Advanced Placement United States History
Department: Social Studies, Mingus Union High School, Cottonwood, Arizona
Teacher: Ms. Cindy Bruchman
E-mail:
Class page located on school website
Course Description
Advanced Placement United States History is a challenging course designed to provide students with the analytical skills and factual knowledge necessary to deal critically with the problems and materials in United States history. It is a year-long survey course from the Pre-Columbian era to the present. Solid reading and writing skills, along with a willingness to devote considerable time to homework and study, are necessary to succeed. Emphasis is placed on critical and evaluative thinking skills, essay writing, interpretation of original documents, and historiography. The themes will include discussions of American diversity, the development of a unique American identity, the evolution of American culture, demographic changes over the course of America’s history, economic trends and transformations, environmental issues, the development of political institutions and the components of citizenship, social reform movements, the role of religion in the making of the United States and its impact in a multicultural society, the history of slavery and its legacies in this hemisphere, war and diplomacy, and finally, the place of the United States in an increasingly global arena.
Course Goals
Students will comprehend, synthesize, and interpret historical events and conditions, historical and geographic context, trends, and issues to develop an understanding of American history. Students will be better prepared for college by engaging and participating in class that stresses an academically challenging and rigorous classroom. Each unit utilizes discussions of and writing about related historiography: how interpretations of events have changed over time, how the issues of one time period have had an impact on the experiences and decisions of subsequent generations, and how such reevaluations of the past continue to shape the way historians see the world today. Step-by-step process for accomplishing these goals include (1)building an era-based foundation via text book and documentaries (2) verbal reinforcement by discussing thematic and scholarly debates within a Harkness/fishbowl framework (3) practicing FBQ and DBQ written responses (4) review and skill-building exercises via Quia site(5) administering traditional chapter and unit tests on-line via Quia.
Textbooks:
Kennedy, David M., Lizabeth Cohen, and Thomas Bailey. The American Pageant. 13th ed.
Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006.
Robert A. Wheeler, Thomas L. Hartshorne, and Mark T. Tebeau. The Social Fabric, Vol. 1 & 2, 11th
ed. New York: Pearson, 2008.
Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001.
Hersey, John. Hiroshima. New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 1989.
Course Outline:
Below you will find an outline for the class. Students can expect some kind of reading or writing assignment every day. Always check the teacher website found on the school page for accessing assignments and announcements. Each unit lasts approximately one month long. Each unit utilizes discussions of and writing about related historiography by examining a wide variety of scholarly essays(The Social Fabric) that highlight the diversity of Americans' experiences–based on differences in wealth, race, ethnicity, and gender–and the way in which those differences have at times led to conflict. Major topics are listed below with corresponding reading/writing assignments.
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Unit 1: Founding the New Nation Textbook reading: Chapters 1-8
Major topics: New World Beginnings
Recent Scholarship: “New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America” by Colin Calloway, Social Fabric, Vol I, Ch. 1
FBQ practice: “How was the sugar economy of the West Indies different from the tobacco economy of the Chesapeake?”
The English Colonies
Recent Scholarship “The Creation of a Slave Society in the Chesapeake” by Ira Berlin, Social Fabric, Ch.2
FBQ practice: “How did the Puritans’ distinctive religious outlook affect the development of all the New England Colonies?”
Colonial Society
Recent Scholarship: “The White Indians of Colonial America” by James Axtell, Social Fabric, Ch. 4
DBQ on Chesapeake and New England Colonies
Revolutionary America
Recent Scholarship: “Ordinary Citizens become Revolutionaries” by Gary Nash, Social Fabric, Ch. 8
FBQ practice: “How did the idealism and “self-evident truths” of the Declaration of Independence shape Americans’ outlook and conduct during the Revolutionary War? Why did so many Americans believe that they were establishing “a new order for the ages”?
Evaluate primary document: Federalist Number 10
Unit 2: Building the New Nation Textbook reading: Chapters 9-15
Major topics: The Federalist Era
Recent Scholarship: “Industrializing America: the Nineteenth Century” by Walter Licht, Social Fabric, Ch. 11
Analyze primary document: “The Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, Article 4.”
The Age of Jefferson
Analyze primary document: Marybury v. Madison. “Chief Marshall for the Supreme Court”
FBQ practice: “What was the significance of the Jeffersonian “Revolution of 1800” in relation to the new republican experiment and the fierce political battles of the 1790s?
