Dr. Michael Kester-Haynes

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 21 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Reformers and Religious Change

Analyze the causes and consequences of the Reformation—how new ideas, power struggles, and civic ideals transformed religion, politics, and everyday life across Europe.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 20 (Grade 7 Social Studies): The Printing Press and Information Revolution

Analyze how printing technologies—from paper and block print to movable type and the press—revolutionized communication, reshaped markets, and shifted power across regions in this 7th-grade world history and economics unit.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 19 (Grade 7 Social Studies): The Renaissance—Birth of New Ideas

Explore how Renaissance art, humanism, and global knowledge exchange transformed Europe—linking innovation, civic ideals, and Afro-Eurasian connections that reshaped culture, learning, and society.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 18 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Midyear Synthesis—Global Interactions Museum

Design a classroom “Global Interactions Museum” where students create exhibits that reveal how trade, belief, and innovation connected continents through diffusion, interdependence, and exchange across the medieval world.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 17 (Grade 7 Social Studies): The Black Death and Social Change

Examine how the Black Death reshaped populations, labor systems, and belief structures across Afro-Eurasia—tracing its spread through trade networks and its lasting social and economic effects.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 16 (Grade 7 Social Studies): The Crusades and Cultural Exchange

Evaluate the political, economic, and religious motives behind the Crusades and assess their lasting cultural exchanges and consequences across medieval Europe and the Mediterranean.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 15 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Medieval Trade and Urban Growth in Europe

Explain how fairs, guilds, and banking systems transformed medieval Europe’s economy—linking producers, consumers, and credit to the rise of prosperous urban centers.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 14 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Empires of South and Southeast Asia

Describe how India’s empires used resources, ports, and monsoon trade routes to expand influence across the Indian Ocean, linking geography, economy, and political power.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 13 (Grade 7 Social Studies): The Rise of Japan and Feudal Culture

Compare Japan’s geography, feudal government, and samurai code to explain how landforms, climate, and power shaped society and culture in medieval Japan.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 12 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Medieval China and Technology

Analyze how Song and Ming innovations in printing, navigation, and paper money transformed society, governance, and trade across East Asia.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 11 (Grade 7 Social Studies): The Mongol Empire—Bridge of East and West

Evaluate how the Mongols expanded trade, improved security, and spread culture across Afro-Eurasia while weighing benefits and costs from multiple perspectives.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 10 (Grade 7 Social Studies): The Silk Road and Beyond

Trace goods, people, and ideas across Silk Road and Indian Ocean networks to explain diffusion and interdependence using maps and sources.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 9 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Midyear Project—Empires and Exchange Atlas

Create thematic maps and evidence-based mini-essays to show how faith, geography, and power shaped Afro-Eurasian empires.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 8 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Crossroads of Cultures—Trade and Technology

Investigate how innovations, science, and major trade routes connected Europe, Africa, and Asia, driving the diffusion of goods, ideas, and technologies across the Silk Road, Indian Ocean, and trans-Saharan networks.

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6-8 Lesson Plans

Lesson Plan (Grades 6-8): Visual Poetry Collage: Interpreting Figurative Language through Art

Create a visual-poetry collage project where grades 6–8 analyze figurative language in poems and transform metaphors, similes, and personification into large-scale mixed-media artworks with written artist statements.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 7 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Religion and Authority Across Continents

Compare how Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Confucianism shaped governance, law, ethics, and legitimacy—highlighting how belief systems guided rulers’ power and people’s rights across regions and eras.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 6 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Medieval Europe—Feudal Life and Power

Describe feudal hierarchies—lords, vassals, serfs, and manors—and explain how land-for-loyalty bonds and the Church’s legal and cultural power shaped medieval European society.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 5 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Governance in the Islamic World

Compare how Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasid caliphates used religious law, courts, and bureaucracy to claim authority and pursue justice, rule of law, and civic equality across diverse communities.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 4 (Grade 7 Social Studies): The Rise and Spread of Islam

Analyze Islam’s origins, core beliefs, and expansion through trade, diplomacy, and conquest, highlighting cities of learning and exchange networks across Afro-Eurasia.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 3 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Empires and Kingdoms of Africa

Explore how Ghana, Mali, and Songhai grew as powerful trade, learning, and cultural centers—shaped by gold–salt routes, the Niger River, and the spread of Islam across West Africa.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 2 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Geography Shapes Culture

Explain how landforms, rivers, and climate shaped medieval settlement, farming, and trade—and how societies adapted or modified environments to support cultural growth.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 1 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Mapping the Medieval World

Use latitude/longitude and thematic maps to locate and compare major world regions in 1000 CE, revealing how trade routes, environments, and cultural networks shaped global connections.

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Grade 8 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 36 (Grade 8 Social Studies): Cumulative Synthesis & Exhibition

Show what you know through exhibits, debates, and timelines that connect freedom, conflict, and progress across U.S. history—using evidence, maps, and civic reasoning to explain change and propose informed action.

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Grade 8 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 35 (Grade 8 Social Studies): Legacy of Reconstruction and Civic Struggle

Reconstruction reshaped race, citizenship, and justice—expanding rights through the 13th–15th Amendments while Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, courts, and civic resistance contested equality.

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Grade 8 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 34 (Grade 8 Social Studies): Economic Recovery and Sharecropping

Investigate how the postwar South rebuilt through sharecropping, tenant farming, and the crop-lien credit system—and how land use, soil, and market access shaped persistent debt and regional specialization.