As a newly badged history detective, run a 'mystery object' investigation: examine a real or pictured artifact (or a 'time capsule' object from home), record what you observe, then make and defend a claim about who used it and why — labeling each idea as fact, clue, or guess. Present your case to a family 'review board.' Earns the badge promised in the opening: you can now read a clue and build a claim.

As an archaeologist of Pompeii, reconstruct one scene of Roman daily life entirely from real artifact evidence: pick a room, a street, or a meal, gather what the ruins reveal, and build a labeled reconstruction with a short report explaining what each clue proves. Present it as a museum 'dig findings' display to family or co-op. Digs straight out of the buried-city opening: the clues rebuild the day.

As a Roman infrastructure investigator, map and explain one Roman system — a road, an aqueduct, or the layout of a city — using a real map and the language of cause and effect. Build a route map plus a short explainer of how it worked and why it went where it did, and present your 'how Rome worked' case to an audience. Follows the straight-road opening: trace the system, then explain the why.

As a Viking-age archaeologist, build an evidence case that answers 'who were the Vikings, really?' Gather at least three kinds of artifact clue (a burial, a trade good, a runestone), explain what each proves, and write a claim that corrects one myth about Vikings using your evidence. Present your 'case file' to family or co-op. Cracks the ship-burial opening: the artifacts, not the cartoons, tell the truth.

As an investigator of early America, research one Native nation or culture from before European arrival and build an evidence-based profile: where they lived (a map), how the land shaped their life, and what their artifacts and structures reveal — pulled from real sources and written as an informative report. Present your findings to a family or co-op audience. Reads the snake-mound opening: the land and its objects tell the deep story.

As a fair-minded historian, take one event or topic about the first Americans and compare how two different sources describe it — noting who wrote each and what each leaves out. Build a claim about which is more trustworthy and why, and propose how to tell the story more fairly. Present your 'whose story' case to family or co-op. Answers the missing-voices opening: weigh the sources, then make it fair.

As a colonial document detective, investigate one colony using at least two real (or faithfully adapted) primary sources, sort firsthand from secondhand, and write up what the evidence shows about life there — including where the sources disagree. Present your 'case file' to a family or co-op audience. Opens the starving-colony letter: read the real words, then judge what they prove.

As a museum curator, research a piece of real local history — your town, neighborhood, school, or family's past — using real sources (interviews, photos, records, a local site), then design and build an exhibit with labels, evidence, and a clear claim about what happened and why it matters. Host an opening for family, co-op, or neighbors. Closes the year: the detective who earned a badge in Module 1 now curates the evidence for the public.

The First Page of My Atlas: A Medieval Story-Map — a foldout that retells a short Arthurian or Robin Hood episode in the student's words, mapped onto a real medieval-Europe setting (castle, manor, village) with a 'real vs. legend' panel. Weeks 1-3 hand over character/setting in depth, theme, and legend-vs-history.

Write a Legend Worth Quoting — an original quest legend with a hero, a trial, and a lesson, ending in a memorable saying the student invents, plus a one-page 'word-origins' key explaining the allusions woven in. Weeks 1-3 hand over allusion/figurative language, point of view (1st vs. 3rd), and theme.

An Atlas Page for Baghdad: 'How We Know' — an exhibit page that integrates two sources about one House-of-Wisdom scholar or invention, with a sidebar comparing a firsthand traveler's diary to a secondhand history, plus a compass-and-ruler star pattern. Weeks 1-3 hand over main idea, integrating two texts (RI.4.9), and firsthand vs. secondhand (RI.4.6).

Become a Griot: The Telling and the Verdict — a recorded oral telling of a West African tale paired with an evidence-backed opinion ('Who should be remembered — Sundiata or Mansa Musa?'). Weeks 1-3 hand over the oral epic and theme, firsthand vs. secondhand accounts, and building a claim from evidence.

A Japan Atlas Page: Poems, a Tale, and a Compare — the student's own haiku with brush-style art, a retold Japanese folktale, and a knights-vs-samurai compare page. Weeks 1-3 hand over the samurai/cross-cultural compare, haiku imagery & figurative language, and folktale theme/point of view.

The Verdict on Marco Polo + an Invention's Journey — a 'believe it or not' page weighing his firsthand account against other sources, plus a researched presentation of one Chinese invention and a trader's travel journal. Weeks 1-3 hand over main idea & geography, integrating sources on the Four Great Inventions, and firsthand vs. secondhand credibility.

Make Your Voice Heard — a persuasive pamphlet or speech as a Patriot OR a Loyalist, presented aloud, built on the year's ONE AI-coached essay ('Was breaking away the right story to tell? Should the colonies declare independence?'). Weeks 1-3 hand over reading primary sources & firsthand vs. secondhand, the two opposing points of view, and the synthesis essay.

