Events, people and ideas of the past, and how they connect across time.
US.1 History: Grasp the principles behind the Celebrate Freedom Week program
US.1A Analyze and evaluate the wording, purpose, meaning, and significance of the United States Constitution, its Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence
US.1B Analyze and evaluate how these founding principles were applied to events in United States history
US.1C Explain what the mottos "In God We Trust" and "E Pluribus Unum" mean and why they matter historically
US.2 History: Grasp the traditional reference points for organizing United States history from 1877 to today
US.2A Identify the major eras of United States history from 1877 to today and describe what characterized each
US.2B Explain why these turning-point years matter: 1898 with the Spanish-American War, 1914-1918 with World War I, 1929 with the Great Depression's start, 1939-1945 with World War II, 1957 with the U.S.-Soviet space race Sputnik's launch ignited, 1968 with Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, 1969 with the U.S. moon landing, 1991 with the Cold War's end, 2001 with terror attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, and 2008 with Barack Obama elected first black president
US.3 History: Grasp how politics, the economy, and society in the nation changed from 1877 to 1898
US.3A Analyze political issues of 1877 to 1898, for example civil service reform, policies toward American Indians, and the rise of political machines
US.3B Analyze economic issues of 1877 to 1898, for example the cattle industry boom, farm issues, industrialization, railroad expansion, union growth, rising entrepreneurship, and the advantages and drawbacks of big business
US.3C Analyze social issues of 1877 to 1898 touching immigrants, children, women, minorities, and growing cities
US.4 History: Grasp how the nation became a world power from 1898 to 1920
US.4A Explain how events, policies, and people, including Theodore Roosevelt, Sanford B. Dole, Alfred Thayer Mahan, American expansionism, and the Spanish-American War, lifted the nation into world power status
US.4B Evaluate American expansionism, including the acquisition of Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines
US.4C Identify what caused World War I and why the United States joined
US.4D Understand what the American Expeditionary Forces under General John J. Pershing contributed, among them the Battle of Argonne Forest
US.4E Analyze the effects of trench warfare, poison gas, tanks, airplanes, and machine guns as major technological innovations on the Western Front in World War I
US.4F Analyze major issues of American involvement in World War I: neutrality, isolationism, the Treaty of Versailles, and the Fourteen Points of Woodrow Wilson
US.5 History: Grasp what reform movements and third-party movements accomplished in the early twentieth century
US.5A Analyze the effects of Progressive Era reforms: initiative, referendum, recall, and ratification of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Amendments
US.5B Evaluate how muckrakers and reform leaders, for example W. E. B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells, Jane Addams, Susan B. Anthony, and Upton Sinclair, influenced American society
US.5C Analyze how the Populist and Progressive parties and other third parties affected the country
US.6 History: Grasp key events, social issues, and people of the 1920s
US.6A Analyze causes and effects of 1920s events and social issues, for example Prohibition, the Red Scare, the Scopes Trial, nativism, eugenics, Social Darwinism, immigration, race relations, and women's shifting roles
US.6B Analyze how influential people of the 1920s, for example Charles A. Lindbergh, Marcus Garvey, and Henry Ford, left their mark
US.7 History: Grasp how American involvement in World War II affected the nation and the world
US.7A Identify why the United States entered World War II: dictatorships in Italy, Germany, and Japan and their aggression, above all the Pearl Harbor attack
US.7B Evaluate how Harry Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt led at home and abroad during World War II, including relations with allied nations
US.7C Analyze key World War II issues: the development of atomic weapons, the Holocaust, and Executive Order 9066 with the resulting internment of Japanese Americans
US.7D Analyze major World War II military events: fighting on several fronts at once, the Bataan Death March, the Battle of Midway, the American advance through the Pacific Islands, the Normandy invasion, and the freeing of concentration camp prisoners
US.7E Describe what military leaders contributed in World War II: Chester W. Nimitz, Douglas MacArthur, and Dwight Eisenhower
US.7F Explain home front issues, including volunteer work, buying war bonds, and Victory Gardens, along with the chances and barriers faced by women and ethnic minorities
US.7G Explain how American patriotism drove many to enlist, and describe the Navajo Code Talkers, the Flying Tigers, and the Tuskegee Airmen along with their bravery and contributions
US.8 History: Grasp how significant decisions and conflicts at home and abroad during the Cold War affected the United States
