Please use these links to access the class notes for your class on Google Docs. Remember that these notes are here to help you organize your thinking and check your own notes. They should not be a substitute for your own notes!

Please click here for 1st Block notes.

Please click here for 6th Block notes.

Daily Plans

For your Daily Plans, which include links to all the materials used in class along with readings, click the links below.

Please click here for 1st Block plans.

Please click here for 6th Block plans.

The following section will lay out the key ideas explored throughout this course.

Unit 1

Introduction: History and Memory

UNIT 1: Introduction: History and Memory (September)

Key Question: Why is memory important to historians? How do we use our understanding of the past in the present? How should historians speak to the public and what should they speak about?

Driving Questions:

• How do we define public history?
• Is there a difference between public history and scholarly history?
• How can we identify public history in the world around us?

At the end of this unit, students will…

• Understand…
  • That historians have traditionally drawn distinctions between scholarly/academic history and public history.
  • That public historian involves communication by historians with members of the public in order to shape or alter public discourse around a subject.
  • That public discourse around historical subjects is shaped by many factors beyond traditional academic history.
  • That public history as a discipline requires historians to understand the audiences they wish to speak to and communicate based on this understanding.
• Be able to…
  • Begin to become active participants in a discussion seminar, whether by asking questions or sharing ideas.
  • Articulate a personal definition of public history that can be used to identify examples of public history.
  • Consider the problems raised by different audiences and think about ways to reach those audiences.

Major Concepts:

• Public History
• Discourse
• Intervention
• Audience
• Scholarly History
• Popular History

Demonstration(s) of Understanding: Students write an essay discussing an example of public history. The key component of this essay is being able to define public history and apply that definition to a real world example. It is also essential that students define public history in such a way that they are able to explore in the essay a difference between public and scholarly history such that their definition of public history is not a “box with a false bottom.” Throughout the unit, students will demonstrate their facility with discussion skills by participating in class.

Unit 2

The Colonial Era

Major Debate: How did slavery evolve in the colonies? What was the relationship between slavery and racism?

Driving Questions:

• How and why did the various European colonies develop into different societies?  Do these societies shape contemporary life?
• How did Native Americans and Europeans come into contact with one another?  How did their interactions shape the development of the colonies?
• How were the lives of historical actors in the colonial period shaped by race?  By class?  By gender?
• Where and why did slavery begin?  What do these origins suggest about the relationship between slavery and racism?
• How have diverse historians answered the question of slavery’s origin?  How can we answer this question?

At the end of this unit, students will…

• Understand…
  • That Native societies and European societies were both complex and subject to their own particular pressures before contact.
  • That contact between Europe and the Americas was caused by European hunger for expansion that was shaped by political, economic and religious competition as well as the need for resources.
  • Historical actors on both sides of the Atlantic were impacted by changes created by an Atlantic World that began with contact, but the political, economic and social power available in this world was impacted by an actor’s class, gender and race.
  • That the priorities of European empires shaped different colonies ruled by each power.  However, the actions of native people as well as environmental factors limited the agency of Europeans to define their colonies.
  • That the British colonies were diverse, but they overall developed a system of political independence thanks to salutary neglect while becoming fundamentally tied to Britain through mercantilism.
  • That historians fundamentally disagree about the origins of slavery.  Some historians argue that slavery predated modern conceptions of race while others argue that slavery was the result of assumptions about race.
  • That slavery shaped both black and white culture in fundamental ways and people of all genders and races in the Southern colonies particularly were impacted by the slave system.
• Be able to…
  • Continue to become active participants in a discussion seminar, whether by asking questions or sharing ideas.
  • Explain the differences between European cultures in the Americas as well as the causes of these differences.
  • Formulate response to fundamental questions about the development of the political and economic institutions of the colonies and their significance.
  • Identify the arguments of varied historians related to the origin of slavery and explain the signifiance of their contributions.
  • Identify possible sources that can be used to help answer the question of slavery’s origins beyond the class readings.
  • Articulate a provisional answer to the major debate question.

