ADVANCED PLACEMENT UNITED STATES HISTORY



ADVANCED PLACEMENT UNITED STATES HISTORY

COURSE SYLLABUS 2007-2008

The Course: this course has two central purposes:

The first is to acquaint the student with historical method and content and prepare the student to be an effective college history student.

The second is to prepare the student for the AP exam given in May.

In addressing these goals, this course will review essential skills like organizing a large amount of facts, analyzing primary materials, assessing the perspectives of secondary sources, thinking critically, researching historical topics, and perhaps most importantly, writing clear, fluid, fact-based essays.

Course Requirements: In addition to regular, (if not enthusiastic) participation in lectures and discussions, class will include chapter quizzes, short in-class timed writing assignments, periodic unit tests, and written assignments of various length and scope.

Outside Assignments: There will be two major outside-of-class projects in AP US History. In the first quarter, students will read and analyze an approved scholarly work on a significant American topic. In the second and third quarters, students will write a rough draft of a research paper on an approved topic. After the AP exam and in lieu of a class exam, students will revise their research papers. In addition, at various points throughout the year, teams of students will give short powerpoint presentations on their choice of cultural topic.

Grades: The grading scale I prefer is one of cumulative points. Each assignment is graded on a scale consistent with its difficulty, time requirements, etc. For example, a quiz is generally worth 10 points, a written homework assignment anywhere from 5 to 25 points, a test 100 points, and an outside project 150-250 points. A student’s grade is determined by the number of earned points divided by the total number of points possible.

Textbooks:

Garraty,Carnes American Destiny: Narrative of a Nation

Wheeler and Becker, Discovering the American Past, Concise Edition

Kenneth Davis, Don’t Know Much about History

The American Tradition in Literature (English textbook)

Unit One: Discoveries

Lectures: First Contact, “Errand in the Wilderness”

Source Analysis: Paintings: Perceptions of Native Americans (W & B, Ch. 1 “First Encounters: The Confrontation Between Cortes and Montezuma) Discussion: Myth and Reality: Pocahontas and the Pilgrims (ATL 10-19 Readings from John Smith The General History of Virginia)

Workshop: Essay Writing: Doing the DBQ

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 1

Unit Two: Social Foundations

Lectures: Family Life in the Colonies; Great Awakenings

Slide Show/Discussion: Salem, Anne and Social History

Discussion: The Use and Misuse of Statistics (W&B, Ch. 2 Rhythms of Colonial Life: The Statistics of Colonial Massachusetts Bay)

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 2

Unit Three: Building a Fire

Lectures: Mercantilism, Crisis and the Empire; The French and Indian War

Source Analysis: Journal Article “Germ Warfare” (from the Journal of American History)

Workshop: Test Preparation and the dreaded Multiple-Choice Test

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 3

Test #1- Units 1-3 (Tests consist of 25-35 multiple-choice questions and a free-response question drawn from a previously released AP Exam)

Unit Four: Revolution

Lectures: American Revolution: Causes and Interpretations; Republican Motherhood

Video: “The American Revolution”

Discussion: Rhetoric and Revolution (ATL p.201, 210-212,218-220 Excerpts from the writings of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine)

Workshop: Historiography and Perspective (“The Reinvention of History” Xerox from W&B, 3rd Edition—out of print)

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 4

Unit Five: Trial and Error: Building a Government, 1781-1800

Lectures: Confederation to Constitution; Birth of Politics

Debate: The Constitution: For Liberty or Capitalism?(Excerpts of assorted monographs—this year Charles Beard and Forrest MacDonald)

Looking at Art: American Icons (; Autobiography of Ben Franklin in ATL pps. 154-63,177-181)

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 5 and 6

Test #2- Units 4 and 5 (1763-1800)

Unit Six: Becoming a Nation, 1800-1840

Lectures: “The Second American Revolution”; Nationhood

Discussion: Industrialization and the Cult of Domesticity (W&B, Ch. 4 “Away from Home: The Working Girls of Lowell)

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 7 and 8

Unit Seven: Jacksonian America

Lectures: Myth and Jacksonian Democracy

Discussion: Cherokee Removal (assorted primary and secondary sources) **Powerpoint Presentation: Manifest Destiny

Music: Democracy and Campaign Songs

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 9

Test #3- Units 6 and 7 (1800-1840)

Unit Eight: Creation of an American Culture

Lectures: Antebellum Reform; Highbrow, Lowbrow

Discussion: Emerson, Thoreau (ATL readings “Civil Disobedience” and excerpts from “An American Scholar”)

Slideshow: Hudson River School, American Landscapes

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 10; Ch. 11 (Terms only)

Unit Nine: Conquering a Continent

Lectures: “Manifest Destiny/Destiny’s Child?”

