# Grade 9 Global Studies Honors — 36-Week Curriculum Map

| Week | Unit | Topic | Period | Essential Question |
|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Unit 1 · The Historian’s World | How We Know the Past | Foundations | How can we build a trustworthy account of the past when evidence is incomplete or disputed? |
| 2 | Unit 1 · The Historian’s World | Geography and Human Systems | Foundations | How does location shape opportunities, risks, movement, and human choices? |
| 3 | Unit 1 · The Historian’s World | Early Humanity and the Agricultural Revolution | Prehistory to c. 3000 BCE | Did agriculture improve human life, or did it exchange some freedoms for new forms of security and inequality? |
| 4 | Unit 1 · The Historian’s World | Rivers, Cities, Law, and Government | c. 3500–1500 BCE | Why did early cities require new systems of law, labor, recordkeeping, and authority? |
| 5 | Unit 2 · Ancient and Classical Civilizations | Early Africa, South Asia, East Asia, and the Americas | c. 3000–500 BCE | How did early societies develop complex urban and political systems in different environments? |
| 6 | Unit 2 · Ancient and Classical Civilizations | Belief, Ethics, and Philosophy | c. 1500–200 BCE | How do belief systems answer questions about duty, suffering, justice, identity, and good government? |
| 7 | Unit 2 · Ancient and Classical Civilizations | Persia and the Greek World | c. 550–323 BCE | How did empires and city-states organize citizenship, diversity, military power, and political participation? |
| 8 | Unit 2 · Ancient and Classical Civilizations | Rome and Han China | c. 200 BCE–500 CE | How did large empires build durable institutions, and why did those institutions eventually weaken or change? |
| 9 | Unit 3 · Regional Worlds and Expanding Faiths | South Asia and the Indian Ocean | c. 322 BCE–600 CE | How did rulers, merchants, and religious communities connect South Asia to a wider oceanic world? |
| 10 | Unit 3 · Regional Worlds and Expanding Faiths | Byzantium and the Islamic World | c. 500–1258 CE | How did cities, states, and scholarly networks preserve, debate, and create knowledge across regions? |
| 11 | Unit 3 · Regional Worlds and Expanding Faiths | African Kingdoms and Trading Societies | c. 300–1600 CE | How did African states use trade, agriculture, religion, and political organization to build regional power? |
| 12 | Unit 3 · Regional Worlds and Expanding Faiths | Medieval Europe | c. 500–1500 CE | How were land, labor, religion, law, and political authority negotiated in medieval Europe? |
| 13 | Unit 4 · Connections Across the Medieval World | East Asia, 600–1450 | c. 600–1450 CE | How did states use education, technology, trade, and cultural borrowing to strengthen authority? |
| 14 | Unit 4 · Connections Across the Medieval World | Indigenous Americas and Oceania | c. 250–1600 CE | How did Indigenous societies build complex governments, knowledge systems, and environmental adaptations? |
| 15 | Unit 4 · Connections Across the Medieval World | Networks of Exchange | c. 600–1450 CE | How did long-distance exchange transform societies far from the merchants who carried the goods? |
| 16 | Unit 4 · Connections Across the Medieval World | Mongol Expansion and the Black Death | c. 1200–1400 CE | How can the same network support conquest, commerce, communication, and disease? |
| 17 | Unit 4 · Connections Across the Medieval World | Global Comparison, 1200–1450 | c. 1200–1450 CE | Which patterns of power, exchange, belief, and inequality best explain the world of 1200–1450? |
| 18 | Unit 4 · Connections Across the Medieval World | Semester Review and Midterm | Cumulative through 1450 | How can students demonstrate durable understanding rather than short-term memorization? |
| 19 | Unit 5 · The Early Modern World | Renaissance, Humanism, and Printing | c. 1300–1600 CE | How did renewed study, urban wealth, artistic experimentation, and printing reshape authority and knowledge? |
| 20 | Unit 5 · The Early Modern World | Reformation and Religious Conflict | c. 1500–1650 CE | Why did religious reform become a political, social, and media revolution? |
| 21 | Unit 5 · The Early Modern World | Land-Based Empires, 1450–1750 | c. 1450–1750 CE | How did large empires govern religious, linguistic, and ethnic diversity? |
| 22 | Unit 5 · The Early Modern World | Oceanic Exploration and the Columbian Exchange | c. 1400–1700 CE | How did oceanic expansion create new connections while producing conquest, demographic collapse, and ecological change? |
| 23 | Unit 5 · The Early Modern World | Atlantic Slavery, Colonialism, and Resistance | c. 1450–1888 CE | How did racial slavery become embedded in Atlantic economies, and how did enslaved people resist? |
| 24 | Unit 6 · Revolutions, Industry, and Imperialism | Enlightenment and Political Thought | c. 1600–1800 CE | Who should hold political authority, and what rights or duties limit government? |
| 25 | Unit 6 · Revolutions, Industry, and Imperialism | Atlantic Revolutions | c. 1775–1830 CE | Why did revolutions proclaim universal principles while producing unequal outcomes? |
| 26 | Unit 6 · Revolutions, Industry, and Imperialism | Industrial Revolution | c. 1750–1900 CE | Did industrialization improve human life, and for whom? |
| 27 | Unit 6 · Revolutions, Industry, and Imperialism | Capitalism, Socialism, Labor, and Reform | c. 1776–1914 CE | What should markets, governments, employers, workers, and communities each control? |
| 28 | Unit 6 · Revolutions, Industry, and Imperialism | Imperialism and Resistance | c. 1800–1914 CE | How did industrial power, nationalism, racism, and local collaboration shape imperial expansion and resistance? |
| 29 | Unit 7 · Global Conflict and Transformation | World War I and the Russian Revolution | c. 1900–1923 CE | How did industrial warfare and state collapse transform societies, borders, and political expectations? |
| 30 | Unit 7 · Global Conflict and Transformation | The Interwar World | c. 1919–1939 CE | Why did some societies respond to crisis with democratic reform while others turned toward authoritarian rule? |
| 31 | Unit 7 · Global Conflict and Transformation | World War II, the Holocaust, and Genocide Studies | c. 1933–1945 CE | How did dictatorship, war, bureaucracy, racism, and individual choices make mass persecution and genocide possible? |
| 32 | Unit 7 · Global Conflict and Transformation | The Cold War | c. 1945–1991 CE | How did a rivalry between superpowers become a worldwide political, military, economic, and cultural system? |
| 33 | Unit 7 · Global Conflict and Transformation | Decolonization and Human Rights | c. 1945–1994 CE | How did colonized peoples transform self-determination from a promise into political movements and new states? |
| 34 | Unit 8 · The Contemporary World and Civic Life | Globalization, Trade, Development, and Migration | c. 1970–Present | How should societies evaluate the gains, risks, and unequal effects of global interdependence? |
| 35 | Unit 8 · The Contemporary World and Civic Life | Comparative Government, Media Literacy, and Civic Action | Contemporary | How can citizens evaluate institutions and information well enough to act responsibly? |
| 36 | Unit 8 · The Contemporary World and Civic Life | Synthesis, Civic Capstone, and Final Examination | Cumulative | What patterns from world history can help people make wiser civic decisions today? |

## Required weekly outputs
Every week contains five daily lessons, one original reading, vocabulary, one source study, one map/data investigation, three assignments, one 10-question objective quiz, one constructed response, support options, honors extensions, and teacher answer guidance.

## Major assessments
- Week 18: 45-question midterm, three short responses, and one evidence-based essay.
- Week 36: 55-question cumulative final, three short responses, and one evidence-based essay.
- Weeks 34–36: nonpartisan civic-action capstone.