The War of 1812
DBQ practice: Economic Factors, 1815-1860
Analyze the text of “The Star-Spangled Banner” by Francis S. Key
The Era of Good Feelings
FBQ practice: “Discuss the role of Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster in the events and issues of the period 1815-1824. Is it valid to see Clay as a spokesman for the West, Webster for the North, and Calhoun for the South?”
Jacksonian Democracy
Recent scholarship: “Disinherited: The Lost Birthright of the American Indian” by Dale Van Every, The Social Fabric, Ch 12.
FBQ practice: “How did Jackson’s “Bank War” demonstrate the powerful uses to which the modern mass democratic political machine could be put? Was Biddle’s Bank a real threat to the economic welfare of the ordinary citizens to whom Jackson appealed, or was it more important as a symbol of eastern wealth and elitism?”
The Market Revolution
“In America, early industrialization, westward expansion, and growing sectional tension all occurred at the same time. How was the development of the economy before the Civil War related to both the westward movement and increasing sectional conflict?”
Recent Scholarship: “Common Labour” by Peter Way, The Social Fabric, Ch.17.
Unit 3: Building the New Nation Textbook reading: Chapters 16-22
Major Topics: Antebellum Reform Movements
Recent Scholarship: “Getting Rid of Demon Alcohol”, by Ronald Walter, American Reformers, 1814-1860, 2nd ed., The Social Fabric, Ch.14.
Analyzing primary sources: First issue of The Liberator, and Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions
Manifest Destiny
FBQ diplomacy practice: “How did rivalry with Britain affect the American decision to annex Texas, the Oregon dispute, and other lesser controversies of the period?”
On the Brink of War
DBQ 6, textbook: Abraham Lincoln and the Struggle for Union and Emancipation, 1861-1865
Wartime diplomacy, economic changes in both the North and the South, women and the war, issues of civil liberties in wartime
The American Civil War
Analyze primary document, Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address
The Emancipation Proclamation
Recent Scholarship: “Why Soldiers Went to War”, James M. McPherson, What they Fought For, 1861-1865. The Social Fabric, Ch 21.
The Trials of Reconstruction
The politics and economics of Reconstruction, experiences of freedmen, the rise of the Bourbon South and the fate of Reconstruction, impeachment politics and the balance of power
Recent Scholarship, “Political Violence during Reconstruction”, Samuel C. Hyde, Jr., Pistols and Policies: The Dilemma of Democracy in Louisiana’s Florida Parishes, 1800-1899. The Social Fabric, Ch.23.
Unit 4: Forging an Industrial Society Textbook Reading: Chapters 23-27
Major Topics: The Great West
The close of the frontier and its impact, industrialization of agriculture and political dissent among farmers
Recent Scholarship, “The Reservation and the Destruction of Indian Culture”, by Robert M. Utley, The Social Fabric, Vol II, Ch.2.
The Gilded Age
Recent Scholarship: “Labor in the Gilded Age”, by Jacqueline Dowd Hall et al., Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World. The Social Fabric, Vol 2, Ch 4.
Growth of Industry
Era of the Robber Barons, the lives of the working classes and the growth of unionism, government and politics of regulation, the United States in the world economy
FBQ practice: “What strains did the new industrialization bring to the American ideals of democracy and equality? Was the growth of huge corporations and great fortunes a successful realization of American principles or a threat to them?”
America Moves to the City
Urbanization, new waves of immigration, renewed instances of Nativism, cultural life in urban America, the “New Woman”, and African-American push for expanded civil rights
Recent Scholarship:“Mass Culture at the Turn of the Century”, by Kathy Peiss, The Social Fabric, Vol. 2, Ch 5
Unit 5: Empire and Expansion Textbook Reading: Chapters 27-30
Major Topics: New Imperialism
Analyze primary document, Theodore Roosevelt, Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
American expansion overseas, a new age of Imperialism, The Spanish-American War, the Open Door, America on the world stage
Progressive Politics
Progressive reform and the trusts, demographics of urbanization and the resulting political impact, “Dollar Diplomacy,” environmental issues
Progressive economic reform, diplomacy of neutrality
Analyze primary document, Theodore Roosevelt, “The New Nationalism”
DBQ practice: “Reactions to Jim Crow, 1880-1910”
WWI
Analyze primary document, Woodrow Wilson, “War Message to Congress”
War in Europe and war on the home front, propaganda and civil liberties, the politics behind the making the Treaty of Versailles and its rejection by the U.S. Senate
Read and discuss, All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque
Unit 6: Prosperity & Depression Textbook Reading: Chapters 31-33
Major Topics: Postwar Tensions
The “Red Scare” and immigration issues
Popular Culture in the 1920s
A mass-consumption economy, the Jazz Age and the Harlem Renaissance
Recent scholarship: “Technology and Household Work” by Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Social Fabric, Vol II, Ch. 10
Traditionalism vs. Modernism
Analyze primary document, Herbert Hoover, “Rugged Individualism”
The Politics of Normalcy, Isolationism in the 1920s, foreign debt and diplomacy, the coming of the Great Depression
The Great Depression
FDR and “recovery, relief, reform,” demographic changes associated with the Depression, cultural changes in the 1930s, the Supreme Court and the balance of political power in government
New Deal & Its Legacy
FBQ practice. “Argue for or against: America’s foreign policy from 1933 to 1939 was fundamentally shaped by domestic issues and concerns, particularly the Great Depression.”