Major Concepts:

• New France
• New Spain
• British Colonies
  • New England
  • Mid-Atlantic
  • Southern
• Native/White Relations
• Salutary Neglect
• Mercantilism
• Self-Governance
• Great Awakening
• Protestantism
• Seven Years’ War
• Origins Debate
• Slave Society v. Society with Slaves
• Patriarchy
• Racial Slavery
• Afro-Christianity
• Creoles

Demonstration(s) of Understanding: Students will engage in three major demonstrations of understanding in this unit. Students will take a multiple choice reading quiz which will assess their retention of content knowledge. Then, students will complete an open note/reading response to the key question in this unit and support their conclusions with concepts from the various historians they have encountered in this unit. Finally, students will use their research skills to discover two further sources related to this period and share with the class how these sources might influence our understanding of the key question in this unit. Throughout the unit, students will demonstrate their facility with discussion skills by participating in class.

Unit 3

The Revolutionary Era

Key Question: How revolutionary was the American Revolution? Was it fundamentally radical or conservative? How much changed in American society from the pre-Revolutionary period?

Driving Questions:

• What events led to the American Revolution?  Was the American Revolution inevitable?
• How did the American Revolution change the United States?  How radical was this change?
• Why did the United States move from the system of government under the Articles of Confederation to that under the Constitution?  How radical was the change of the Constitution?

At the end of this unit, students will…

• Understand…
  • That the events of the American Revolution were in part a reaction to the end of salutary neglect after the Seven Years’ War.
  • That some historians have argued that the American Revolution was precipitated by political theories about self-government and liberty.
  • That some historians argue that the American Revolution radically changed the United States and laid the groundwork for increasing liberty while other historians argue that the American Revolution raised radical possibilities, but failed to deliver them.
  • That different groups of Americans, including women, gained some rights, but were denied others during the Revolution.
  • That the weak central government under the Articles of Confederation led elite leaders to create a much stronger central government under the Constitution.  Some historians have argued these leaders were correct in their “diagnosis” of the problems of this “critical period.”
• Be able to…
  • Be active participants in a discussion seminar, whether by asking questions or sharing ideas.
  • Discuss the relative weight of different factors that drew different Americans to support the Revolution.
  • Articulate an argument about whether or not the American Revolution led to radical change using specific examples from the unit.
  • Articulate an argument about the importance of the “critical period” under the Articles of Confederation.
  • Articulate an argument about how the Constitution does or does not fulfill the “promise” of the Revolution as the student defines it.

Major Concepts:

• Seven Years War
• Stamp Act
• Boston Tea Party
• Boston Massacre
• Common Sense
• Declaration of Independence
• Articles of Confederation
• “Critical Period”
• Shays Rebellion
• Constitution
• Federalists and Anti-Federalists
• Bill of Rights
• Abigail Adams
• Prince Hall

Demonstration(s) of Understanding: Students will engage in three major demonstrations of understanding in this unit. Students will take a multiple choice reading quiz which will assess their retention of content knowledge. Then, students will complete an open note/reading response to the key question in this unit and support their conclusions with concepts from the various historians they have encountered in this unit. Finally, students will use their research skills to discover two further sources related to this period and share with the class how these sources might influence our understanding of the key question in this unit. Throughout the unit, students will demonstrate their facility with discussion skills by participating in class.

Unit 4

The Antebellum Era

Key Question: How did the changes of the Second Great Awakening impact society? To what extent should we view the religious and reform movements as a form of social control imposed by elites? To what extent should we view these movements as uplifting for the “common man” of Jacksonian America?

Driving Questions:

• How did the developments of the American Revolution lead to social change during the Antebellum Era?
• What caused the great religious revival of the Second Great Awakening and why did it lead to social change?
• How did the political changes of Jacksonian America impact the political position of the “common man” and elites?

At the end of this unit, students will…

• Understand…
  • That the Second Great Awakening rapidly transformed the religious life of the the United States both by birthing new religious denominations and leading to movements for social reform.
  • That historians have often described the religious and reform movements of this period in terms of the concept of “social control.”
  • That historians have generally discussed the rise of Andrew Jackson and the Democratic Party as representative of a new democracy that had a much wider voter base and more voter participation, but many groups remained excluded from this new “democracy.”
  • That Americans of this period viewed the world in a fundamentally different way than Americans today including their belief in the imminent end of the world and their important distinction between freedom and licentiousness
  • That underrepresented groups like women and African-Americans were able to use the social reform language of this period to claim liberation for themselves.
• Be able to…
  • Write useful questions that generate discussion as each student begins to submit possible questions for discussion each day, which are collated by the teacher.
  • Articulate a definition of “social control” and apply it to various cases from the Antebellum Era.
  • Interpret the language of the 19th century through its own frame of reference by considering the understanding of concepts like license and freedom.
  • Articulate an argument about the relative significance of the rise of a “white man’s democracy” in a society where others remain unrecognized in government.

