Washington, D.C. standards alignment

• WH2.15

  Covered

  Compare different forms of European colonization and enslavement, such as in plantation-based societies and economies across the Americas and the Caribbean, and resistance to such enslavement.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Sugar — The Sweet Revolution
  • BVC: Rum — Sweet Poison

  • · Ep 4 · The Triangular Trade and the Middle Passage
  • · Ep 4 · Resistance and Revolution
  • · Ep 11 · The Maroons
  • · Ep 11 · The Haitian Revolution

  Note: Both halves of the standard are covered: the plantation economy itself, and resistance to it (Maroon communities, the Haitian Revolution, revolt and abolition).

• WH2.40

  Covered

  Analyze the social, political and economic factors that contributed to the Haitian Revolution, and evaluate the impact of the Haitian revolution on Haiti and global events.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Rum — Sweet Poison

  • · Ep 11 · The Haitian Revolution
  • · Ep 11 · The Debt of Freedom
  • · Ep 11 · The Black Jacobins (C.L.R. James)

  Note: Including the standard's second half, which most curricula skip: the 1825 French indemnity, and the line from it to Haiti's poverty today.

• WH2.53

  Covered

  Analyze the Opium Wars' impact on China's political, economic and social systems, and evaluate the global consequences of the Opium Wars.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Opioids — The Poppy's Promise

  • · Ep 17 · The Opium Wars
  • · Ep 17 · Lin Zexu's Letter

• WH2.37

  Partially covered

  Evaluate the impact of the silver trade, spice trade, cotton trade and sugar industry on different societies and individuals during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Sugar — The Sweet Revolution
  • BVC: Rum — Sweet Poison

  • · Ep 4 · The Sugar Islands
  • · Ep 4 · From New Guinea to the New World
  • · Ep 11 · Waste-Product Economics

  What we do and don't cover: Partial: of the four trades the standard names, this curriculum covers the SUGAR INDUSTRY — thoroughly. It does not teach the silver, spice or cotton trades.

• WH2.13

  Partially covered

  Analyze government structures, technological innovations and geographical features of empires and city states across the Americas to evaluate the drastic impact of European colonization on Indigenous societies, including the Aztec and Incan Empires.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Chocolate — Food of the Gods
  • BVC: Tequila & Mezcal — Heart of the Agave

  • · Ep 3 · Food of the Gods (cacao as Maya/Aztec currency and sacrament)
  • · Ep 3 · Conquest and the Great Reversal
  • · Ep 12 · The Sacred Plant (Aztec governance of pulque)
  • · Ep 12 · Burning the Books

  What we do and don't cover: Partial: Mesoamerica (Maya and Aztec) is covered in real depth, through the plants those societies governed. The Incan Empire is not covered, and the standard names it explicitly.

• WH2.18

  Partially covered

  Evaluate primary source accounts of the Middle Passage to analyze the dehumanizing experience forced upon enslaved people and the ways in which individuals worked to maintain humanity and dignity in the face of mass atrocity.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Sugar — The Sweet Revolution

  • · Ep 4 · The Triangular Trade and the Middle Passage
  • · Ep 4 · Whose Voice Tells the Story (Equiano, 1789; Mary Prince, 1831)

  What we do and don't cover: Partial, and the distinction is worth being exact about: the episode teaches the Middle Passage, and it does evaluate primary-source accounts by formerly enslaved writers (Equiano, Prince). But that primary-source work centres plantation labour rather than the crossing itself. The Middle Passage is taught from secondary sources.

• WH1.15

  Partially covered

  Analyze the role of agricultural, technological and cultural innovations in the emergence and maintenance of early complex societies between 10,000 BCE and 500 BCE.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Beer — Liquid Bread
  • BVC: Wine — Blood of the Earth

  • · Ep 8 · Liquid Bread and the First Cities (the Code of Hammurabi, c. 1754 BCE, legislates beer)
  • · Ep 9 · Wine, Power, and the Sacred

  What we do and don't cover: Partial: fermentation is used as the way into early complex societies, and it falls inside the standard's window. It is one thread through that period, not a survey of it.