Unit 7: The Shadows of War Textbook reading: Chapters 34-38
Major topics: World War Looms
Attempts at neutrality and isolation, the move to war following Pearl Harbor
WW II
The war in Europe and in the Far East
Analyzing primary document: Franklin Roosevelt, “The Quarantine Speech”
Franklin Roosevelt, “The Four Freedoms” speech
The Atlantic Charter
On the Home Front
Changes for women and minorities during the war, the decision to use the atomic bomb and its consequences
Read and discuss, Hiroshima, by John Hersey.
Recent Scholarship: “The Home Front during World War II” by Richard R. Lingeman, Social Fabric, Vol II, Ch. 13.
Origins of Cold War and Fighting Communism at Home
Communism and containment, diplomacy and the Marshall Plan, the Korean War, the Red Scare, the United States as a world power
DBQ practice: Truman and the Cold War, 1945-1953
Unit 8: Making Modern America Textbook Reading: Chapters 36-38
Major Topics: The Postwar Boom
Postwar prosperity and the Baby Boom, Eisenhower Era.
Recent Scholarship: “That Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll” by Glenn C. Altschuler, The Social Fabric, Vol II, Ch. 16.
The Civil Rights Movement
Analyze primary document: Brown v. the Board of Education
Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
The Great Society, Vietnam War
The Cold War continues, expansion of the war in Vietnam, Bay of Pigs, Kennedy administration, Johnson administration, immigration and demographic changes
The Counterculture Movement
FBQ practice: “How was the cultural upheaval of the 1960s related to the political and social changes of the decade? Is the “youth rebellion” best seen as a response to immediate events, or as a consequence of such longer-term forces as the population bulge and economic prosperity?”
Unit 9: Building a New World Order Textbook chapters 39-42
Major Topics: the Nixon , Carter, and Ford Years
Economic stagnation, crisis over presidential power, environmental issues, feminism and the women’s movement, civil rights and affirmative action, foreign policy and the issue of oil
Reagan Revolution
The rise of Conservatism and the “New Right”, ending the Cold War, social concerns in the 1980s
Analyzing primary documents: Roe v. Wade
NOW Statement of Purpose
Recent Scholarship: “Culture War” by William Martin, The Social Fabric, Vol II, Ch 21.
Passage to a New Century
The Clinton Era, post-Cold War politics and foreign policy, the contested election of 2000, the attack on the World Trade Center and America post-9/11. Demographic changes in the family, immigration and related issues, a multicultural society, the high-tech economy, America in a global context
Analyzing primary documents: George W. Bush, Joint Session of Congress, September 2001
FBQ practice: “What was the impact of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America’s national priorities and foreign policies? Is it true that “everything changed” after September 11, or were there significant areas win which America’s global aims remained essentially the same?”
April and May Review exams. AP United States History Exam scheduled second week in May. Date TBA.
Late Work Policy: Late work is accepted, but will be penalized. On Fridays, students present the week activities, assignments for a grade of 20 points. If the assignments are turned in after Friday, other than an excused absence, a two point penalty is added. Always check the website which lists what assignments are due for weekly check-in and for announcements of upcoming projects.
Extra-Credit
There are always ways to lift an assignment grade or an overall grade. If the original work was attempted but the student falls short of the mark, a modification of an assignment or an enrichment activity can replace a poor score. On my Quia site, there are dozens of activities and quizzes a student for practice and remediation. The Quia site can be accessed by any computer.
Class Materials
3-Ring Binder, folder, paper, pens or pencils, flash drive – and their work book which corresponds with the textbook
Ms. Bruchman's AP United States History Acknowledgment