UNITED STATES HISTORY AP

COURSE REQUIREMENTS & OUTLINE 2006-2007

TEXTBOOK:Henretta, James A., et al America’s History, 5th Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins

SUPPLEMENTARY:Zinn, Howard, A People’s History of the United States. New York: Harper Collins Documents to Accompany America’s History, volumes 1 & 2

This course is taught at the college level. The major difference between a high school and college history course is the amount of reading and depth of focus. Moreover, the AP and IB curriculums stress a large degree of higher order thinking skills within a rigorous academic context. Thus, the student will be required frequently to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate primary and secondary historical sources in addition to memorizing, comprehending, and applying facts. Historical periods and events will be studied from a variety of perspectives with the hope of providing a balanced view of history.

COURSE CONTENT:The course surveys the period beginning with the first European explorations of the Americas and ending with international affairs and domestic changes in the post-1945 period to the present. Students will learn to assess historical materials -- their relevance to a given interpretive problem, their reliability, and their importance -- and to weigh the evidence and interpretations presented in historical scholarship. This course develops the skills necessary to arrive at conclusions on the basis of an informed judgment and to present reasons and evidence clearly and persuasively in essay format. In addition, the goal is for students to be prepared to take the national college-level Advanced Placement Examination administered in May of this year and to also prepare students to take the History of the America’s IB Exam in their senior year. Students successfully completing these exams may receive credit at many colleges and universities. The 2007 Advanced Placement Examination in United States History is Friday, May 11, morning session. Students are strongly encouraged to take the AP Exam (an additional fee for taking the exam is payable in March). Students who choose not to take the exam will be required to take a cumulative final exam in May during the scheduled Advanced Placement Exam time. This Exam will count as a Final Exam.

HOMEWORK: AP/US History is a demanding course requiring daily homework. Students planning to earn a grade of “A” or “B”, will discover that six to 8 hours of reading per week is MINIMAL. Begin planning and preparing now to take the exam in May.

In addition to the textbook, assignments include supplementary readings varying from a few pages to book length, research project, debates, seminar presentations, oral reports, quizzes, objective and essay tests, critiques of current events, documentary programs, and others. Major assignments will be given in advance with specific due dates assigned in advance to allow students to organize their time. Late work will automatically be graded down unless prior arrangements are made with the teacher. Course requirements may be adjusted at any time at the discretion of the instructor to appropriately meet students’ needs.

DAILY HOMEWORK AND READING

Daily homework requires that you read the assigned chapter and the associated documents. You should keep a section in your notebook specifically for notes from the reading. In addition you will be responsible for answering a series of focus questions for each unit.

CURRENT EVENTS (50 points per semester)

Each semester you are required to present a current event to the class. It must be an article from a periodical publication with a date that falls within 3-weeks of your presentation. In addition to explaining the current event, you will need to provide the class with some historical context about the issues discussed in your article.

DEBATES (200 POINTS)

Every student in this Advanced Placement course is required to participate in one (1) debate each semester. Debates cover controversial historical issues and are research intensive. Debate assignments are completed in pairs (which you may choose). Debate partners construct persuasive arguments for or against a question (ex. Was dropping the Atomic Bomb necessary to end W.W.II?) . You must choose a new debate partner for every debate that you do.

Format: I. PRE VOTE

II. OPENING ARGUMENTS (3-4 minutes)

Each debate team will choose one member to present an opening argument.

A clear thesis should be presented, as well as a brief outline of the evidence that supports the arguments. Definitions of terms, historical context, and the significance of the topic should also be addressed.

III. PRESENTATION OF EVIDENCE

Teams will take turns presenting pieces of evidence to support their side of the argument. Each team must present six well-developed items, which include details like statistics, voting records, historical documents, visual evidence, etc... Primary sources are best!

IV. REBUTTAL

Throughout the debate, each team should take notes on the arguments presented by the opposing team and then present a rebuttal to weak arguments or questionable evidence.

V. QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE

Each team will take questions to clarify their evidence and positions. Are you really an expert? The audience is not allowed to ask hypothetical questions.