US.8A Describe American responses to Soviet aggression following World War II: the role of John F. Kennedy in the Cuban Missile Crisis, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Berlin Airlift, the Marshall Plan, and the Truman Doctrine
US.8B Describe how the space race, the arms race, McCarthyism, and Congress's House Un-American Activities Committee made Cold War tensions worse
US.8C Explain why the United States took part in the Korean War, what resulted, and how the war tied to the policy of containment
US.8D Explain why the United States became involved in foreign countries, including the Vietnam War, what resulted, and how this connects to the Domino Theory
US.8E Analyze key events of the Vietnam War: the fall of Saigon, Vietnamization, the Tet Offensive, and the troop buildup
US.8F Describe how people reacted to the Vietnam War: the anti-war movement, the silent majority, the credibility gap, the part played by the media, the 26th Amendment, and the draft
US.9 History: Grasp what the civil rights movement in America changed
US.9A Trace the civil rights movement's development from the late 1800s into the twenty-first century, including the Nineteenth, Fifteenth, Fourteenth, and Thirteenth Amendments
US.9B Explain how the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow laws blocked minority civil rights, for example through voter suppression
US.9C Describe what political organizations did to advance civil rights for African Americans, Chicanos, American Indians, and women
US.9D Identify what significant leaders did to support various rights movements, including Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King Jr., Betty Friedan, Dolores Huerta, and Rosa Parks
US.9E Compare the Black Panthers' approach to civil rights with the nonviolence of Martin Luther King Jr., and contrast the two
US.9F Discuss how Martin Luther King Jr.'s writings, including "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and the "I Have a Dream" address, affected the civil rights movement
US.9G Describe how presidents acted and Congress voted on minority rights: the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and desegregation of the armed forces
US.9H Explain how Orval Faubus, George Wallace, and the southern Democratic bloc in Congress tried to preserve existing conditions
US.9I Evaluate how the civil rights movement changed the nation, including greater minority involvement in politics
US.9J Describe the part Brown v. Board of Education and Sweatt v. Painter played in safeguarding minority rights during the civil rights movement
US.10 History: Grasp how political, economic, and social forces shaped the nation from the 1970s through 1990
US.10A Describe how Richard M. Nixon led in normalizing relations with China and pursuing the policy of détente
US.10B Describe how Ronald Reagan led on domestic and foreign policy, including Peace Through Strength and his economic policies
US.10C Describe American involvement in the Middle East, for example the Iran Hostage Crisis, the Iran-Contra Affair, Marines in Lebanon, the Camp David Accords, and backing for Israel
US.10D Describe what caused the 1980s conservative resurgence and which organizations drove it, for example the Moral Majority and the Heritage Foundation
US.10E Describe major social issues of the era, for example the AIDS epidemic and the War on Drugs
US.11 History: Grasp new political, economic, and social issues facing the nation from the 1990s into the twenty-first century
US.11A Describe the nation's role in world affairs: the global War on Terror, the events of September 11, 2001, the Persian Gulf War, and the Cold War's conclusion
US.11B Identify major social and political issues, for example health care, immigration, and education, as viewed from differing positions across the political spectrum
US.11C Analyze how third parties influenced the presidential elections of 1992 and 2000
US.11D Identify how multinational corporations, global events, individuals, and government policies affect the twenty-first century economy
Geography and Place
Maps, places and regions, and how people and environments shape each other.
US.12 Geography: Analyze how physical and human geographic factors influenced the Dust Bowl, the Panama Canal, the Klondike Gold Rush, and the failure of New Orleans' levees after Hurricane Katrina
US.12A Analyze how physical and human geographic factors influenced the Dust Bowl, the Panama Canal, the Klondike Gold Rush, and the failure of New Orleans' levees after Hurricane Katrina
US.13 Geography: Grasp why people migrate and immigrate and how that changes American society
US.13A Analyze why population patterns changed through movement within the United States and what followed: the Great Migration, the population move out of the Rust Belt and into the Sun Belt, rural to urban movement, and western expansion
US.13B Analyze why population patterns changed through immigration to the United States and what followed
US.14 Geography: Grasp how a growing population relates to the natural environment
US.14A Identify how population growth and where people live affect the natural environment
US.14B Identify how government bodies and private citizens manage the environment, for example the Endangered Species Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, and creating the National Park System
Economics and Personal Finance
How people earn, spend, save and trade, and how economies work.
