The student lessons in this web site are rooted in the school curricula developed by the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Education. This is necessary if they are to have significance and legitimacy.
The curriculum that forms the major context for this web-based unit is Canadian History 1201. Nonetheless, the learning skills promoted in the Canadian history curriculum are not unique to this field of study. A careful analysis of such curricula as English-language arts and fine arts indicates that they share some of the learning skills found in the Canadian history curriculum.
The following overviews the intent of these three curricula.
Canadian History 1201
The Canadian History 1201 curriculum adopts a thematic approach for the study of the history of Canada. The theme, A Time of Transition: 1946-1967, explores Canada's changing international position, Newfoundland's entry into Confederation, the rise of post-war Quebec nationalism, Canada-United States relations, and the economic, social and cultural trends in the 1960s. This theme, with its emphasis on the Confederation story, is most relevant for the development of instructional units on Confederation.
The Confederation Theme: Knowledge
Each theme is specified into curriculum outcomes, one of which states that "the student will be expected to assess the reasons for and the impact of Newfoundland's entry into Confederation" (Theme 5, Curriculum Outcome 2). The performance expectations attached to this outcome lends further specificity by suggesting the following interrelated elements:
The Confederation Theme: Competencies
These elements form the understandings to serve as the knowledge-domain for the study of how and why Newfoundland became Canada's tenth province. Canadian History 1201 also describes a second domain to guide instructional practices so that students will demonstrate significant learning competencies. More specifically,
The Confederation Theme: Values
To complete the description of the scope of a study of Canadian history, the curriculum sets out the affective domain. The student is expected to demonstrate an appreciation of
Department of Education Policy on Cross-Curricular Learning
The Senior High School Program: A School Administrator's Handbook (Draft 1996), intended to assist in the implementation of curriculum changes due in September 1998, draws attention to the importance of addressing the inter-connectedness of learning. To this end, it points to the need to identify inter-related threads running through various courses; and devise ways of bringing these threads together. The document suggests seven strategies for connecting curricula: combining subjects, connecting concepts, making connections informally, infusion, developing thematic units, and using a project focus.
Although the instructional units for the Confederation theme will strongly rest on the understandings, competencies, and dispositions espoused by Canadian History 1201, they will necessarily reflect an inter-disciplinary or cross-curricular approach. Such curricula as fine arts and language arts articulate concepts and processes that may be interwoven into lessons related to the study of the entry of Newfoundland and Labrador into Confederation with Canada.
The Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Education maintains that its English-language arts program provides students with an opportunity to experience, study, and appreciate language, literature, media, and communication. This area of study rests on six interdependent processes: listening, speaking, reading, viewing, writing, and other ways of representing. These processes are fundamental to the student's development of language abilities, cultural understanding, and creative and critical thinking.
The provincial English-Language Arts Curriculum: Grades 10-12 provides a detailed list of specific curriculum outcomes for each of the six process areas. When applicable, selected outcomes will be cited in each lesson for teacher reference.
The provincial Department of Education, through its arts education curriculum, attempts to enable and encourage students to engage in the creative, expressive, and responsive processes of arts through their lives. These processes find expression through dance, drama, music, and visual arts.
Arts is an integral part of general education since it provides an opportunity for students to become more aware of their culture by examining and producing "artifacts", and a means of formulating and expressing concepts, ideas, perceptions, and feelings during the process of inquiry.
As with language arts, outcomes for arts education will be cited, where applicable, in the teacher material for each lesson.
Social Studies Skills
One way to synthesize many of the learning skills promoted across these curricula is to develop a skills list. To this end, the following social studies skills list is provided for teacher reference.
Although a number of skills lists for studies are currently in use, the features that are most common and most relevant to this project include gathering, organizing, evaluating and communicating information; interpreting visual formats; interpreting maps and globes; participating in group formats; understanding time and chronology; and solving problems and thinking critically.
Interpreting Visual Formats
Interpreting Maps and Globes
Participating in Groups
Understanding Time and Chronology
Solving Problems and Thinking Critically