Food of the Gods
  • BVC: Sugar — The Sweet Revolution
  • BVC: Tea — The Way of Tea
  • BVC: Guayusa & Kola Nut — Forest Wisdom
  • BVC: Kava — The Root of Peace

  • · 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 4 · Resistance and Revolution
  • · Ep 11 · The Maroons
  • · Ep 11 · The Haitian Revolution
  • · Ep 2 · Who Grows the Tea (colonial and plantation labour)
  • · Ep 5 · Whose Knowledge Is It
  • · Ep 6 · Kava Governs
  • · Ep 17 · The Opium Wars
  • · Ep 20 · The Ban Against the Evidence

  What we do and don't cover: The standard's own sub-cause — the importance of slavery and slave-generated capital, and the sugar and coffee plantations of the Americas — is taught in depth, along with the resistance to the plantation economy. The wider set of imperial causes (Social Darwinism, missionary conversion, strategic advantage) is only touched.

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:

• The flagship's most distinctive Massachusetts facts have no Massachusetts code to cite. Massachusetts Civics teaches, from the Commonwealth's own sources, the elected Governor's Council that confirms judicial appointments, the appoint-and-serve-to-70 judiciary with no judicial elections, the INDIRECT initiative and the right of free petition, the 2022 VOTES Act's voting on-ramps, and the county governments abolished around 1997–2000. The 2018 framework reaches Massachusetts's government better than most states' standards do — Topic 6 (grade 8) and Topic 2 (US Government elective) name the General Court, the Supreme Judicial Court, town and city government, and the Massachusetts Constitution — but it does not name the Governor's Council, the indirect initiative, the free petition, the VOTES Act, or the county abolition, so those flagship lessons carry no code. The gap is in the standards, not the course.
• Mathematics — nothing. This catalog does no mathematics instruction, so it meets no Massachusetts mathematics standard.
• Science — Massachusetts's STE Standards are Massachusetts's own, and we did not fetch them. Massachusetts's Science and Technology/Engineering (STE) Standards are the Commonwealth's own — NGSS-influenced but not verbatim NGSS — and they live in a separate framework document we did not retrieve this pass. This catalog has no laboratory work, investigation, or modelling, and our rule is fetch-or-don't-cite, so Massachusetts gets no science claim — unlike California, where we fetched the document and confirmed a verbatim NGSS performance expectation.
• Topic 1 of grade 8 Civics, and the philosophical/ancient foundations. Grade 8 Topic 1 (the philosophical foundations of the U.S. political system: ancient Athens and Rome, the Enlightenment, British antecedents, the Iroquois Confederacy) and the parallel foundations material in the US Government elective are not what this catalog teaches, so they are not claimed.
• The federal-heavy and Massachusetts-history strands we checked and did not claim. Grade 8 Topics 3 (institutions), 4 (rights and responsibilities), and 5 (amendments and Supreme Court cases) contain many standards beyond the ones listed above — the detailed committee-and-procedure sub-bullets, political-party organization, public-service careers, the specific 14th/19th/26th Amendment items, and the full landmark-case menus — that the courses do not genuinely teach as written. In the electives, Government Topics 4 (parties, PACs, campaign finance) and 5 (foreign affairs and international organizations), and Economics Topics 3–6 (market structures, the role of government, national performance, money and financial institutions) and Personal Financial Literacy, are not claimed. And US History I/II and World History II contain far more than the labor, Prohibition, migration, and imperialism standards we map (the World Wars, the Cold War as a whole, Reconstruction, the New Deal apparatus, the civil-rights movement's full arc). The reject list is the evidence the map was not padded.
• The ELA reading/writing strands beyond the five literacy standards mapped. The grades 11–12 Literacy Standards for History and Social Science include reading standards 1–5, 7, and 10, writing standards 1–6, 9, and 10, and the full Speaking and Listening strand, plus the grades 6–8 and 9–10 bands. We map only the five (RCA-H.6/.8/.9, WCA.7/.8) the catalog genuinely teaches, and the two writing standards only as partial because a sustained composition programme is met by the single Coffee project.