Be a Citizen: The Atlas's Last Page (year capstone) — identify a real problem in your home, neighborhood, or community; research it; build a claim; propose a solution with reasons and evidence; and present it, closing the year's Storyteller's Atlas with the student's own community. Weeks 1-3 hand over reading a founding document, claim-from-a-document, and researching a real problem.

Write and design an illustrated 'Wonder of the Americas' field guide to one Maya, Aztec, or Inca achievement, drawing on at least two sources (one from the people themselves, one from outside) and quoting each accurately.

Write an evidence-based opinion piece (with a counter-argument) taking and defending a position on whether a chosen explorer or voyage should be honored, citing at least three sources that disagree.

Write an informative profile of a Renaissance figure or invention, then explain in a short claim how the printing press helped their ideas spread — drawing on multiple sources.

Write a short historical narrative set in feudal Japan in which a character faces a clash between loyalty and what's right, grounded in real details from the readings.

Build an informative 'then and there' report on one slice of early Russian life (a trade city, a tsar, a winter, a fortress), integrating several sources and a map.

Write an argument essay answering 'Was the United States right to expand westward?' using at least one settler source and one Native source, quoting each accurately and answering the other side.

Write an evidence-based piece (informative report or argument) tracing one cause-and-effect thread of the Civil War — or a person's experience of it — through at least three primary sources, building a claim from the evidence.

Choose any era or event from the year and produce a polished history piece — narrative, argument, or 'voices' collection — that draws on multiple sources, takes a clear point of view, quotes accurately, and is presented to a real audience.

As a museum's junior research team, build an 'artifact case file' for a real Mesopotamian object (a cuneiform tablet, the Standard of Ur, a cylinder seal) and present it to an audience of family or co-op peers: state a claim about the people who made it, back it with at least three lines of evidence, and name honestly what the object cannot tell us.

As an exhibit designer for a 'Daily Life on the Nile' gallery, create a piece that uses real tomb evidence to teach an audience what ordinary Egyptians (not just pharaohs) believed and how they lived — and defend why your evidence supports it, distinguishing what the walls show from what they leave out.

As a member of an ancient-law review panel, write and present an argument essay answering whether a chosen set of Hammurabi's laws was just, citing the laws themselves as evidence and addressing the strongest objection to your position — delivered to a panel (family/co-op) who hear both sides.

As a forensic-history team, build an evidence-based 'case for the Indus' — a profile of who these people were and a reasoned theory for why their cities were abandoned — that clearly separates what the evidence supports from what is speculation, for an audience of peers who pressure-test your reasoning.

As researchers for a 'Silk Road exchange' feature, produce a short multi-source research piece tracing one Chinese idea, invention, or good as it traveled — comparing at least two sources' accounts and assessing which is more credible — and present it to an online or co-op audience.

As a literary detective, create a piece that traces a Greek hero's journey through a real myth or a section of an epic AND takes a defended position on what the story reveals about Greek values — shared with an audience who reads or watches and responds.

As a citizen of the ancient assembly OR a critic of it, write and deliver an argument (essay + speech) answering whether Athenian democracy deserves to be called free, citing Athenian sources and addressing the counterclaim — presented to a deliberating panel of peers or family who then weigh in.

As lead curator, design and present a 'Roots of the Modern World' exhibit or argument that names which civilization most shaped your world today, marshals evidence from multiple modules and sources, and answers a real audience's challenges live — a public defense beyond the parent, judged on the strength of the argument, not the decoration.

As a documentary writer-narrator for a 'History's Disputed Figures' channel aimed at other teens, script and record (or storyboard) a 4-minute portrait of Empress Theodora or Emperor Justinian that openly weighs Procopius's two contradictory accounts against modern historians, then takes and defends your own verdict on the person. Deliver it to an audience beyond your grown-up — a co-op, a family screening, or an online post. Callback to the hook: you got both Procopius books — now you tell the room which one earned your trust, and why.

As a researcher-curator building an exhibit for a 'Hidden Histories' museum gallery (real audience: a co-op showcase or shared online gallery), produce a 5-panel exhibit on a Golden-Age contribution you research — algebra, optics, hospital medicine, star maps, paper-making, or a translated text — each panel making one claim, backed by quoted-and-cited evidence from at least two sources you judged credible. Open the gallery with a wall card answering the essential question. Callback: you found out why the timelines skip this — now put it back on the wall where people will see it.

As an editorial writer for a teen-run 'history desk,' choose a genuinely contested Renaissance-or-Reformation figure or event (Luther, the Medici, the printing press itself, an indulgence, Galileo's early clash) and write a 600-800-word evidence essay that puts two real sources or historians side by side, shows where they emphasize different evidence, and argues which is more persuasive. Publish it for a public reader — a co-op blog, a printed 'gazette,' or a read-aloud panel. Callback: an idea outran its censors once — now you weigh the two versions history left us.