VI. CLOSING ARGUMENTS (3-4 minutes)

The second member of each team will present closing arguments. These arguments should reiterate the thesis and clarify the evidence presented. Part of this may be in direct response to the opposing team’s presentation

VII. POST VOTE - Were you able to sway opinions?

Unit 1: The Creation of American Society

Required Reading:

  • Chapters 1-5, America’s History
  • Chapters 1 & 5, A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn
  • Declaration of Independence
  • Bartholome de las Casas, History of the Indies (1552)
  • Nathaniel Bacon, Manifesto (1676)
  • John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity (1630)

Key Discussion Topics:

Early inhabitants of the Americas, American Indian Empires, American Indian cultures in North America in the 17th Century, European contacts, differences in European colonization in North American, the regional development of the English colonies, colonial discontent, transatlantic trade, economic development, the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening, imperial policy in British North America, the French and Indian War, and the Revolutionary War.

Activities:

  • Comparative Chart on North American Indian Cultures
  • Primary Document Analysis – Levels of Questioning
  • Q#2 2006 FRQ – Analyzing the prompt and Thesis Statement Development
  • Colonial Period DBQ
  • APPARTS Strategy – Primary Document Analysis of the Declaration of Independence
  • “The Road to Revolution” Illustrated Metaphorical Timeline Activity
  • What Happened @ Lexington Green – primary document Activity
  • Map of the colonies
  • In Class Thematic Essay- American Identity: “Analyze the political, economic and ideological factors leading to the American Revolution”; “To What extend had an American Indentity been established by 1750”
  • Introduction of Themes in American History

Debates:

  • Was the Colonial period a Golden Age for women?

Unit 2: The New Republic

Required Reading:

  • Chapters 6-9, America’s History
  • George Mason, Arguments against the ratification of the Constitution
  • James Madison, Federalist #10
  • The Constitution of The United States of America
  • Alexander Hamilton, Report on Public Credit
  • Thomas Paine, Common Sense
  • The Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)
  • John Marshall, Decision in Marbury v. Madison
  • Benjamin Rush, The Education of Republican Women
  • Steven Oats, Portrait of America, “Jefferson”

Key Discussion Topics:

The Articles of Confederation, state constitutions, the development of the federal Constitution, arguments for and against ratification, The Washington Administration, the political crisis of the 1790s, The Marshall Court, women in the new Republic, the Second Great Awakening, Jefferson, expansion, the War of 1812.

Activities:

  • President Washington’s Mock Cabinet Meeting with Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton
  • Training to become an AP Reader – the rubric and its application to essay grading
  • Constitutional scavenger hunt
  • Major decisions of the Marshall Court Activity
  • In class Essay: Analyze the degree to which the Articles of Confederation provided an effective form of government – FRQ #2 1996

Debates:

  • Was the American Revolution a Conservative Movement?
  • Did Jefferson Outfederalize the Federalists?

Unit #3: Economic Revolution and Sectional Strife

Required Reading:

  • Chapters 10-15, America’s History
  • Alexis de Tocqueville, The Rise of an Industrial Aristocracy (1831)
  • Charles Grandison Finney, A Conversion Experience (1821)
  • Henry, David Thoreau, Walden (1854) excerpt
  • William Lloyd Garrison, Commencement of The Liberator (1831)
  • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions (1848)
  • The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)
  • The Mississipi Black Codes (1865)
  • The Civil Rights Act of 1866
  • Robert Remini, Portrait of America, “The Jacksonian Revolution”
  • Ken Burns, Video “The Civil War” PBS

Key Discussion Topics:

The transportation and market revolutions, the impact of industrialism on society, immigration and nativism, the rise of the cotton kingdom, emergence of the second party system, federalism, states’ rights, Jacksonian democracy, reform movements of the Antebellum, transcendentalism, the cult of domesticity, Indian policy, westward migration, the Mexican War, compromises, popular sovereignty, the civil war, military and diplomatic aspects of the war, impact of the war on regions, Reconstruction plans, role of African Americans, the Compromise of 1877 and the impact of Reconstruction on politics, society and the economy.

Activities:

  • Transportation Revolution Maps – creating and interpreting the building of the early canal, turnpike and railroad systems
  • Evaluate the successes and failures of Utopian Societies in the early 19th century.
  • APPARTS – Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
  • DBQ 2006 – Changing Ideals of Women from the Revolutionary War to the onset of the Civil War
  • Civil War Map Activity
  • In class essay: Analyze the extent to which compromises from 1820-1861 were effective in reducing sectional conflict.
  • Reconstruction DBQ 1996
  • Reconstructing the South - Simulation

Debates:

  • Were Antebellum Reform Movements Motivated Primarily by Humanitarian Goals?
  • Was the Mexican War and Exercise in American Imperialism?
  • Did the Westward Movement transform the Traditional Roles of Women?
  • Have Historians overemphasized Slavery as a cause of the Civil War?
  • Was Reconstruction a Splendid Failure?

