D680 Elementary Social Studies Curriculum, catalog number EDUC 5085, is the two-CU graduate social studies curriculum course in the WGU Master of Arts in Teaching sequence. It covers the key concepts and themes of elementary social studies teaching, the same material as the undergraduate D673 (EDUC 2255). The graduate posture is auditor rather than author. Most elementary teachers inherit materials, and the professional skill is judging what those materials teach, including what they teach by omission.
What EDUC 5085 asks you to audit
Every social studies curriculum makes claims about whose story matters, and it makes them through inclusion, sequencing and emphasis rather than through statements. A textbook that gives one paragraph to a group of people and three chapters to another has said something, and the graduate work in this course is being able to see that and name it in professional language.
The audit questions are specific. Which perspectives appear as actors with intentions and which appear only as recipients of events? Where does the narrative begin, and what does that starting point make invisible? Are conflicts presented as disagreements between people with reasons, or as inevitabilities? Does the material distinguish between a fact, an interpretation and a value judgment? Is the vocabulary of the disciplines present, or has it been replaced with story?
Accuracy is the second audit dimension and it is more of a problem than candidates expect. Elementary social studies materials carry a substantial amount of inherited error: simplified accounts that have hardened into falsehood, dates and attributions that circulate without checking, and origin stories that historians abandoned decades ago. A graduate submission that identifies one specific inaccuracy, with a source, has demonstrated something a summary never could.
Standards coverage is the third and the most mechanical. Social studies standards vary widely between states, and adopted materials are often written for a national market and mapped afterwards. Checking whether the mapping is real, whether the material actually teaches the standard or merely touches its topic, is straightforward work that frequently turns up gaps.
Time is the fourth constraint and it is severe in elementary social studies, which in many schools receives a small share of the week and is the first subject cut when other priorities press. A graduate curriculum plan that assumes daily instruction is unusable. The defensible responses, integration with literacy through informational text and primary sources, depth in fewer units, and using social studies content as the substance of reading and writing instruction, are curricular decisions that should be argued rather than assumed.
Finally, the graduate version expects you to say what you would do about what you found. An audit that stops at criticism is half a document. Naming which gaps you would fill with supplementary material, which you would address by changing how you teach the existing material, and which you would raise with colleagues is what converts analysis into professional practice.
Those three responses carry different costs and it is worth saying which you chose and why. Supplementing is fast and creates a coherence problem, since an added source that does not fit the unit's argument sits awkwardly and children notice. Changing how you teach the existing material costs nothing in resources and a great deal in preparation, because better questions have to be written. Raising a finding with colleagues is the slowest route and the only one that fixes the problem for anyone other than your own class. A recommendation section that weighs those trade-offs reads as the work of somebody who intends to act rather than somebody completing an assignment.
Turning the rubric into an audit document
Scored aspects sit inside your Course of Study rather than the public catalog. Count them before you draft, because every aspect is judged on its own against a three-point scale and every one of them needs a 2. Evaluative aspects are scored on whether criteria were declared, so an audit written as impressions loses even when the impressions are correct.
Where D680 uses a performance assessment, use the rubric's nouns as headings and answer in order. Where an aspect asks for both analysis and recommendation, split them, because a recommendation buried in an analysis paragraph is usually read as an observation.
A worked word budget. Assume six scored aspects and directions pointing at roughly 1,750 words. Reserve 120 words for context naming the grade, the material and the standards framework, and 90 for a close. That leaves 1,540 across six aspects, or about 257 words each.
Weight toward judgment. The aspect requiring evaluation against criteria deserves 380, and any aspect asking for recommended changes deserves 340. The four descriptive aspects sit at 205 apiece, which brings the total back to 1,540. In a two-CU course the first cuts should be summaries of the material's contents, since the evaluator wants your findings rather than a précis.
