Course: Advanced Placement United States History
School: Maspeth High School
Maspeth, NY 11373
School Code: 24Q585
Principal: Kurshid Abdul-Mutakabbir
AP Social Studies: Mr. Nicholas Scales
Teacher: Mr. Nicholas Scales
E-mail:
School Year: 2016-2017
Program:
AP United States History will be taught to 11th Grade students who are fulfilling a one year requirement of the study of United States history, beginning with pre-Columbian societies and ending with the present day.
Course Description:
The Advanced Placement program in United States History is designed to provide students with the analytical skills and factual knowledge necessary to deal critically with the problems and materials in U.S. history. Students should learn to assess historical materials, including their relevance to a given interpretive problem, their reliability and their importance in an effort to weight the evidence and interpretations presented in historical scholarship. This advanced placement U.S. history course develops the skills necessary to arrive at conclusions on the basis of an informed judgment and to present ideas clearly and persuasively. As much as possible, the AP course is taught by college format, emphasizing lectures and essay examinations.
The course is designed to allow students to develop a greater understanding of nation’s rich history including, but not limited to: its diverse populations and societies, the importance of religion, the evolutionary process of shaping our national identity, cultural, demographic and economic transformations, foreign and domestic policies, and the evolutionary process of adaptability in the continuous process of meeting the needs of our citizens and society. The AP U.S. History course is divided into 28 focus areas and will be approached by analyzing and interpreting both primary and secondary sources. Throughout the course students should have a sense of multiple causation and change over time; in addition to comparing developments and trends from one period to another.
Supplemental Readings:
Zinn, H. A Peoples History of the United States: 1492 - Present. New York: Harper Collins, 2005
Rohatyn, F. Bold Endeavors: How our government built America, and why it must rebuild now.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009
Foner, E. Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History. 2nd Edition, Volumes 1 & 2,
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008
In addition, primary sources provided throughout the textbook will be utilized/analyzed, as well as primary sources from numerous College Board recommended/suggested websites.
Current Events:
Understanding and connecting our country’s history to the events our nation faces today is an essential component of recognizing change and continuation over time, as well as comparing developments and trends from one period to another. As such, students will be required to choose one current event article each week and analyze that article in relation to the various themes in the study of Advanced Placement United States History. Students will then construct visual interpretations of these current events as they connect to events in our nation’s history. Finally, students will choose one theme in United States history, and using their articles and research organize a project research paper that accounts for the similarities, differences, continuities and changes in trends and perspectives within that theme.
A list of approvable source for articles will be provided by the teacher. Students will keep these summaries in a portfolio and will become part of their project grade.
In addition, students will construct an evolving introspective paper using Rohatyn’s Bold Endeavors. Students will evaluate the history of our nation’s various opportunities and policies to invest federal money into projects in an effort to perpetuate national progress and, to what extent are similar possibilities currently available to our nation. Examples include the Erie Canal, the Homestead Act, The Panama Canal, and the GI Bill, among others.
Methodology/Teaching Strategies:
1. Lecture/discussion/briefings
2. Pair/Share/Group assignments/Presentation
3. Debates and Round Tables
4. Computer workshops/Power Point presentations
5. Films/Documentaries
6. Analysis of various forms of art, political cartoons, images, maps, charts, and statistics.
Methods of Evaluation:
1. Exams 25% - this includes AP format multiple choice and free response questions (Quizzes, Unit exams, Mid-year exam, and the final exam (AP released exam).
2. Independent Work 20% - homework, documents, outlines, and assigned readings.
3. Essays 25% - students will be assigned one free response essay (AP format) per week which addresses comparisons or continuities and change over time.
4. Projects 15% - this includes the current events project, the portfolio of all of their articles and analyses, and all other projects (both individual and group-based) assigned throughout the fall and spring semesters.
5. Class discussion 15% – participation through round tables, question and answer sessions, and daily active engagement in lessons and presentations.
Course Planner:
The course will be taught throughout the fall and spring semester with approximately 30 weeks devoted to instruction and review.