Major Concepts:

• Social Control
• Second Great Awakening
• License v. Freedom
• Millenarianism
• Perfectionism
• Abolitionism
• Sojourner Truth
• Temperance
• Middle Class
• Democratization
• Second Party System
• Indian Removal

Demonstration(s) of Understanding: Students will engage in three major demonstrations of understanding in this unit. Students will take a multiple choice reading quiz which will assess their retention of content knowledge. Then, students will complete an open note/reading response to the key question in this unit and support their conclusions with concepts from the various historians they have encountered in this unit. Finally, students will use their research skills to discover two further sources related to this period and share with the class how these sources might influence our understanding of the key question in this unit.

Unit 5

The Crisis of the Union

Key Question: What is the meaning of the Civil War for the United States today? How was the United States changed by the dramatic conflagration of the war? Was the change primarily political, social, racial, etc?

Driving Questions:

• Why did the Civil War occur?  Could it have been prevented or was it inevitable?  To what extent can we answer this question?
• How did the antebellum status of the North and the South influence the outcome of the war and why did the North ultimately emerge victorious?
• To what extent did Reconstruction represent real, concrete change from the status quo before the War?
• How do we remember the Civil War today and how should we remember it?

At the end of this unit, students will…

• Understand…
  • That historians initially debated the question of whether the Civil War was an irrepressible conflict or was the result of a blundering generation and could have been averted, but today historians are interested in the “Long Civil War” which examines the war as the part of a long term process.
  • The role of the series of compromise from the Missouri Compromise in 1820 to the attempted Crittenden Compromise in staving off conflict in the short term.
  • That the Confederacy was created for the express purpose of protecting the institution of slavery.
  • That the Lincoln administration initially engaged in the war to reunite the Union but a combination of war aims and moral change led to the avowed purpose of ending slavery by the time the war was over.
  • That until recently historians were driven by the beliefs of the “Dunning School” that Reconstruction was a failure because African-Americans were not prepared for governance and that this had real world consequences for the rights of African-Americans well into the 20th century.
  • Why some historians today view Reconstruction as a period of real promise in which African-Americans gained significant political rights while others view Reconstruction as a tragedy insofar as the North failed to protect African-American rights.
  • That the War had profound social impacts beyond the political change it wrought, particularly in the lives of those whose friends, families, etc had perished in the uncounted mass death of the conflict.
• Be able to…
  • Organize and run discussions as one student begins to run the discussion each day and others write the questions to be discussed ahead of time.
  • Articulate a clear relationship between the Civil War and the antebellum period that does not treat the Civil War as only an aberration.
  • Make an argument about the significance of the Civil War and Reconstruction for the political, social, racial, etc life of the United States today.
  • Identify narratives of the Dunning School and the “Lost Cause” in contemporary historical memory in monuments, etc.

Major Concepts:

• Missouri Compromise
• Compromise of 1850
• Dred Scot Decision
• Confederate States of America
• Abraham Lincoln
• Emancipation Proclamation
• United States Colored Troops
• 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments
• Freedmen’s Bureau
• Sharecropping
• Courage
• The “Good Death”
• Nationalism
• The Dunning School
• The “Lost Cause”

Demonstration(s) of Understanding: Students will engage in three major demonstrations of understanding in this unit. Students will take a multiple choice reading quiz which will assess their retention of content knowledge. Then, students will complete an open note/reading response to the key question in this unit and support their conclusions with concepts from the various historians they have encountered in this unit. Finally, students will use their research skills to discover two further sources related to this period and share with the class how these sources might influence our understanding of the key question in this unit. Throughout the unit, students will demonstrate their skills in discussion by writing questions and trading off running the discussion in class each day.