A shape that fits a curriculum audit
Where directions specify sections, use theirs. Where the shape is yours, this order keeps criteria in front of conclusions and recommendations distinct from findings.
| Section | What it must establish | The weak version |
|---|---|---|
| Material and scope | Exactly what is being audited, at what grade, over what period | A general reference to the school's social studies programme |
| Audit criteria | The questions you will ask, declared before any answers | Criteria inferable only from the conclusions |
| Strand and standards check | Which standards are genuinely taught, not merely touched | The publisher's alignment chart accepted at face value |
| Perspective analysis | Who acts, who is acted upon, and what the starting point hides | A count of how many groups are mentioned |
| Accuracy findings | Specific errors or oversimplifications, with sources | A general concern that the material may be simplified |
| Concept coherence | Whether disciplinary ideas recur and deepen across units | Units judged individually with no view of the year |
| Recommendations | What you would supplement, reteach or raise, and with whom | A conclusion that the material could be improved |
Check the publisher's standards mapping yourself on at least two standards. It is a twenty-minute task that produces the most concrete finding in most audits, and it demonstrates a habit the course is trying to build.
Evidence craft when you are auditing someone else's work
Criticism has to be sourced or it is opinion, and in this subject the sourcing is also a professional protection.
- Verify every accuracy claim against a reliable historical or civic source, and cite it.
- Quote the material you are auditing directly, with page references, so a reader can check the finding.
- Cite the standards document with codes, and use your state's framework where the task allows it.
- Support methodological criticism with research on social studies curriculum rather than with preference.
- Write about perspective in analytic language rather than in the language of complaint.
- APA throughout, including full citation of the audited material itself.
Add a sentence acknowledging what the material does well. An audit that finds only faults reads as an argument looking for evidence, and identifying a genuine strength makes every criticism next to it more credible.
What separates Competent from a returned audit
Aspects score independently, so returns here usually name undeclared criteria or recommendations that could have been written without opening the material.
- Criteria are stated before the findings and are specific enough to be contested.
- Every finding points at a quoted passage, page or lesson.
- At least one accuracy or perspective finding is substantiated with an external source.
- Standards coverage is checked rather than accepted from the publisher.
- Recommendations name the action, the resource and who would be involved.
Competency at WGU is Competent or Not Competent rather than a letter grade, and performance assessment work can be revised and resubmitted with no penalty to the result, which leaves the cost of a return sitting entirely in the queue time it eats out of a six-month flat-rate term. Because closing more courses in the term lowers your effective cost per course, declaring criteria before drafting is the cheapest insurance available.
Boundaries are unchanged: proctored objective assessments are for preparation only and never for us to sit, portal credentials are never requested, and any classroom-based component of your course remains yours to complete.
Six mistakes that weaken a D680 submission
- Auditing without criteria. Findings with no declared standard behind them cannot be scored as evaluation.
- Trusting the alignment chart. Publisher mappings often record topic contact rather than genuine teaching of the standard.
- Making perspective claims without evidence. Point at the passage, or the finding reads as ideology rather than analysis.
- Missing the accuracy layer. Inherited errors in elementary social studies are common and finding one is a strong, concrete result.
- Recommending in the abstract. Supplement with diverse sources is not a recommendation until a source is named.
- Assuming daily instruction. A plan that ignores how little time the subject actually receives is not a usable plan.
How support works on D680
Send the rubric and task directions along with the grade, the standards framework and any material the task asks you to examine. The draft comes back aspect-mapped, with criteria declared first, standards coverage checked rather than assumed, findings anchored to quoted evidence, and recommendations specific enough to act on next term.
If your Degree Plan carries the undergraduate code, build from D673. The graduate methods counterpart is D681, and the audit findings here usually supply the material that course asks you to teach with.
Three questions MAT candidates ask about D680
Is D680 the same course as EDUC 5085?
Is D680 the graduate version of D673?
How critical should I be of published materials?
Auditing social studies materials for D680?
Send the rubric, the directions and whatever material sits in scope. You get an aspect-mapped draft with criteria declared first, coverage checked independently and recommendations you could act on.
Where D680 sits in WGU's programs
The July 2026 catalog places this code in 1 current WGU program. Open a program page for the complete standard path and term positions. The live Degree Plan remains authoritative after transfer credit, substitutions, and mentor planning.
The assessments, one by one
The public catalog does not publish this course's PA/OA identity or task count. WGU Tutors publishes at most one PA manual per course and only from a WGU-controlled public rubric. Until that source exists, PA help begins from the student's real Course of Study and OA support remains preparation only.