COURSE OUTLINE/UNITS OF STUDY
UNIT I: (10 DAYS)
Pre-Columbian Societies, Transatlantic Encounters, & Colonial America
TEXTBOOK READING:
Out of Many – Chapters 1 - 5
ADDITIONAL/SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS & PRIMARY SOURCES:
· (Supp) A People’s History: chapters 1-3
· (Primary) “Encountering Native Americans” (1524) Giovanni da Verrazano
· (Primary) Bartolome’ de las Casas on Spanish Treatment of the Indians (1528)
· (Primary) Sending Women to Virginia (1622)
· (Primary) “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630) John Winthrop
· (Primary) The Trial of Anne Hutchinson (1637)
· (Primary) “A Jesuit Priest Describes New Amsterdam” (1642) Isaac Jogues
· (Primary) Maryland Act Concerning Religion (1644)
· (Primary) “The Importance of Tobacco” (1660) George Alsop
· (Primary) Nathaniel Bacon on Bacon’s Rebellion (1676)
· (Primary) The Pueblo Revolt (1680)
· (Primary) “The Stono Rebellion” (1739) James Oglethorpe
· (Primary) “The Passage of Indentured Servants” (1750) Gottlieb Mittelberger
· (Primary) Complaint of an Indentured Servant (1756)
· (Primary) Women in the Household Economy (1709)
· (Primary) The Trial of John Peter Zenger (1735)
THEMES/GUIDELINES ADDRESSED: (1, 2, 3)
American Diversity, Slavery and its legacies, Religion, Roots of American Identity
§ Discovery and Settlement in the New World (1492-1650)
o Europe and the 16th century, Spanish, English and French exploration, first English settlements in Jamestown and Plymouth, Spanish and French settlements and long term influence, American Indians.
§ America and the British Empire (1650-1754)
o Chesapeake country, growth of New England, Restoration colonies, mercantilism; the Dominion of England, origins of slavery. Resistance to colonial authority: Bacon’s Rebellion, Pueblo Revolt.
§ Colonial Society in the Mid-18th century
o Social structure in family, farm and town life, including the plantation economies and slave societies, and the Backcountry.
o Culture, including the decline in religious devotion and the Great Awakening, politics of revivalism, the Enlightenment, religious diversity; and new immigrants.
LECTURE/DISCUSSION/GUIDING QUESTIONS:
Ø How did the settlement of English colonies give rise to the unique economic, political and social condition that defined an emerging American Identity? Connecting today – does where you live affect how you live?
Ø How did the need for labor in the colonies give rise to chattel African slavery? What role did “unfree” labor play in colonial American society?
Ø Was religion a unifying or a dividing force – or was it both? To what extent and why did religious toleration increase in the American colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries?
Ø How did the interaction between European and Native American people transform both groups and cultures?
Ø Did Puritanism bore within itself the seeds of its own destruction? What were the Puritan’s aspirations? How do Puritan society and values compare to present society and values?
Ø Between 1607 and 1763, to what extent did Americans gain control of their political and economic institutions?
Ø For the period before 1750, analyze the ways in which Britain’s policy of salutary neglect influenced the development of American society as illustrated in the following: legislative assemblies, commerce, and religion (from 1995).
ANTICIPATED ASSIGNMENTS:
*Addressing the Free Response Essay Question: (including thesis writing, organization, and incorporating factual knowledge and critical thinking and interpretation)
(from 1998) Analyze the extent to which religious freedom existed in British North American colonies prior to 1700.
(from 2000) Analyze the cultural and economic responses of TWO of the following groups to the Indians of North America before 1750: British, French, Spanish.
*Addressing the Document Based Essay Question:
(from 1993) Although New England and the Chesapeake region were both settled largely by people of English origin, by 1700 the regions had evolved into two distinct societies. Why did this development occur?