Unit 6

The Rise of Industrial America

Key Question: How were immigrants impacted by their journeys to the United States? Were immigrants transformed by their migration into "Americans" or did they transport their cultures with them from their homelands and maintain them?

Driving Questions:

• Why did immigrants come to the United States in this period and what motivated them to stay/leave?
• Why did Progressivism emerge as a reform movement in this period and how did its adherents react to/impact immigrants?
• How did industrialization change the daily lives of Americans both native born and immigrant?

At the end of this unit, students will…

• Understand…
  • That while many immigrants came to the United States to put down roots and stayed permanently, there was an equally significant return migration of people back to Europe in this period.
  • How and why immigrant and native working class cultures clashed with the imperatives of industrial society as understood by wealthy capitalists.
  • That Progressivism was a series of reform movements that was largely directed from the top down and was interested in solving the “problems of the poor” in ways both beneficial to the lower classes and regressive/racist.
  • Why some historians argue that immigrants were forcibly transformed in the “melting pot” of the United States and others argue that immigrants’ experiences were part of cultural patterns they already knew from Europe.
  • That while the Progressive Era saw the rise of Unions, intergroup conflict between native born and immigrant Americans often slowed the effectiveness of these groups.
• Be able to…
  • Organize and run discussions as one student continues to run the discussion each day and others write the questions to be discussed ahead of time.
  • Articulate a nuanced argument about the reasons that immigrants came to the United States and the reasons that they did or did not remain.
  • Discuss the degree to which immigrants were or were not assimilated into an “American culture” based on primary evidence.
  • Articulate an argument about the significance of Progressivism and its relationship or lack thereof to immigrants.

Major Concepts:

• “New Immigrants”
• Industrialization
• “Peasants”
• Re-Migration
• Clock Time
• Fordism
• Assimilation
• Pluralism
• Skilled v. Unskilled
• Labor Unions
• Settlement Houses
• Expertise
• Eugenics

Demonstration(s) of Understanding: Students will engage in three major demonstrations of understanding in this unit. Students will take a multiple choice reading quiz which will assess their retention of content knowledge. Then, students will complete an open note/reading response to the key question in this unit and support their conclusions with concepts from the various historians they have encountered in this unit. Finally, students will work in groups to create a Google Site page that articulates a clear argument about Progressivism. This serves both to demonstrate understanding of this unit and to prime the pump for the upcoming Winter Project. Throughout the unit, students will demonstrate their skills in discussion by writing questions and trading off running the discussion in class each day.

Unit 7

Depression and War

Key Question: How did the New Deal change the United States? Did it represent a fundamentally new approach to the relationship between citizens and the federal government?

Driving Questions:

• What caused the Great Depression?
• Why did Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt respond so differently to the Depression?  What ideologies shaped their responses?
• How successful was the New Deal in solving the problems of the Depression?  Could the New Deal have ultimately worked without the intervening crisis of the War?
• How did the Second World War impact Americans both at home and abroad?

At the end of this unit, students will…

• Understand…
  • That the Great Depression was caused by a constellation of economic factors including fear of the collapse of the stock market, overborrowing the part of consumers and overproduction on the part of manufacturers.
  • That Herbert Hoover and most Americans believed that the proper role of the Federal Government did not include intervention either in the economy or in daily life when the crisis began.
  • Why some historians argue that the New Deal was a continuation of ideas from the Progressive Era while others argue that it represented a real shift in the ideology of government.
  • How the New Deal transformed the relationship between the American people and the Federal Government by increasing the government’s power to regulate the economy and changing the expectations about what the government owed to its citizens.
  • That the New Deal was experimental, but the central purpose of most of the alphabet soup programs was the “prime the pump” of the economy to generate growth.
  • How Labor Unions used the New Deal as an opportunity to transform the role of Unions in the United States and were able to obtain the first real backing from the Federal Government.
  • That Americans initially resisted involvement in the Second World War in part because of the Depression and in part because of their experience in the First World War.
  • That the American entry in the Second World War ultimately led to the recovery of the economy and full employment as large numbers of men volunteered to fight overseas.
• Be able to…
  • Organize and run discussions as one student continues to run the discussion each day and others write the questions to be discussed ahead of time.
  • Articulate an argument about differences and similarities between the New Deal and the Progressive reform movements encountered in Unit 6.
  • Identify contemporary political issues and frameworks that have been inherited from the New Deal.
  • Make an argument about the relative importance of the Second World War in the economic recovery after the Depression.