• US2.79

  Partially covered

  Evaluate the effort of American foreign policy to meet humanitarian goals, further economic interests, and increase domestic security, including the War on Drugs and the invasion of Afghanistan during the Global War on Terror.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Coca — White Lines
  • BVC: Opioids — The Poppy's Promise
  • BVC: Cannabis — The Green Revolution

  • · Ep 18 · Bolivia's Bet (Bolivia's legal coca model against U.S.-funded eradication)
  • · Ep 18 · The Balloon Effect
  • · Ep 17 · Where the Poppy Grows (Afghanistan and the Golden Crescent)
  • · Ep 16 · The Justice Gap

  What we do and don't cover: Partial: the War on Drugs half is covered in depth, including its foreign-policy arm. The invasion of Afghanistan and the Global War on Terror are not taught — the curriculum reaches Afghanistan through opium geography, not through the war.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.6

  Covered

  Evaluate authors' differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors' claims, reasoning, and evidence.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Sugar — The Sweet Revolution
  • BVC: Chocolate — Food of the Gods
  • BVC: Guayusa & Kola Nut — Forest Wisdom
  • BVC: Coca — White Lines

  • · Ep 4 · Whose Voice Tells the Story, Beckford (1790) against Equiano (1789) and Mary Prince (1831) on the same plantation world
  • · Ep 3 · Two Ways of Seeing a Bean
  • · Ep 5 · Two Ways of Knowing
  • · Ep 18 · Whose Voice

  Note: The strongest single alignment on this page. Ep 4 puts a planter's euphemism and passive voice directly against two first-person accounts by formerly enslaved writers, and teaches the student to assess each author's claims and evidence.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.8

  Covered

  Evaluate an author's premises, claims, and evidence by corroborating or challenging them with other information.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Tobacco — Sacred Smoke
  • BVC: Psychedelics — The Mushroom's Message
  • BVC: Khat — The Afternoon Leaf

  • · Ep 15 · Doubt Is Our Product
  • · Ep 19 · Peer Review Versus Press Release
  • · Ep 20 · The Ban Against the Evidence (the UK banning khat against its own scientific advice)
  • · 3 · The test: four questions before you draw an edge
  • · 10 · The source: what Berman v. Parker authorised
  • · 1 · The claim, and the two ways it gets abused
  • · 6 · How to hold a contested claim: the Black Rice debate
  • · 2 · The Olmec: heads, rubber, and a live debate
  • · Afrocentricity: How to Evaluate a Contested Paradigm

  Note: The BVC value-chain course teaches fallacy-spotting; the route series, the labor and precolonial courses, and Afrocentricity make testing a claim against its sources (corroborating, challenging, or downgrading it) the explicit method of the course.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.6

  Covered

  Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness or beauty of the text.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Sugar — The Sweet Revolution
  • BVC: Tobacco — Sacred Smoke
  • BVC: Opioids — The Poppy's Promise
  • BVC: Cannabis — The Green Revolution

  • · Ep 4 · Blood-Sweetened Luxury
  • · Ep 15 · Torches of Freedom
  • · Ep 17 · Lin Zexu's Letter
  • · Ep 16 · Three Sentences, Three Policies

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.11-12.7

  Covered

  Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Coffee — The Daily Global Connection

  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, all four options are 2-3 week research projects requiring synthesis across sources
  • · 19 · Your assignment: find a listing, then find the address today
  • · 20 · Your assignment: write one block
  • · 21 · Your assignment: write one firm
  • · 21 · Your assignment: test one connection of your own
  • · 17 · Your assignment: one schoolhouse, and the budget line that raised it
  • · 20 · Your assignment: write one property