Debate: Manifest Destiny or Manifest Design

**Powerpoint Presentation: Oregon Trail

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 12

Test #4- Units 8 and 9

Unit Ten: Breaking Apart: 1850-1860

Lectures: Slavery, Antislavery; Coming of War

Discussion: “The World the Slaves Made” (W&B Ch. 5 “The ‘Peculiar Institution’: Slaves Tell Their own story; Douglass excerpt ATL)

Video: “Africans in America”

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 13 and 14

Unit Eleven: War

Lectures: “War is Hell”

Discussion: Causes (assorted readings from historical monographs--this year Schlesinger and Craven)

Video: Ken Burns’ Civil War

**Powerpoint Presentation: Matthew Brady’s War Photographs

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 15

Test #5- Units 10 and 11 (1850-1865)

Unit Twelve: Reconstruction and the New South

Lectures: “Tragedy or Triumph”

Discussion: Public Opinion and Reconstruction (W&B, Ch. 7 “Reconstructing Reconstruction: The Political Cartoonist and the National Mood)

Video: Birth of a Nation

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 16

Unit Thirteen: Up and Out: A New American Society

Lectures: “Go West, Young Man”; Towards an Industrial Economy

Discussion/ Video: “Wild West” (assorted primary and secondary sources—this year on John Wesley Hardin)

Source Analysis: Historical Films:Excerpts from Stagecoach, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Unforgiven

**Powerpoint Presentation: “The Wild West: Myth and Reality”

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 17

Test #6- Units 12 and 13 (1865-1890)

Unit Fourteen: Becoming an Industrial Nation

Lectures: Making Money; Part I: Industry, Part II: New Ways of Looking at Wealth

Discussion: Labor in the Gilded Age (assorted primary and secondary sources—this year focusing on the Haymarket Square Riot)

Debate: Robber Barons or Captains of Industry?

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 18

Unit Fifteen: Response to Industrialism

Lectures: Workers in the Industrial Age; The City

Source Analysis Workshop: Jacob Riis and Assessing Photographs

**Powerpoint Presentation: Chicago

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 19

Test #7- Units 14 and 15 (1865-1900)

Unit Sixteen: The Gilded Age

Lectures: Politics of Scandal; Farmers’ Revolt

Presentations: Gilded Age Elections and Thomas Nast’s Cartoons



Discussion: The Wizard of Oz

**Powerpoint Presentation: Culture of Excess- Newport, RI

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 20 (terms only); Ch. 21

Unit Seventeen: The Progressive Era

Lectures: Progressivism and Reform

Source Analysis: Emergence of the Middle Class-Advertisements at the turn of the century (W&B, Ch. 8, “How They Lived: Middle-Class Life, 1870-1917”)

Debate: Booker T. or WEB? (College Board released DBQ)

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 22

Test #8- Units 16 and 17 (1877-1917 Politics)

Unit Eighteen: Taking on the World

Lectures: “The Splendid Little War”; American Approaches to Foreign Policy

Powerpoint: Panama Canal: Exercise in Imperialism

Video: TR

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 23

Unit Nineteen: “The Great War”

Lectures: WWI: Background and Basics; Wilson and Versailles

Powerpoint: WWI and Propaganda

Video: “The Great War”

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 24

Test #9 Units 18 and 19 (1898-1917)

Unit Twenty: “The Roaring Twenties”

Lectures: Conflict and Change in the 20s

Discussion: Women in the 20s (W&B, Ch. 9 “The ‘New’ Woman of the 1920s: Image and Reality)

**Powerpoint Presentation: Jazz

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 25,26

Unit Twenty-One: The Great Depression

Lectures: Hoover and FDR; The New Deal

Slideshow: Dustbowl; FSA photographs (W&B, Ch. 10 “Documenting the Depression: The FSA Photographers and Rural Poverty)

Discussion/Debate: The New Deal

**Powerpoint Presentation: WPA Murals

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 27

Test #10 Units 20 and 21 (1920-1940)

Unit Twenty-Two: Road to War

Lectures: WWII: Background and Basics; The Homefront

Slideshow/Music: “Rosie the Riveter”

Video/Discussion: Propaganda- “Why We Fight”

Discussion: Dropping the Bomb (W&B, Ch. 11 “The Burdens of Power: The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb)

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 28

Unit Twenty-Three: The Cold War

Lectures: Origins of the Cold War; The Red Scares and the American Mindset

Discussion: US in Central America (assorted primary and secondary sources on Guatemala )

Video: Atomic Café, Good night, and good luck

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 29

Test #11 Units 22 and 23 (1945-1960)

Unit Twenty-Four: Modern America

Lectures: “People of Plenty: the American Economy in the post-war period”; Civil Rights

Discussion: Sit-ins (MLK; “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”)

Video: “Eyes on the Prize”

**Powerpoint Presentation: Rock and Roll

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 30

Unit Twenty-Five: “This is the end, beautiful friend…” (Almost)

Lectures: Vietnam: Into the Quagmire; JFK, LBJ, RMN: The Fall of Three Presidents

Discussion: Vietnam (W&B,Ch. 12 “A Generation in War and Turmoil: The Agony of Vietnam)

Music: Pop Culture and Protest

**Powerpoint Presentation: Woodstock or Altamont

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 31

Test #12 Units 24 and 25 (1960-1972)

Unit Twenty-Six: The End

Lecture: Ford, Carter, Reagan and the New Politics

Discussion: The 70s: A Decade to Forget?

**Powerpoint Presentation: The 70s

Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 32

Essay in lieu of a test

The remainder of class days will be spent reviewing for the exam and revising your research papers

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