Major Concepts:

• Stock Market Crash
• Overborrowing
• Overproduction
• Dust Bowl
• Herbert Hoover
• Charity
• FDR
• Alphabet Soup
• “Priming the Pump”
• AFL
• UAW
• Wagner Act
• Pearl Harbor
• Rosie to Riveter
• Atomic Bomb
• GI Bill

Demonstration(s) of Understanding: Students will engage in three major demonstrations of understanding in this unit. Students will take a multiple choice reading quiz which will assess their retention of content knowledge. Then, students will complete an open note/reading response to the key question in this unit and support their conclusions with concepts from the various historians they have encountered in this unit. Finally, students will work in groups to create a monument that articulates their conclusions about FDR’s relative role in the changes of the New Deal. This serves both to demonstrate understanding of this unit and to prime the pump for thinking about the final project. Throughout the unit, students will demonstrate their skills in discussion by writing questions and trading off running the discussion in class each day.

Unit 8

America Since MidCentury

Key Question: Political commentators of the 1960s and 1970s believed that a “New Left” had permanently transformed American politics. On the other hand, commentators in the 1980s believed the “Reagan Revolution” had proven America was fundamentally conservative. Why did American politics since 1945 swing between these poles? Was American politics of the second half of the 20th century fundamentally Conservative or Liberal?

Driving Questions:

• Did the 1950s represent a period of conformity that the 60s reacted against or were the 1950s already demonstrating the seeds of protest that would bloom in the 60s?
• To what extent were the protest and reform movements of this period driven from the grassroots and to what extent was change delivered from above (leaders, government, etc)?
• What was the relationship among different political movements such as the civil rights movement, the women’s movement and the conservative movement?  Did they inspire or model one another?

At the end of this unit, students will…

• Understand…
  • That post war prosperity led to the beginning of what some historians call the “American Century.”
  • Why some historians have viewed the 1960s as a reaction against the conformity of the 1950s while others have seen the 1950s as the beginning of radicalization.
  • Why some historians have modeled this period as a pendulum swinging back and forth from left to right in terms of the political climate of each decade.
  • That the rise of the counterculture in the 1960s which emphasized personal liberty was concurrent with the rise of a new social conservatism.
  • How the Civil Rights movement gained traction in the national media and ultimately achieved real change in terms of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
  • That politicians in both parties attempted to walk a fine line between the most radical and moderate elements in their parties in order to be elected.
  • That the women’s rights movement sought liberation largely for elite white women, but was also met by resistance from other elite white women.
  • That the rise of think tanks and conservative publications helped to launch a conservative movement which began from to top down and led to the election of Ronald Reagan.
• Be able to…
  • Organize and run discussions as one student continues to run the discussion each day and others write the questions to be discussed ahead of time.
  • Synthesize patterns of political change in the 20th century and draw conclusions about the impact of those changes in the present.
  • Articulate the similarities and differences between the different political movements of this period.

Major Concepts:

• Conformity
• Cold War
• McCarthyism
• Free Speech
• New Left
• LBJ
• Barry Goldwater
• Richard Nixon
• Counterculture
• Vietnam War
• Martin Luther King
• “Local People”
• Civil Rights Act
• Voting Rights Act
• “Minority Rights Revolution”
• Betty Friedan
• Women’s Liberation
• NOW
• Think Tanks
• Ronald Reagan
• Deregulation
• Supply-Side Economics

Demonstration(s) of Understanding: Students will engage in three major demonstrations of understanding in this unit. Students will take a multiple choice reading quiz which will assess their retention of content knowledge. Then, students will complete an open note/reading response to the key question in this unit and support their conclusions with concepts from the various historians they have encountered in this unit. Finally, students will give a mock presentation to either the Republican or Democratic party exploring what the party can learn from the political experience of the 20th century to help it succeed in the present. This asks students to synthesize the patterns of the changes they have encountered in this unit.