Indiana Social Studies IS.1.36

Social StudiesGrades 9–12History

The Standard

Analyze multiple, unexpected and complex causes and effects of events in the past.

2026 Indiana Academic Standards: K-12 Social Studies · Historical Thinking

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students explain how several causes combined to produce a past event. They trace effects through more than one step, including results people did not expect.
What Mastery Looks Like: A student can explain why the assassination in Sarajevo led to a wider war, using alliances and mobilization as evidence. They can also connect the war to an indirect effect, such as new borders after empires collapsed.
Common Misconceptions: Students may say the assassination alone caused World War I and leave out the conditions that made war more likely. They may list events that came later without explaining how one led to another.
How to Assess It: On an exit ticket, ask: “Why did the assassination in Sarajevo lead to a wider war? Name two contributing causes and explain one less obvious effect of the war.”

Lesson moves

Give pairs cards for the assassination, alliances, mobilization, imperial rivalry, and war; have them draw and label arrows between related cards.
Ask students to write: “Which mattered more in starting the wider war, the assassination or the conditions already in place? Why?”
Play cause-chain swap: teams arrange World War I cause and effect cards, then trade with another team to challenge one unsupported link.
Place a 1914 Ottoman map beside a current Iraq map; have students trace how wartime defeat and postwar decisions shaped Iraq's borders.

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