UNIT 1 AP FORMAT EXAM
40 Multiple Choice/1 FRQ Essay
UNIT 2: (15 DAYS)
The American Revolutionary Era (1754-1780) & the Early Republic (1789-1815)
TEXTBOOK READING:
Out of Many – Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9
ADDITIONAL/SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS & PRIMARY SOURCES:
· (Supp) Bold Endeavors – Prologue and Chapter 1
· (Supp) A People’s History: chapters 4 & 5
· (Primary) “The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved” (1763) James Otis
· (Primary) Declaration of Independence
· (Primary) “Join or Die” political cartoon
· (Primary) Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania – John Dickinson
· (Primary) The Boston “Massacre” or Victims of Circumstance (1770)
· (Primary) John Andrews to William Barrell, Letter Regarding the Boston Tea Party
· (Primary) Association of the New York Sons of Liberty (1773)
· (Primary) “Common Sense” & “American Crisis”- Thomas Paine
· (Primary) “Give me Liberty” speech – Patrick Henry
· (Primary) “Original Rough Draught” of Dec. of Independence – Thomas Jefferson
· (Primary) Abigail and John Adams on Women and the American Revolution (1776)
· (Primary) Federalist Paper 51 – James Madison (1787)
· (Primary) James Winthrop on the Anti-Federalist argument (1787)
· (Primary) Hamilton & Jefferson – creation of the National Bank
· (Primary) Washington’s Farewell Address (1796)
· (Primary) Marbury v. Madison (1803)
· (Primary) First Inaugural address: Thomas Jefferson
· (Primary) Alien & Sedition Acts (1798)
· (Primary) Felix Grundy, Battle Cry of the War Hawks (1811)
· (Primary) McCullough v. Maryland (1819)
THEMES/GUIDELINES ADDRESSED: (4, 5)
American Identity, Politics and Citizenship, Economic Transformations, Reform, Slavery and its legacies, & War and Diplomacy
§ (1750-1776) Empire to Independence: Seven Years War in America
o French and Indian War, Albany Conference, Colonial aims and interests, frontier warfare, conquest of Canada, struggle for the West; Imperial Crisis in British North America – American nationalism, the press, politics, and Republicanism, Sugar and Stamp Acts, Stamp Act crisis, repeal of Stamp Act, Townshend Revenue Acts, early political boycott against imports, politics of revolt and the Boston Massacre; Resistance to rebellion – Inter-colonial cooperation, Boston Tea Party, Intolerable Acts, First Continental Congress, Lexington & Concord; Deciding for Independence – Second Continental Congress, fighting in the North and South, Canada, the Spanish Borderlands, and the Revolution, the Declaration of Independence.
§ (1776-1786) The American Revolution: War for Independence
o Patriots and Loyalists, Northern campaigns of 1777, French Alliance and Spanish borderlands, Indian peoples and the Revolution in the West, War in the South, Yorktown; United States in Congress Assembled – Articles of Confederation, financing the war, negotiating independence, crisis of demobilization, problems of the West; Revolutionary politics in the state – broadened base of politics, the First State Constitutions, Declaration of Rights – the Bill of Rights, Spirit of Reform, African-Americans and the Revolution.
§ (1786-1800) The New Nation: Crisis of 1780’s
o Economic crisis, state remedies, and movement towards a new national government; The new Constitution – the Constitutional Convention, Ratifying the new constitution and the Bill of Rights; Washington’s presidency, federal judiciary, Hamilton’s financial program, beginnings of foreign policy, relations between American peoples and Indian peoples, Spanish Florida and British Canada, domestic and international crisis, Jay Treaty, Pinckney’s Treaty, Washington’s farewell address; Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans – Rise of political parties, Adams presidency, Alien and Sedition Acts, Revolution of 1800, Democratic political culture; American artists, liberty of the press, birth of American literature and women on the intellectual scene.
§ (1790-1824) Agrarian Republic
o North American communities from coast to coast – Spanish colonies, Haiti and the Caribbean, British North America, Russian America, Trans-Appalachian- Cincinnati, Atlantic Ports form Charleston to Boston; Cotton and the economy of the young republic, shipping and economic boom; Jefferson’s presidency – Republican agrarianism, an independent judiciary, the Louisiana Purchase and incorporating Louisiana, Texas and the struggle for Mexican independence; Problems with Neutral Rights, the Embargo Act, Marbury v Madison, contradictory Indian policy and Indian resistance; War of 1812 – War Hawks, campaigns against Northern and Southern Indians, the Hartford Convention, Treaty of Ghent; Defining boundaries – westward surge, Election of 1816 and the Era of Good Feelings, diplomacy of John Quincy Adams, panic of 1819, the Missouri Compromise.
LECTURE/DISCUSSION/GUIDING QUESTIONS:
Ø To what extent (using docs. 1999) had the colonists developed a sense of their identity and unity as Americans by the eve of the Revolution? What were the social, political, and economic factors that drove the American colonies to independence? How did the American Revolution influence and reflect American values and character?
Ø Did British policies from 1764-1775 appear to violate colonial economic and political rights?
Ø How did the colonial mindset provide the backdrop for the Revolution?
Ø How did world politics affect the course and outcome of the Revolution?
Ø How did the American Revolution affect women and African-Americans?
Ø What challenges did the early federal government face in establishing a strong central government from 1789-1820? How were the conflicts between central and local power resolved?
Ø How did the Articles of Confederation emerge, and why did they fail to create an effective, long term government in America? (docs. 1985) Evaluate the statement, “From 1781-1789 the Articles of Confederation provided the United States with an effective government”.
Ø What developments at home and abroad create a call to strengthen the Articles of Confederation?