Unit #4: A Maturing Industrial Society

Required Reading:

Chapters 16 – 21, America’s History

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations – excerpts

William Jennings Bryan, “Cross of Gold” speech

Runyard Kipling, White Man’s Burden

Key Discussion Topics:

The New South and the west, Indian policy, corporate growth and consolidation, technological developments, industrial philosophy, unions, gilded age politics, immigration and migration, urbanization, machine politics and urban problems, entertainment, populism, progressivism under Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson, women and minorities in industrial America, American imperialism.

Acitivities:

The Philosophy of the Industrialists – Center For Learning worksheet

Politics in the Gilded Age – analyzing political cartoons

The Wizard of Oz – An Allegory for the Populist Movement

The election of 1892 – political platforms and role playing

Evaluating the causes of the Spanish-American War

DBQ – American Imperialism

Debates:

Was Lincoln America’s Greatest President?

Did William Tweed Corrupt post Civil War New York?

Was J.D. Rockefeller a Robber Baron?

Did the Progressives fail?

Was Early Twentieth-Century American Foreign Policy in the Caribbean Basin Dominated by Economic concerns?

MID-YEAR EXAM

  • Sample AP Exam covering topics in the first half of the course.
  • Review the AP US History Scoring Worksheet

Unit #5 -The Modern State and Society

Required Reading:

Chapters 22-26, America’s History

Chapter 14, “War is the Health of the State”, Howard Zinn

The Zimmerman Telegram

George Creel, The Four Minute Men

Henry Cabot Lodge, Speech Before the Senate

Huey P. Long, The Long Plan

Albert Einstein’s Letter to Roosevelt

Frank Capra, Why We Fight Video

Dr. Suess Goes to War Video

Key Discussion Topics:

World War I, the Treaty of Versailles, postwar America, The Modern Era, consumerism and business, republican politics, modernism, fundamentalism, nativism, prohibition, causes of the Great Depression, responses to the Depression, the New Deal and its critics, society during the depression, rise of fascism an militarism, neutrality, US entrance t the war, wartime strategy, diplomacy, war conferences, the American Homefront, mobilization, social impact, civil liberties, regional development, expansion of federal power.

Activities:

  • Internet Primary Document Search Activity – US involvement in WWI
  • Treaty of Versailles DBQ
  • Road to WWII – Illustrated Metaphorical timeline
  • 1920s/1930s Analogy project
  • Causes of the Great Depression – ranking activity
  • 1984 DBQ Hoover and FDR
  • Venn Diagram of WWI/WWII
  • Japanese-American Internment primary document analysis

Debates:

Did the Progressives Fail?

Did the New Deal Prolong the Great Depression?

Was it Necessary to Drop the Atomic Bomb on Japan to End World War II?

Special Projects:

The Themes in American History – this is a small group project based upon the themes provided in the course outline. Students are asked to create timelines and analyze the development of these key themes throughout the course of American History.

Unit #6 – America and the World

Required Reading:

Chapters 27-31, America’s History

NSC 68 (1950)

Joseph R. McCarty, Communists in the U.S. Government

Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

Malcom X and Yusef Iman, Black Nationalism

Richard Nixon, Vietnamization and the Nixon Doctrine

Jimmy Carter, The Crisis of Confidence

Ronald Reagan, Acceptance Speech, RNC (1980)

Eyes on the Prize, Video – episode 1

Key Discussion Topics:

Origins of the cold War, the Truman Doctrine, containment policy in Asia, Eisenhower and Kennedy foreign policy strategies, the McCarthy era, impact f the cold war on society, the affluent society, consensus and conformity in the 1950s, the early civil rights movement, cultural dissent, new technology, the New Frontier and the Great Society, shift in the civil rights movement, the Cold War in Asia, Latin American and Europe, counterculture, 1968, the “Silent Majority”, The Nixon years, the changing American economy, the New Right, Reagan and the end of the cold War, social and demographic changes, globalization, foreign policy and the environment.

Activities:

Cold War Metaphor

Applications of the Truman Doctrine – a study in Foreign Policy

In class essay: Evaluate the American Foreign Policy of Containment.

Peer grading – use of the AP Rubric

Warren Court Decisions - analysis

Debates:

Was Martin Luther King’s Leadership essential to the Success of the Civil Rights Movement?

Did the Great Society Fail?

Could the US have prevented the fall of South Vietnam?

Should President Ford have pardoned President Nixon?

Did President Reagan Win the Cold War?