Oldfields Classes - Ryan Tanner-Read: History and Government Teacher

My Oldfields Classes
Browse the sections below for information pertaining to each of the classes I taught at Oldfields School in Sparks, Maryland as well as resources related to them. These pages are no longer updated and may include some broken links.
United States History
Pre-Contact to the Present
Syllabus
The Course
This class will cover U.S. history from the Pre-Columbian period through today. Not only will we learn about the past but we will also have the chance to interpret the past for ourselves. You will, of course, need to learn the “facts” of U.S. history, but the primary focus of this class will be working together to think historically. We will spend much of our time examining primary sources and reading the opinions of many other historians so that we can form our own ideas about the past. We will be historians and we will do what historians do.
US History Presentations
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Presentations
United States History HOnors
AP US History
Syllabus
The Course
This class will cover U.S. history from the Pre-Columbian period through today. Not only will we learn about the past but we will also have the chance to interpret the past for ourselves. You will, of course, need to learn the “facts” of U.S. history, but the primary focus of this class will be working together to think historically. We will spend much of our time examining primary sources and reading the opinions of many other historians so that we can form our own ideas about the past. We will be historians and we will do what historians do.

This course will also help you prepare for the AP exam in the spring. As with other AP courses, this class will not cover absolutely every piece of information you may encounter on the AP exam. For this reason, you will need to spend some time outside of class preparing for the exam. I will offer sessions to study for the exam during club time and on Saturdays throughout the year.
US History Honors Presentations
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Presentations
US Government and Politics Honors
AP US Government and Politics
Syllabus
The Course
This course will help us to investigate the American political system in all its forms. We will study the structures of the system from the Constitution to the federal bureaucracy, but we will also consider the political world today and the various characters that inhabit it. In the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, there will be many different political stories crossing our radar. This course will allow us to consider them from the perspective of social scientists. We will, therefore, try to leave our politics at the door and put on our analytical glasses to look at the political ideologies and behavior of the United States to understand them better.

This course will also help you prepare for the AP exam in the spring. As with other AP courses, this class will not cover absolutely every piece of information you may encounter on the AP exam. For this reason, you will need to spend some time outside of class preparing for the exam. I will offer sessions to study for the exam during club time and on Saturdays throughout the year.
US Government and Politics Presentations
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Presentations
International Politics Honors
The World Around Us
Syllabus
The Course
This course will introduce us to varieties of governments and cultures around the world and the ways that they interact. We will discuss contemporary issues around the world and their roots in the past as we seek to understand the international scene around us. We will work together in order to understand the complex system of governments, treaties, non-governmental organizations and political movements that have shaped and continue to shape world affairs. This class is not intended to be an exhaustive survey of everything there is to know about international politics, but it will instead serve as a survey of major issues and scholarly/political viewpoints about them.

This class will ask us to focus on developing our analytical skills and our fluency in international events. We will read scholarly and political writings and work together to understand and critique them. We will investigate the historical backgrounds of current world events. We will conduct research and form opinions about various movements and ideas in international affairs. Most importantly, we will be constantly looking at current events and weaving them into our classroom discussions. To this end, each of you will choose one nation with a major role in international affairs and you will become our classroom expert on the challenges facing your nation and its international positions. You will also choose one non-governmental organization and become our expert on that organization.
International Politics Presentations
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Presentations
World History Honors
AP World History
Syllabus
The Course
This course will offer us the chance to cap the world history program here at Oldfields. We have already spent three years covering the history of the world in depth from ancient times to the present. This course will offer us the chance to turn a more careful eye to that history and to be historians ourselves. This course will be structured like a college level seminar. We will read from our textbook every week, but we will also spend a great deal of our time considering the writings of historians and other scholars as we think about the art of historical detection and the creation of historical arguments. For this reason, we will not cover every place and every topic in world history as this was impossible for us even in our previous three years. Instead, we will discuss a number of important themes and developments across the world in greater depth as we build our reading, writing and discussion skills for the college classroom.

This course will also help you prepare for the AP exam in the spring. As with other AP courses, this class will not cover absolutely every piece of information you may encounter on the AP exam. For this reason, you will need to spend some time outside of class preparing for the exam. I will offer sessions to study for the exam during club time and on Saturdays throughout the year
World History Honors Presentations
Click the button below for all the presentations from World History Honors

Presentations