US I/US I Enriched Midterm

USI STD Midterm Exam Writing Section:

Pre-Exam Preparation

January 2014

Part One of the Midterm Exam will consist of 25 multiple choice questions.

Part Two of the Midterm Exam will consist of responding to Theme questions for the following Theme documents. Prepare for ALL FIVE documents in order to be ready for whatever THREE are ultimately chosen.

Each response will be a paragraph that will be graded for the following:

·  Comprehension (getting what the document says)

·  Inference (getting what the document suggests)

·  Course Content (getting the connections between the document and what we have studied)

·  Course Theme (getting the connection between the document and the Theme)

As part of your preparation, work on the following:

·  What type of document is it?

·  Who is speaking?

·  To whom was the document directed? Who is the audience?

·  Why was the document created? What was its purpose?

·  What is the main point?

·  Where was it from? When was it produced?

·  Does it seem to relate to other documents, people, events, or ideas studied in class?

·  How does the document relate to the Course Theme?

USI STD Midterm Exam Documents

Theme 1: Peopling of the United States

Document A:

The Negro’s role in the Revolution can best be understood by realizing that his major loyalty was not to a place nor to a people, but to a principle.

Benjamin Quarles, historian

Document B:

“I have not the least doubt, that the negroes will make excellent soldiers, with proper management… An essential part of the plan is to give them their freedom with their muskets. This will secure their [loyalty], animate their courage, and I believe will have a good influence upon those who remain, by opening a door to their [freedom]…”

Letter of Alexander Hamilton, Aide, to Gen. George Washington, 1779

Document C:

And I do… declare all…Negroes… free that are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining His Majesty’s Troops as soon as may be…

British General, Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation, 1775

Document D:

No Person held to Service or Labor in one State… escaping into another, shall… be [freed] from such Service or Labor, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labor may be due.

Constitution, Art. IV, Section 2

Writing Assignment:

Write a full paragraph response to the prompt below that includes a clear answer to the question with supporting details:

On the day of the actual Midterm Exam, there will be a few “focus questions” following this prompt.

These “focus questions” will NOT be graded separately, but you SHOULD answer them and then use your answers to help organize and write your response to the prompt. The grading rubric WILL be made with these focusing questions in mind.

USI STD Midterm Exam Documents

Theme 2: Technology, Environment, and the Economy of the United States

Document:

That it is the opinion of this town, that if the other Colonies come into a joint resolution to stop all importation from Great Britain, and exportations to Great Britain, and every part of the West Indies, [until] the Act for blocking up [Boston] harbor be repealed, [it] will prove the salvation of North America and her liberties. On the other hand, if they continue their exports and imports, there is high reason to fear that fraud, power, and the most [hateful] oppression, will rise triumphant over right, justice, social happiness, and freedom.

Boston Town Meeting, 1774

Writing Assignment:

Write a full paragraph response to the prompt below that includes a clear answer to the question with supporting details:

On the day of the actual Midterm Exam, there will be a few “focus questions” following this prompt.

These “focus questions” will NOT be graded separately, but you SHOULD answer them and then use your answers to help organize and write your response to the prompt. The grading rubric WILL be made with these focusing questions in mind.

USI STD Midterm Exam Documents

Theme 3: The United States and the World

Document:

“Since the great event of the safe arrival of the Fleet & army of our good Ally [France]…It was [assumed that] the Earl Cornwallis would on their arrival, have [attempted] an escape…but whether precautions taken by the Marquis [Lafayette] to prevent him, or his confidence in his own strength, or in being timely reinforced, influenced his stay, I know not, but so it is that he must now [wait] his fate at York Town, the French troops having landed at James Town & join’d the Marquis, so as to cut off his passage out of that neck so long as he is deprived of the [control over] the waters…”

Edmund Pendleton to James Madison, September 10, 1781

Writing Assignment:

Write a full paragraph response to the prompt below that includes a clear answer to the question with supporting details:

On the day of the actual Midterm Exam, there will be a few “focus questions” following this prompt.

These “focus questions” will NOT be graded separately, but you SHOULD answer them and then use your answers to help organize and write your response to the prompt. The grading rubric WILL be made with these focusing questions in mind.

USI STD Midterm Exam Documents

Theme 4: Evolving Democracy

Document:

“Are we to have the goodly fabric that eight years were spent in [putting up] pulled over our heads? What is the cause of all the high commotions? When and how will they end?...Many [people want to] [destroy] our present [government system] and dissolve the present government…They [complain] of the weight of public taxes, of the insupportable debt of the union, of the scarcity of money, and of the cruelty of suffering the private creditors…This catalogue of complaints was listened to by many…”

Benjamin Lincoln to George Washington, December 4, 1786

Writing Assignment:

Write a full paragraph response to the prompt below that includes a clear answer to the question with supporting details:

On the day of the actual Midterm Exam, there will be a few “focus questions” following this prompt.

These “focus questions” will NOT be graded separately, but you SHOULD answer them and then use your answers to help organize and write your response to the prompt. The grading rubric WILL be made with these focusing questions in mind.

USI STD Midterm Exam Documents

Theme 5: Social Change

Document: (Image)

Writing Assignment:

Write a full paragraph response to the prompt below that includes a clear answer to the question with supporting details:

On the day of the actual Midterm Exam, there will be a few “focus questions” following this prompt.

These “focus questions” will NOT be graded separately, but you SHOULD answer them and then use your answers to help organize and write your response to the prompt. The grading rubric WILL be made with these focusing questions in mind.