US.15 Economics: Grasp domestic and foreign matters tied to American economic growth between the 1870s and 1920
US.15A Describe how the Homestead Act and the economic effects of the Transcontinental Railroad helped bring about the frontier's end during the late nineteenth century
US.15B Describe how the connection between private business and the federal government shifted, including the rise of free enterprise, the benefits and costs of laissez-faire, the Interstate Commerce Act, the Sherman Antitrust Act, and the Pure Food and Drug Act
US.15C Explain how foreign policies shaped economic matters, for example immigration quotas, Dollar Diplomacy, the Open Door Policy, and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
US.15D Describe how the Spanish-American War, World War I, and other international military conflicts affected the American economy
US.16 Economics: Grasp major economic developments in the period after World War I and before World War II
US.16A Analyze causes of 1920s economic growth and prosperity: lower taxes, more efficient production, and the Return to Normalcy associated with Warren Harding
US.16B Identify what caused the Great Depression, including stock market speculation, bank failures, Federal Reserve System monetary policy, and the effect of tariffs on world trade
US.16C Analyze how the Great Depression affected the economy and society, for example widespread joblessness and the repatriation and deportation of people of Mexican heritage
US.16D Compare how New Deal policies and the approaches of its critics tackled the economic fallout from the Great Depression
US.16E Describe how the Social Security Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and other New Deal agencies and programs still touch the lives of citizens
US.17 Economics: Grasp how government policies have affected the economy from World War II to the present
US.17A Describe how World War II reshaped the economy at home, for example rationing, expanded job opportunities for women and minorities, the Great Depression's end, and mobilization
US.17B Identify what produced 1950s prosperity, including the GI Bill (Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944) and the Baby Boom, and the results of that prosperity, for example greater consumer spending and growth in agriculture and business
US.17C Describe how defense spending from 1945 to the 1990s affected the business cycle and educational priorities
US.17D Identify what government policies aimed at widening economic opportunity did and achieved, for example Title IX, affirmative action, and the Great Society
US.17E Describe the changing relationship between American international trade policies and the free enterprise system, for example the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo
Government and Civics
How governments are organized, how laws are made, and the principles behind them.
US.18 Government: Grasp how the role of government has shifted over time
US.18A Evaluate how New Deal legislation reshaped what state governments and the federal government traditionally did
US.18B Explain the constitutional questions raised when the federal government changed policy during significant events, including September 11, 2001, the 1960s, World War II, the Great Depression, and World War I
US.18C Describe how the Watergate scandal, Teapot Dome, and the impeachment of Bill Clinton affected how much citizens trusted their federal government and the people leading it
US.18D Describe how modern government legislation shapes both public and private sectors, for example the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
US.19 Government: Grasp how the connections among the federal government's three branches have changed
US.19A Describe how events such as the War Powers Act and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution changed the relationship of the executive and legislative branches
US.19B Evaluate how the judicial, executive, and legislative branches affected one another, including Franklin D. Roosevelt's effort to enlarge the Supreme Court and the 2000 presidential election
US.20 Government: Grasp how constitutional questions have affected American society
US.20A Analyze the effects of landmark Supreme Court decisions: Wisconsin v. Yoder, Tinker v. Des Moines, Hernandez v. Texas, Brown v. Board of Education, and Plessy v. Ferguson
US.20B Explain the reasons landmark constitutional amendments were proposed and ratified between 1877 and today
Citizenship and Civic Life
The rights and responsibilities of citizens and how people take part in their communities.
US.21 Citizenship: Grasp the idea of American exceptionalism as described by Alexis de Tocqueville
US.21A Discuss values that are crucial to a constitutional republic's success in America: laissez-faire, populism, individualism, egalitarianism, and liberty
US.21B Describe how American values differ from, and are distinctive compared with, those of other countries
US.22 Citizenship: Grasp the Declaration of Independence's promises and the safeguards found in the Bill of Rights and the United States Constitution
US.22A Identify and analyze ways of widening the right to take part in democracy, including lobbying, nonviolent protest, lawsuits, and amendments to the Constitution of the United States
US.22B Evaluate different ways of reaching equal political rights, including the 26th, 24th, and 19th amendments and congressional acts, for example the American Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
US.22C Explain how taking part in democracy reflects civic responsibility, patriotism, and national identity
US.22D Summarize the requirements and explain the process by which a person gains United States citizenship through naturalization
US.23 Citizenship: Grasp why effective leadership matters in a constitutional republic
US.23A Evaluate what major political and social leaders contributed, for example Hillary Clinton, Sandra Day O'Connor, Billy Graham, Thurgood Marshall, and Andrew Carnegie
US.23B Explain why Congressional Medal of Honor recipients matter, for example Raul "Roy" Perez Benavidez, an Army Master Sergeant, Army Corporal Alvin York, and Vernon J. Baker, an Army First Lieutenant
Culture and Society
The beliefs, customs and traditions of different groups and how cultures change and interact.
