Dear Students,

Welcome to the wild frontier of AP United States history. To ensure that we have time to cover our very demanding curriculum you will need to come to the first day of class with some rather important work completed. The bad news is that the introductory work covers a rather large time frame: 12,000 BC to 1600 AD; the good news is that the entire rest of the year will be devoted to an in-depth study of one continent over 400 years!

For your summer work, you will need to

  1. complete the identifications and short answerusing Garraty (your textbook)
  2. read three creation stories: Christian, Iroquois, and Navajo (online)* and complete the creation story chart
  3. participate in a virtual discussion in Schoologyabout the creation stories.

In order to work in Schoology, you need to do the following:

  • Navigate to schoology.com and select Sign up as a Student (unless you have an account)
  • Log in with the access code: 84W68-ZXS5K
  • Enter your school gmail address (your log in username) and use your school novell log in (password)—these we will be able to help you reconstruct if you forget them!
  • Create a username in account settings that we all recognize—first name and last initial will work best.
  • Select APUSH under courses.
  • Go to the summer work materials folder and discussion link. (Let me know where you find this one—it is not apparent to me, but the discussion is posted!)

In case of pets or little brothers eating homework, the same files can be downloaded from my website. When doing this work, you need to handwrite everything. The work will be due on the first day of school in order to earn a full grade, no exceptions! I will deduct 20 points per day for late work.

Your reading and research are very important as you will be held accountable for the information you learn in a diagnostic essay, the Unit 1 test and the AP exam. Each of the 3 written componentswill count as one separate homework assignment. You will write afree response essay on this material on the second day of school. The essay will be used to establish a baseline for your writing skills and will only count as a daily grade.

Basically, you are doing the content work for Chapter 1. This will allow us to focus on the writing and thinking skills needed to master the class during the first unit. It will also give us all the same background context for understanding US history.

I hope you enjoy this fun challenge and I wish you a very happy summer.

Ms. Yurkovich

  • Students who may not have internet access need to let me know immediately!

AP US History Summer Work:

Overview: The Native American Context

Most students have heard how Christopher Columbus “discovered” America. This is a rather absurd historical interpretation, because Native Americans had known about the two American continents for quite some time. It is therefore fitting to spend some time exploring the people who lived in the Americas before Columbus blundered upon some tiny island in the Caribbean. They produced some rather amazing accomplishments, often overlooked in a traditional history course.

A. Native Americans Identifications (IDs)

Using Garraty (pp 4-16), look up the IDs listed below. Consult the sample chart on the back of this sheet for required format. You may draw out the chart on notebook paper or download the template from my website. Either way, you must handwrite your answers on the chart! Please number each item as seen below.

  1. Bering Strait
  2. Neolithic revolution
  3. Clovis hunters
  4. Archaic peoples
  5. Anasazi
  6. Corn/maize
  7. Chaco Canyon
  8. Mississippian culture
  9. Cahokia
  10. Woodland culture
  11. “American Holocaust”
  12. Columbian exchange

Overview: The European Context

As you may already know, Europeans eventually found their way to the Western Hemisphere, launching the Age of Discovery (a title that only applies to the Europeans). The Native Americans might have labeled this period “The Age of Being Found”. Regardless, the reasons for the Europeans’ wanderlust are complex but certainly rooted in a turbulent history that goes a long way in explaining why Columbus and others settled the New World. Events in history that informed the values and expectations of Europeans are part of this reading as well.

B. Europeans IDs: Use Garraty (pp 16-32)

  1. Crusades
  2. Black Death
  3. Renaissance
  4. Conquistadors
  5. Protestant Reformation
  6. Anglican Church
  7. Christopher Columbus
  8. Hernando de Soto
  9. Spain’s American Empire
  10. John Cabot
  11. Henry Hudson
  12. Northwest Passage
  13. Sir Walter Raleigh
  14. Queen Elizabeth

APUSH Redesign: New Short Answer Format!

27. Read the passages and complete the tasks below.

“History in its broadest aspect is a record of man’s migrations from one environment to another. America is the last great goal of these migrations. He who would understand its history must know…how various environments alter man’s energy and capacity and give his character a slant in one direction or another…

The differences between one and another of these three streams of population [Indians from Asia, Europeans, and Africans] and the antagonisms which they had greatly colored American history. The Indian, the European, and the Negro apparently differ not only in outward appearance but in the much more important matter of mentality…[4]

The ancestors of the red man unwittingly chose the easiest path to America [the Bering Strait] and so entered the continent first, but this was their misfortune. They could not inherit the land because they chose a path whose unfavorable influence, exerted throughout centuries, left them unable to cope with later arrivals from other directions. The parts of America most favorable for the Indian are also best for the white man and Negro. There the alerter minds of the Europeans who migrated in the other [more challenging] direction have quickly eliminated the Indian.” [21]

--Ellsworth Huntington, The Red Man’s Continent, Vol 1, 1919

“Behind the English invasion of North America, behind their massacre of Indians, their deception, their brutality was that special powerful drive born in civilizations based upon private property. It was a morally ambiguous drive; the need for space, for land, was a real human need. But in conditions of scarcity, in a barbarous epoch of history ruled by competition, this human need was transformed into the murder of whole peoples.”

--Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, 1980

"Any respectable theory that attempts to explain the Europeans' demographic advance has to provide explanation for at least two phenomena. The first is the demoralization and often the annihilation of the indigenous population of the Neo-Europes. Second, we must explain the stunning, even awesome, success of European agriculture in the Neo-Europes."

--Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism, 1986

Based upon the above interpretations about the success of European colonization of the Americas, complete the following tasks in a concise (5 sentence) yet complete paragraph.

  1. Briefly explain the main point made by passage 1.
  2. Briefly explain the main point made by passage 2.
  3. Briefly explain the main point made by passage 3.
  4. Defend the interpretation of one passage by supporting it with one piece of evidence not in the passage.*
  5. Refute the interpretation of one passage by challenging it with one piece of evidence not in the passage.

*This question requires you provide supporting/refuting evidence from outside reading. Think about specific facts you learned from Garraty that support/refute an author’s arguments.