The Story of America | A History and Literacy Platform for High School & Middle School Students

An Innovative New Way To Learn Teach Engage History

The Story of America online program supplements the United States History and Literacy curriculum for Middle and High School students. Our program correlates with national and state history and literacy standards to help improve students’ reading proficiencies. It provides a truthful and factual portrayal of the journey of US history. Additionally, the program includes stories from Bill Bennett’s popular books, “America: The Last Best Hope” and “The Book of Virtues”.

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What Is The Story of America?

The Story of America is an online Middle School and High School United States History and Literacy program. The program, which is correlated with national and state history and literacy standards, is an interactive learning adventure that improves student’s grade-level reading proficiency while teaching the unvarnished and truthful journey of US history. The Story of America provides background, context and answers to an often complex past while making history come alive. The learning experience for students is enhanced in the classroom and gives teachers an additional tool to convey the rich history of the United States.

Leadership Team

From Pre-Colonization to Modern Times, the Story of America is an interactive, online, distance learning U.S. history curriculum for middle and high school students. This unique program explores our nation’s journey through time and meets U.S. History standards, while reinforcing critical reading and writing skills. Featuring stories from Bill Bennett’s, best selling books: AMERICA: The Last Best Hope & The Book of Virtues

Former U.S. Secretary of Education, and author is featured through stories and excerpts from his acclaimed books.

President of the Today Foundation and Chairman of Istation, an interactive education company.

Highlighted Educational Features

Correlated to ELA & Social Study State Standards
30+ ELA Literacy Skill Lessons With Videos
Dual Language Feature
Structured Virtual Learning
99% Correlated to the State Standards
Comprehensive Content: for visual, auditory and contextual learners
Free form navigation giving student choices on reviewing content
Multiple ways to explore information in an engaging way
Visual Connections to time and place in history
A fresh look at history with unique illustrations and audio depicting events
Historical Videos
Academic Vocabulary

How does this product help students and teachers?

Find out how The Story of America can help students and teachers by clicking the “Learn More” button below.

Content Covered

The curriculum consists of 31 United States history units with over 230 objective history lessons.
Units 1-12 address United States history from Pre-colonization to Reconstruction for Middle School
students. High School students first review earlier eras in Unit 1 and then proceed to learn United States
history from 1877 to modern times. In addition, two special units concentrate on the Constitution and the
United States Government and Democracy for both High School & Middle School.

Unit 1: The Americas Before Columbus
Unit 2: The Age of Exploration
Unit 3: The Colonization of America
Unit 4: The Road to Revolution
Unit 5: The American Revolution
Unit 6: The New Nation
Unit 7: Challenges of the New Republic
Unit 8: Moving West
Unit 9: Growth and Division
Unit 10: Abolitionists and Social Change
Unit 11: The Civil War
Unit 12: Reconstruction

Special Unit: The Constitution

Special Unit: Social Studies Skills

Unit (R): Pre-Columbian to Reconstruction ( review )

Unit 1: Reconstruction

Unit 2: The Nation Expands

Unit 3: The Impact of Industry

Unit 4: The Gilded Age

Unit 5: The Rise of Progressivism

Unit 6: America and the Age of Empires

Unit 7: World War I

Unit 8: From the Roaring Twenties to Black Tuesday

Unit 9: The Great Depression and the New Deal

Unit 10: World War II

Unit 11: The Cold War and Prosperity

Unit 12: The Sixties and Seventies

Unit 13: The End of the American Century

Unit 14: A New Century

Special Unit: The Constitution

Special Unit: Social Studies Skills

Facts & Statistics

In 2022 the 8 th grade NAEP reading scores decreased in every state and territory by at least 3 points.

70% of 8th grade students read ONLY at or above Basic level and 31% read at a proficient level. Neither category is considered grade-level attainment in reading by NAEP’s own definition. The drop in the nation’s 8th grade reading scores is the largest drop in reading achievement in history and these scores mirror the 1992 NAEP when the assessment was first administered.

In 2018, 66% of the nation’s 8 th grade students performed “at or above Basic” while only 15% scored proficient on the U.S. History National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP).

These poor results were consistent across all student demographics. The report indicates that 8th grade students do not have a grade-level understanding of our nation’s history and lack the reading and comprehension skills required to graduate with a fundamental working
knowledge of civics, citizenship or government. They do not understand: the evolution of American democracy; culture; economic and technological changes and America’s changing role in the world.

50-state Analysis and Status reporting on History and Literacy.

In 2020-2021, the Today Foundation conducted a 50-state analysis of the status of the US history and History through Literacy Standards before developing the Story of America.

The Story of America includes over 236 US history lessons for Middle and High School students.

The lessons cover the eras and time periods required by the states. 31 units. Units 1-12 for Middle School begin with Human Migration, Exploration and Pre-Colonization and end with Reconstruction (1877). The High School program begins with a review of prior eras and continues with Reconstruction to Modern Times. 2 special units, The US Constitution and Geography are offered for Middle and High School students.

The Story of America curriculum is correlated with the 50 state US History and the History through Literacy standards.

The US History units/lessons are correlated with the National Social Studies Standards and an extension of these standards was developed by experts to correlate with states that have developed a more comprehensive Middle and High School US history course. The ELA skills are correlated with the national C3 ELA Framework for history through literacy or sometimes referred to as Anchor Standards in some states.

Each unit includes an average of 6 US history sections with corresponding assessment questions.

Every unit also incorporates an ELA skill development section with an I DO, WE DO, YOU DO guided practice instructional approach.

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Educational Corner

The Story of America in the News.

IDAHO

The Story of America: Idaho schools get new history curriculum with 'fair, factual American history'

What Educators Have to Say...

"It has been designed in easily, digestible chunks for students. The images and videos enhance the content."

Melissa ShawRegion 10

"I love it. I could see using this almost daily. Use it as a resource for our projects, and daily lessons and content learning. Utilize the content for our testing and teaching the TEKS. I think is an outstanding program and would love to use it more."

Steven CampbellDenton ISD

"We have an online textbook and this is MUCH better. "

Angela GeigerCoppell ISD

They read/listened to it in 20-30 minutes. They retained the knowledge. For my ELL class, I had my Spanish speakers listening to the lesson in Spanish while I was teaching from the reading in English. It was fantastic. They FINALLY looked engaged and excited.

Matthew Tharp7th Grade History Teacher