As an op-ed writer for a publication that runs 'arguments that changed the world,' pick one Enlightenment thinker's real claim (natural rights, separation of powers, the social contract, the rights of women) and write a 700-900-word argument essay that traces the original author's reasoning, names its strongest and weakest evidence, raises a genuine counterclaim, and then states and defends your own position on whether the idea holds up today. Present it to a live audience for questions. Callback: 'Dare to know' was their dare — now you dare to judge whether they were right.

As a historian-storyteller for a 'Causes & Consequences' series, build a piece that does two things: maps the multiple causes of a revolution (French, Haitian, or a Latin American independence movement) using real sources, and then argues a position on whether the revolution's results justified its violence — acknowledging the strongest objection to your view. Share it with an audience beyond the family. Callback: a hungry crowd became a revolution — now you weigh whether the world it built was worth the blood it cost.

As an investigative journalist for an 1840s-style exposé OR a modern retrospective, research the Industrial Revolution using at least three primary sources (a worker's testimony, an owner's or economist's defense, a reformer's report) and write a 700-900-word explanatory feature that lays out who gained, who paid, and how the system actually worked — letting the sources speak and citing each. Publish to a real reader. Callback: everything in your room came from this trade — now show your readers the receipt, with the costs printed in.

As a delegate-turned-columnist, take one real Constitutional Convention fight (representation, executive power, the Bill of Rights, the unresolved question of slavery) and write a 700-900-word argument that states your position, builds it on evidence from the actual debates or the Federalist/Anti-Federalist papers, fairly represents the strongest opposing claim, and answers it. Defend it in a live ratification-style debate. Callback: the windows were nailed shut so the argument could be honest — now make yours in the open and win the room.

As an advocate writing in the tradition of America's reformers, research one reform movement (abolition, suffrage, labor, or its modern continuation) using at least two primary sources and two historians, then deliver a persuasive product — speech, op-ed, or campaign — that argues for action on an unfinished version of that issue, names and answers the strongest objection, and proposes a real, do-able step. Present it to a public audience. Callback: the country's promise is still unfinished — now you pick up the pen the reformers handed down and aim it at a fight that's still open.

As a documentary research team, students build a two-voice 'contested history' exhibit on one real colonized place (e.g., the Congo, India, the Philippines): a primary-source panel from the colonizer's argument set beside a panel from a colonized writer or testimony, with a written analysis of where the two accounts disagree on fact versus interpretation. The exhibit is presented to a co-op or family panel who must judge which claims each side actually supports.

As a muckraking journalist for the era's press, the student writes an investigative feature exposing one real Gilded-Age injustice (child labor, tenement conditions, a specific strike, monopoly power), drawing on primary photographs, testimony, and statistics, and ending with a call to action — modeled on the real exposés that drove reform. Published to a class 'newspaper' or read aloud at a community showcase.

As a historian, the student writes and presents an evidence-based argument essay answering 'What caused the First World War?' — staking a clear claim, weighing at least one opposing explanation, and citing primary sources (a treaty, a recruitment poster, a soldier's letter). The argument is delivered to a public audience as a written op-ed plus a short spoken defense where listeners get to push back.

As a memorial curator, the student creates a 'first they came…' reflective narrative-and-source piece centered on one real act of resistance or one real bystander choice from the era (e.g., the White Rose, a rescuer, a town that complied), pairing a researched account with the student's own narrative reconstruction of the decision-point. Shared at a public 'never again' showcase for family or community, framed as a warning to the present.

As a member of a citizens' tribunal, the student writes and argues a position brief on the question 'Was dropping the atomic bomb justified?' — required to represent the strongest version of the opposing view before answering it, and to cite a survivor account, a military document, and a casualty estimate. Briefs are argued before a deliberating panel (family or co-op) that votes after hearing both sides.

As an investigative researcher, the student conducts a short research project on one real decolonization or Cold War flashpoint (e.g., Indian independence, Ghana, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis), assessing sources from both sides and producing a researched explainer that distinguishes fact from framing. Published for an online or community audience as a sourced, citation-backed brief.

As a rhetoric analyst and advocate, the student close-reads one landmark text of a rights movement (e.g., 'Letter from Birmingham Jail,' a suffrage speech, a Cesar Chavez address), writes an analysis of how its argument and language work, then composes an original persuasive speech applying those techniques to a cause they choose. Delivered live to a peer or community audience.

As an active citizen, the student runs a full C3 informed-action capstone: choose a real local, regional, or global issue; research and weigh multiple sources; write an argument that names its strongest counterclaim; assess the levers of power and possible strategies; and take a genuine civic action delivered to a real audience or decision-maker (a letter to an official, public testimony, a community campaign, an organized event). Reflection assesses what changed and what they'd do next.