US.24 Culture: Grasp how the arts connect to the era in which they were produced
US.24A Describe how the traits of and issues in American history appear in literature, film, music, and art genres
US.24B Describe how movements in literature, music, and art influenced American society, for example country and western music, the Chicano Mural Movement, rock and roll, the Beat Generation, the Harlem Renaissance, and Tin Pan Alley
US.24C Identify and analyze how American culture spread around the world through different media
US.25 Culture: Grasp how people from many groups add to the national identity
US.25A Explain what people did to widen economic opportunity and political rights for religious, racial, ethnic, and gender groups in American society
US.25B Describe the Americanization movement's effort to assimilate American Indians and immigrants
US.25C Explain how contributions from people of different religious, gender, ethnic, and racial groups help form American culture
US.25D Identify what women, for example Sonia Sotomayor, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Rosa Parks, have given to American society
Science, Technology, and Society
How inventions and scientific advances have changed the way people live and work.
US.26 Science, technology, and society: Grasp how the free enterprise system, technology, and science shaped the nation's economic development
US.26A Explain how scientific discoveries and technological innovations, for example computers, steel production, petroleum-based products, satellite and telephone communications, and electric power, shaped American economic development
US.26B Explain how particular needs prompt innovation and discovery in science and technology within agriculture, the military, and medicine
US.26C Describe how technological innovations, for example assembly line manufacturing and robotics, changed the workplace
US.27 Science, technology, and society: Grasp how breakthroughs in science, new technology, and free enterprise have affected living standards across the nation
US.27A Analyze how space exploration, scientific discoveries, technological innovations, and the free enterprise system's application of them improve the American standard of living, including changes in communication and transportation
US.27B Describe how free enterprise pushes technological innovation into the marketplace, for example global positioning products, affordable personal computers, and cell phones
Social Studies Skills
Finding, analyzing and communicating information from sources, and reasoning about evidence.
US.28 Social studies skills: Grasp how historians interpret the past through historiography, and apply critical thinking to organize and use information from valid sources including technology
US.28A Analyze primary and secondary sources, for example artifacts, political cartoons, speeches, graphs, and maps, to gather information that answers historical questions
US.28B Analyze information using absolute and relative chronology by drawing conclusions, drawing inferences, making predictions, making generalizations, summarizing, finding the main idea, comparing and contrasting, identifying cause and effect, categorizing, and sequencing
US.28C Follow the historical inquiry process to research, interpret, and use several kinds of evidence
US.28D Evaluate sources, both historical and contemporary, for accuracy, bias, credibility, and validity
US.28E Identify bias and use historical evidence to support a viewpoint regarding an issue or event in social studies
US.28F Formulate a claim backed by evidence and reasoning and communicate it visually, orally, or in writing for a chosen audience and purpose
US.29 Social studies skills: Communicate in writing, speech, and visual formats
US.29A Produce presentations of social studies information in written, oral, and visual forms using effective communication skills, including properly citing sources and avoiding plagiarism
US.29B Use social studies terminology correctly
US.29C Apply foundational language skills to take part in civil discourse on social studies topics, including topics with multiple perspectives
US.30 Social studies skills: Use geographic tools to gather, analyze, and interpret data
US.30A Create visual representations of historical information, for example thematic maps, graphs, and charts
US.30B Ask questions and find answers about the geographic patterns and distributions displayed in databases, charts, graphs, and maps
US.31 Social studies skills: Solve problems and make decisions, working alone and with others
US.31A Explain governmental and democratic processes, for example voting, due process, and caucuses, through simulations and models
US.31B Work through a problem by identifying it, gathering information, listing and weighing options, considering advantages and disadvantages, choosing and carrying out a solution, and evaluating how well it worked
There are 111 TEKS U.S. History Standards on this page, in 8 strands: History and Chronology, Geography and Place, Economics and Personal Finance, Government and Civics, Citizenship and Civic Life, Culture and Society, Science, Technology, and Society, and Social Studies Skills.
How do I write an assessment for an U.S. History TEKS Social Studies standard?
Pick a standard on this page and choose Make a quiz or Make an exit ticket. AssessmentWiz opens the generator with the standard's code and text filled in, so every question targets that standard.
What does a code like US.1A mean?
TEKS social studies course codes read course, knowledge and skills statement, student expectation. In US.1A, the US before the period is U.S. History Studies Since 1877, the number is the knowledge and skills statement, and the letter is the student expectation under it.