The social studies standards for these teaching units are based broadly on the United States’ National Standards in World History enacted in March 1994 as part of the GOALS 2000, Educate America Act.
The German language standards are based on the the two major frameworks for teaching, learning and assessing foreign language proficiency: the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for languages used with the European Language Portfolio (ELP) and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) proficiency guidelines.
The standards for teaching intercultural communication are based on the American Association of College & Universities’ VALUE Rubric Development Project.
To these standards we added a set of humanistic competencies that has been used in the General Education Program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, which remain often unstated as objectives when teaching across the curriculum.
Individual activities within each teaching unit are associated with specific learning objectives drawn from this list. Instructors should select the appropriate SLOs for their classroom and they may use them either as classroom activities or homework assignments.
DaF Language Standard: B1 (CEFR) or Intermediate Mid (ACTFL) level of proficiency. The student should be able to:
Understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc.
Deal with most situations likely to arise while traveling in an area where the language is spoken.
Produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest.
Describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes and ambitions and briefly give reasons and and explanations for opinions and plans.
Humanistic Competencies: The student has an appreciation for German culture. The student is able to:
Identify aspects of everyday culture and place them in their historical and biographical context
Identify high cultural artifacts and place them in their historical and biographical context
Analyze their aesthetic in terms of form and expression
Interpret their relevance in subsequent or the contemporary contexts
Intercultural Competencies: The student has developed a set of competencies that support effective and appropriate engagement with the Nazi past. The student is able to:
Intercultural Curiosity: Asks complex questions about the Nazi past reflecting multiple cultural perspectives.
Intercultural Empathy: Understands how the study of the Nazi past could evoke different responses and demonstrates sensitivity towards the feelings of others.
Intercultural Reflexion: Articulate insights into their own culture and society on the basis of engaging with the Nazi past.
Social Studies Standard: 3C The student understands the interplay between scientific or technological innovations and new patterns of social and cultural life in Germany between 1930 and 1950. The students is able to:
Explain ways in which the airplane, automobile, and railway affected commerce, migration, and work and leisure habits of ordinary Germans.
Analyze the social and cultural dimensions of mass consumption of goods such as automobiles, bicycles, refrigerators, radios, and synthetic fabrics in the lives of ordinary Germans.
Analyze ways in which new forms of communication affected social and political relationships in the lives of ordinary Germans, bolstering the power of new authoritarian regimes.
Social Studies Standard 3D: The student understands the interplay of new artistic and literary movements with changes in social and cultural life in Germany between 1930 and 1950. The students is able to:
Analyze how new media–newspapers, magazines, commercial advertising, film, and radio–contributed to the rise of mass culture in Germany
Analyze the response of cultural traditionalists to new trends in the arts
Social Studies Standard: 4A The student understands the German origins of World War II. The student is able to:
Understand the geographic position of Germany in Central Europe
Explain the ideology of National Socialism and how it relates to traditional nationalist and religious beliefs
Analyze how the Nazi regime gained mass support among ordinary Germans
Explain the response of ordinary Germans to Nazi policies such as antisemitism, rearmamentation, and imperial expansion, and to political leaders in Germany and abroad
Explain how ordinary Germans adjusted their sense of self and society to meet the expectations of the Volksgemeinschaft/Nazi racial community
Social Studies Standard 5A: The student understands major social and cultural trends from 1930 to 1950.
Analyze ways in which secular ideologies such as national socialism and materialism challenged or were challenged by established religions and ethical systems
Analyze how ordinary Germans negotiated social distinctions such as ablebodiedness, age, class, dialect, education, ethnicity, gender, generation, race, religion, and sexuality
Identify patterns of social and cultural continuity and change in modern Germany
Analyze ways in which peoples maintained traditions, sustained basic loyalties, and resisted external challenges in this era of recurrent world crises
The overarching goals for this curriculum are measured in assessments and applications, found at the end of each unit. After completing the unit, the student is able to:
Take a position on how the study of world events from the perspective of ordinary people alters the established way of telling the story of the past.
Take a position on the qualities of cultural artifacts and the culture of everyday life in Germany during the 1930s and ’40s.
Take a position on the meaning of the past for their present generally and personally.
And for DaF students, to be able to communicate these positions confidently in German.
