Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning

The Compendium of Academic Standards was developed by McREL in the late 1990’s and maintained through the early 2010’s. Funding for the project has since ended, and the site is no longer actively updated. For information on McREL’s current services for developing and analyzing standards, curriculum, instruction, and professional learning, please visit www.mcrel.org.

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List of Benchmarks for World History

Standard 15.Understands the political, social, and cultural redefinitions in Europe from 500 to 1000 CE
  Level II (Grade 5-6)
   1. Understands the influence of the monastery in European development (e.g., the importance of monasteries, convents, and missionaries from Britain and Ireland in the Christianizing of Western and Central Europe; the individual duties of monks and nuns)
   2. Understands the development of the Merovingian and Carolingian states (e.g., their success at maintaining public order and local defense in western Europe)
   3. Understands the significance of Norse migrations and invasions (e.g., how Norse explorations stimulated the emergence of independent lords and the knightly class; locations of Norse settlements, including routes to North America, Russia, Western Europe, and the Black Sea)
   4. Understands the significance of Charlemagne (e.g., his government, laws, conquests, personal values)
   5. Knows the life story and major achievements of King Alfred of England, and understands how he earned the title "Alfred the Great"
  Level III (Grade 7-8)
   1. Understands the importance of monasteries and convents as centers of political power, economic productivity, and communal life
   2. Understands the influence of the Carolingian Empire on the development of European civilization (e.g., how Charlemagne's royal court, monasteries, and convents preserved Greco-Roman and early Christian learning and contributed to the emergence of European civilization; changing political relations between the papacy and the secular rulers of Europe; extent and causes of the Carolingian influence in Europe and reasons for its decline; how the Rules of St. Benedict shaped Medieval Europe; how secular leaders such as Charlemagne influenced political order within Europe)
   3. Understands social class and gender roles in Medieval Europe (e.g., changes in the legal, social, and economic status of peasants in the 9th and 10th centuries; how the political fragmentation of Europe after Charlemagne affected their lives; the responsibilities of women with different social status)
   4. Understands the significance of Clovis (e.g., the major conquests of Clovis, how his conversion to Christianity was influenced by his wife, Clothilde; how his conversion affected the Frankish and Saxon peoples)
   5. Understands the role of Norse peoples in the development of Europe (e.g., Nordic contributions to long-distance trade and exploration, the failure of Norse settlements in Newfoundland and Greenland)
  Level IV (Grade 9-12)
   1. Understands significant religious events that shaped medieval society (e.g., the successes of the Latin Catholic and Byzantine churches in introducing Christianity and Christian culture to Eastern Europe; similarities and differences in governance and worship in the Latin Catholic and Byzantine churches; how the Anglo-Saxon Boniface was an exemplar for other missionaries, and how he represented the "romanization of Europe")
   2. Understands shifts in political power during 9th and 10th century Europe (e.g., how royal officials such as counts and dukes transformed delegated powers into hereditary, autonomous power over land and people)
   3. Understands the significance of different empires in Europe (e.g., the size, wealth, and political organization of Charlemagne's empire compared to Byzantium, the Abbasid empire, and the Islamic caliphate of Iberia; the extent of the Frankish Empire under Clovis, the eventual division of imperial territory among his four sons, and the consequences of this division)
   4. Understands central and peripheral reasons for the failure of the Carolingian Empire to endure after the death of Charlemagne (e.g., the independent power of nobles; the advantage of the Magyar cavalry and Viking longboat)