The 1988 assessment of U.S. history objectives by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the first such assessment in U.S. history. This booklet presents a framework of objectives for U.S. history courses, including: (1) the chronology of people, events, documents, and interrelationships that form U.S. history; (2) the context of political, economic, cultural, social, and intellectual life within each chronological period; and (3) the reasoning skills necessary to expand knowledge, extend inquiry, and understand how the past is interpreted. The bulk of the booklet is an outline of eight historical periods in U.S. history, from exploration and colonization to the present, and suggested percentage distributions of course work for grade 4, 8, and 12. The outline, which includes more elaboration in the last two periods, covering World War II to the present, is not intended to be definitive; it includes subjects considered of central importance to the teaching of history and is presented as a guide to development of questions for the history assessment. Also included in this booklet is a list of advisory committee members, development consultants, and reviewers who participated in the development of the history objectives. (JGL)