Overview
The inquiry-based approach of HMH Social Studies asks every student to dig into history and ask detailed questions. Students learn to think critically, draw conclusions, and support those conclusions with evidence—the same skills they’ll use in college and throughout their careers.
Student Experience
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The embedded story follows the C3 Inquiry Arc of inquiry, application, reflection, and communication.
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Document-Based Investigations require students to analyze documents and build them into cumulative writing performance tasks.
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Essential Question Writing asks students to reflect and demonstrate understanding by citing text evidence to complete a writing task.
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HISTORY Multimedia Connections blend print, video, and audio within unique digital Document-Based Investigations.
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Timelines, maps, charts, videos, and primary sources offer support with analysis and interpretation skills.
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Students use their own words to complete lesson-specific, interactive graphic organizers.
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Vocabulary is defined at point of use, with audio in both English and Spanish.
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A full suite of note-taking tools allows students to highlight and annotate the online text.
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eBooks allow students to engage with content outside of the classroom.
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Social Studies courses offer HISTORY videos that bring the story to life with primary source footage, dramatic storytelling, and expert testimonials.
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HMHfyi provides text and sources for research and extended reading on social studies topics.
Confronting Racism: Case Studies and Conversations on African American History
Written by Dr. Tyrone Howard, a national leader in culturally responsive pedagogy, Confronting Racism helps teachers and students meaningfully discuss racial divisions that exist in America. Through interactive case studies, students learn about historical and institutional racism and are encouraged to brainstorm productive ways of addressing these issues.
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Teacher Experience
Metacognitive Support
Some courses offer multimedia close-read screencasts, which share how to read and analyze primary sources.
Audio Support
Full-text audio gives students the opportunity to read as they listen to full audio in the eBook.
Comprehension Support
Reading check questions support comprehension by directing students to the vital content in each lesson.
EL Support
Every course includes support, such as summaries of the lessons at lower readability, in both English & Spanish, so students can build reading stamina.
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Students are constantly answering questions within the narrative to interpret maps, timelines, and graphs, as well as analyzing literature, primary sources, videos, and perspectives.
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Module assessments measure student comprehension using a variety of critical thinking, writing, and multimedia questions.
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Benchmark and end-of-year assessments provide immediate feedback with automatic scoring and reporting.
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Ed, the HMH learning platform, HMH’s new online learning system, combines the best of technology with HMH® content and instruction to personalize the teaching experience.
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The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Resources for Educators provides resources tailored for classroom use—films, lesson plans, and curricular materials.
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A dedicated, regularly updated Current Events site features trustworthy articles that connect what students learn in class to the world around them.
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Literacy Solutions® provides on-demand learning for anytime support. Getting Started and a Professional Learning Guide are available on Ed to ensure a successful first year.
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The NEW Teacher's Corner™ provides additional on-demand professional learning and teaching support anytime, anywhere. Read tips from fellow teachers and connect with coaches and thought leaders via live events.
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Extend your professional learning with Literacy Solutions, the leaders in literacy and social studies professional learning. Gain the support you need to grow your practice with online learning, courses, and professional learning communities.
Family Experience
Family Room—a family-friendly part of the Ed learning platform—supports diverse learning environments and makes at-home learning more manageable for families and caregivers by providing equitable, on-demand resources to help support their children.
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With Family Room, families and caregivers can:
- Access their child’s learning via the student’s Ed log in
- Find simple, helpful, and equitable at-home learning resources in both English and Spanish
- Explore tips and videos personalized to their child’s learning
"If history were taught in the form of stories,
it would never be forgotten."
Our grade-level solutions
From World History to United States Government, HMH Social Studies programs invite students to take an active role in their exploration of the past. By asking questions, thinking critically and making connections between the past and the present, our programs are designed specifically to cultivate a generation of informed, engaged citizens.
United States History provides the tools to create a richer understanding of America's past and its impact today. Social Studies skills, such as map reading, research, geography, and civic participation, are integrated throughout the program.
World Civilizations creates a richer understanding of world history and culture with vivid, instructional visuals and high-interest scenarios.
Civics helps foster student civic responsibility through a balanced course that features the principles of government, active citizenship, and responsible economic participation.
World Geography, Eastern World Geography, and Western World Geography engage, inspire, and encourage the love of geography with tools that help students connect with the content and see its relevance and importance in their lives.
Civics helps foster student civic responsibility through a balanced course that features the principles of government, active citizenship, and responsible economic participation.
American History explores the story of U.S. history, weaving the reflections of people who experienced history firsthand throughout the narrative.
World History provides teachers with a practical and motivational approach to teaching world history and helps students think critically and make global connections.
Designed to balance the need to cover key, standards-based government topics and motivate students to learn, United States Government makes our political system meaningful to all students.
Global Geography motivates students to explore current geographic issues to show the relevance of geography to current events. It is organized by physical geography, human geography, and today’s issues.
Economics uses a concept-driven and interactive approach to develop economic literacy, utilizing real examples, concept application, and the latest economics news.
Taking into account current psychological theory and current statistics, Psychology offers the tools students need to understand themselves and the world around them with a variety of case studies, group projects, and opportunities for in-depth study.
Leveraging current sociological theory and current statistics, Sociology gives the student the tools they need to discover the meaning behind behavior through a variety of case studies, group projects, and opportunities for in-depth study.
Ignite student engagement with currency and higher-order thinking that ties to students’ lives.
Checkology®: NLP’s Checkology virtual classroom is a browser-based platform that empowers educators to teach students how to sort fact from fiction and discern what information to trust, share, and act on.
The Sift: NLP’s free newsletter explores timely examples of misinformation, social media activity, and news literacy trends.
Sign up for free multimedia resources from our partners at HISTORY and the Center for Civic Education. Every month you’ll have access to standards-based videos, lesson plans, and classroom resources for connecting students with current events.
Connect with free multimedia resources.
Writable® for HMH Social Studies American History provides a robust online academic writing experience for students. It allows teachers the flexibility to create, access, and modify assignments to meet their needs as well as supplement the curriculum with the bank of 600+ additional assignments and prompts available in Writable including AP® assessment prep and civics assignments.
View the Newberry® Library’s Digital Collections for the Classroom site for nearly 100 content-based essays accompanied by discussion questions, classroom activities, and high-quality digitized primary sources. The collections offer an excellent avenue for teaching students how to use primary sources to examine critical moments in history.
HISTORY Shorts videos explore the extraordinary history behind inspiring people, places, and events, from the Continental Army to the Harlem Hellfighters, the Statue of Liberty to space flight. These are unexpected tales from history you didn’t know you needed to know.
Rich, Interactive Content
Students take notes and cite sources in interactive digital studies of 25 landmark Supreme Court cases that continue to impact the lives of teenagers and young adults.
Now Included in Five Courses
Judicial Inquiries are available for Middle School United States History, Middle and High School Civics, High School American History, and High School U.S. Government.
Dig into our sources.