  Note: The Coffee episode ships a graded assignment; the route series and the positive-track courses each close with a research capstone (find a listing, write one firm, test one connection) in which the student runs a self-directed inquiry and synthesizes multiple sources.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.11-12.8

  Covered

  Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the specific task, purpose, and audience; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and overreliance on any one source and following a standard format for citation.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Coffee — The Daily Global Connection

  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option B, 3+ peer-reviewed sources and an APA bibliography
  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option C, interview ethics: informed consent, right to review
  • · 19 · Your assignment: find a listing, then find the address today
  • · 20 · Your assignment: write one block
  • · 21 · Your assignment: write one firm
  • · 21 · Your assignment: test one connection of your own
  • · 17 · Your assignment: one schoolhouse, and the budget line that raised it
  • · 20 · Your assignment: write one property

  Note: The route and positive-track capstones require the student to locate a primary record, corroborate it across independent sources, weigh each source's limits, and write it up with citations: the whole of this standard.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.9

  Partially covered

  Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Whiskey — Fire Water
  • BVC: Sugar — The Sweet Revolution

  • · Ep 10 · The Oral History That Survived (recovering Nathan “Nearest” Green's erased role)
  • · Ep 4 · Whose Voice Tells the Story
  • · 2 · How we know: reading a record the enslavers wrote
  • · 2 · The center of gravity: the claim, its sources, and its caveats
  • · 9 · Reading density: what a thick section and a thin one mean
  • · 8 · The Lula record, stated as dated fact
  • · Africa Before Colonization: The Documented Record

  What we do and don't cover: Full in the BVC Nathan Green lesson, where the documentary and oral records openly disagree. Partial across the catalog-wide claim: every one of those courses integrates cited primary and secondary sources into a coherent account (the standard's first clause), and the route, labor, and contested-scholarship courses also foreground where the sources disagree, but the narrative histories (bathing, hoodoo) integrate sources without making discrepancy-resolution a systematic exercise.

• HS-ESS3-1

  Partially covered

  Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
  • BVC: Chocolate — Food of the Gods
  • BVC: Kava — The Root of Peace
  • BVC: Whiskey — Fire Water

  • · Ep 1 · Climate Change Is Redrawing the Map
  • · Ep 3 · A Two-Degree Threat
  • · Ep 6 · Why Volcanic Soil Only
  • · Ep 10 · Karst Limestone and Bourbon
  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option B, assess a producing country's climate viability and defend the assessment

  What we do and don't cover: Read this one carefully before you rely on it. This is NOT a science course, it has no laboratory work, no investigations and no scientific modelling. What it does have is precisely the content of HS-ESS3-1: resource availability and climate change shaping what humans do and where. The lessons supply the evidence; the STUDENT constructs the explanation only in the Coffee project (Option B). If your science requirement is assessed on the three-dimensional NGSS performance, this contributes to it, it does not discharge it.

What we don't claim

A standards page is only worth reading if the omissions are honest too. We looked at these and left them out:

• Mathematics — nothing. This curriculum does no mathematics instruction, so it meets no Common Core mathematics standard.
• Science — almost nothing. There is no laboratory work, no investigation and no scientific modelling here. We claim a single NGSS performance expectation, partially, and we explain exactly why on the entry itself. It is not a science course and we will not sell it as one.
• Prohibition and mass incarceration. The curriculum teaches both. D.C.'s 2023 social studies standards contain no standard on either (we searched the full document), so there is nothing for us to cite. The gap is in the standards, not the lessons.
• D.C.'s economics and geography strands. In the 2023 document these are un-numbered “statements of practice”, not coded standards. There is no code to cite, so we cite none — even though the economics content lines up well.
• The wider catalog — not yet mapped for D.C. The civics, U.S. history, health, and PE mapping done for Indiana has not been repeated against D.C.'s frameworks yet. D.C. currently carries the Commodity Map alignment only; the catalog-wide pass is queued.