Fourscore will be an innovative and broadly useful system for teaching American history, government, and ELA.
It will consist of a comprehensive system offering educators one-stop shopping for everything they need to be effective educators and fulfill Common Core State Standards and the C3 Framework, the new standards for teaching history and social studies.
A panel of master teachers and curriculum consultants is developing the content for Fourscore. Content will consist of high quality materials including thousands of articles published in American Heritage over 72 years. The material will include not only documents but also paintings, photographs, historical artifacts, and maps.
Hundreds of collections of content will include historian essays bundled with documents, images, etc., and detailed suggestions for tasks teachers can undertake, compelling questions to ask, and other teaching strategies. All of these tasks are then linked both to Common Core State Standards and the C3 Framework.
Fourscore will promote the use of historical documents for instruction in reading skills, analytical and critical thinking skills, problem solving, and writing skills — what are generally known as “English Language Arts” or “ELA.”
“Finding and integrating high quality non-fiction is a challenge for ELA teachers,” says Lyn Cannaday, a nationally certified teacher and Fellow with Student Achievement Partners. “This project is a godsend for busy teachers who want to move toward more meaningful texts.”