United States History II Syllabus for 2014-2015
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Instructor
Karl Brown (Curriculum Vitae)Office Hours
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Course
HIST-1302-DC008 United States History II
Prerequisites
Prerequisite: RDNG 0331-minimum grade of C or a score on a state-approved test indicating college-level reading skills
Course Description
A survey of the social, political, economic, cultural and intellectual history of the United States from the Civil War/Reconstruction era to the present. United States History II examines industrialization, immigration, world wars, the Great Depression, Cold War and post-Cold War eras. Themes that may be addressed in United States History II include: American culture, religion, civil and human rights, technological change, economic change, immigration and migration, urbanization and suburbanization, the expansion of the federal government and the study of U.S. foreign policy.
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(3 sem hrs; 3 lec)
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Dual Credit Course
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writing utensil, paper, jump drive, highlighters
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AP US History - Syllabus
Karl Brown
Palo Duro High School
Amarillo, Texas
School Profile
School Location and Environment: Palo Duro High School is a public school on the North side of the city. It is a diverse school that educates ethnicities and nationalities from all over the world, including students whose families originate from the American, Asian, and African contents. There are nearly thirty languages spoken in the hallways. Most students come from low income households.
Grades: 9-12
Type: Public School
Total Enrollment: 1,867
Ethnic Diversity: The school is a diverse one with students whose families originate from all over the world. The largest ethnic group at the school is Hispanic, consisting of nearly sixty percent of the student population. African Americans make up eighteen percent while the Asian population of the school constitutes thirteen percent. Caucasians make up eight percent of the student body while Native Americans and Native Hawaiians each possess less than one percent of the student body population.
Personal Philosophy
History is well known as the study of change over time. However, it is more than that. It is a rigorous discipline that requires the student of it to understand a number of perspectives and resources. It allows the student to better understand and contextualize the world in which they live. Understanding history is much more than the acquisition of factual knowledge like dates and names. To achieve a full understanding of historical concepts and material, the student must seek to analyze and interpret both primary and secondary resources to come to conclusions about the eras and historical content they study. In a history classroom, the teacher serves as someone who helps the student to understand historical themes, concepts, and perspectives as well as content.
History is also a discipline that emphasizes the communication and expression of gained knowledge. Students should be able to effectively and clearly communicate their ideas to others. Because of this, students should be able to learn to formulate structured writing products that include thesis statements and properly formed paragraphs. To understand history is to communicate it.
Course Overview
The second semester of the AP US History course is one that covers the beginnings of the Progressive Era and ends up to the present day under the administration of Barack Obama. Teaching materials and methods will include textbooks, excerpts, primary and secondary documentation, discussion, writing exercises, current events, debates, document-based question exercises, videos, movies. Analytical and writing skills will be emphasized.
Classroom Expectations and Environment
Behavior: Students in the AP History classroom will be treated with the same respect as students that enroll in a college level survey history course. In return, the students will have college-level expectations put upon them: they will need to show discipline, respect, responsibility, and studiousness. Students will respect the rules of the classroom as well as each other. Cheating is unacceptable and assignments that are completed dishonestly will always receive the grade of a ‘0’. Students’ level of commitment to the class will reflect itself in the level of effort they put into the classroom and demands of the course curriculum.
Supplies: Students will need to a three inch three ring binder, paper, pens, highlighters, pencils, and access to a textbook or reading material on a daily basis.
Student Performance Objectives:
1. Create an argument through the use of historical evidence.
2. Analyze and interpret primary and secondary sources.
3. Analyze the effects of historical, social, political, economic, cultural, and global forces on this period of United States history.
Grades: Students will be assessed over a variety of assignments such as participation and engagement in class, homework/readings, quizzes, tests, writings, and discussions.
Tests: 40%
Quizzes: 10%
Homework/readings: 15%
Writings/Discussion: 15%
Participation/engagement: 20%
Content Schedule: the following schedule is tentative and subject to change. However, this is the rough outline of what material will be presented in class and when.
Week 1: Progressive Era: 1890-1920
Week 2: Progressive Era: 1890-1920, continued
Week 3: Progressive Era: 1890-1920, continued.
Week 4: Imperialism and Expansionism under Progressivism: 1898-1920
Week 5: The United States and the First World War
Week 6: The Roarin’ Twenties
Week 7: The Roarin’ Twenties, continued
Week 8: The Great Depression and The New Deal
Week 9: World War II: background, ideologies, commitments from 1920-1945
Week 10: The Cold War: 1945-1989
Week 11: The 1950s
Week 12: The 1960s
Week 13: The 1970s
Week 14: The 1980s and 1990s
Week 15: The 21st Century
Week 16: Review
Week 17: STAAR TEST/ AP EXAM
Week 18: Independent Research Project
Week 19: Independent Research Project
Week 20: Independent Research Project
Unit 1: The Progressive Era from 1890-1920 (3 Weeks)
In this unit students will understand how the government and society at large began to response to government corruption, the detriments of laissez-faire economic policies, social inequality for African Americans and women, and the urban poor, among other areas. The overall focus of this unit will be to show how the Progressive Era in American history was a direct response to many of the social wrongs that were caused by the Gilded Age.
Key Theme for the Unit: “Politics and Power”
Specific Content of the Unit:
-Characteristics of the Progressive Era/Progressives
- Changes to the political system including the 17th Amendment, referendum, initiative, and recall.
- Literature calling for social change, including the work of Ida Tarbell, Jacob Riis, Upton Sinclair, and Lincoln Steffens, among others
- Efforts of the government to recognize or side with labor, as evinced by the Pullman strike
- The social inequality of women, African Americans, and urban poor
- Laws that involve conservation of natural areas both before and during the Progressive Era
- Decisions of the Supreme Court including Minor v. Happersett, Muller v. Oregon, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Williams v. Mississippi, among other cases.
- The Grange Movement and William Jennings Bryan in 1896
- Legislation that sought to regulate big business/trusts/monopolies including the Food and Drug Act, the Meat Inspection Act, the Northern Securities Decision from the Supreme Court, The Federal Reserve Act, and the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, among others
Activities of this Unit:
- Students will write an essay regarding the ruling of the Supreme Court as they relate to women and African Americans to determine whether or not the Supreme Court or the federal government were actively campaigning to make things more equal for them during the Progressive Era.
- Students will write an essay that generates how the average person might have thought about the major political issues of the time by analyzing political cartoons.
- Students will write an essay comparing and contrasting Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressivism versus that of Woodrow Wilson’s using notes, the book, and primary documents.
***Students will be graded on their participation, engagement, discussion and assessment over material via quiz and Test
Primary Source Readings:
“The Populist Party Platform,” (1892) in Heffner, A Documentary History of the United States 8th ed.. (New York: Signet, 2002), 267-272.
“Cross of Gold Speech,” William Jennings Bryan (1896), Ibid., 273-280.
“The New Nationalism,” Theodore Roosevelt (1910), Ibid., 305-312
“The Old Order Changeth,” Woodrow Wilson (1912), Ibid., 312-320.
Various court cases hosted by the Oyez Project and the Cornell University Law School.
Secondary Source Readings:
- Kennedy, David M. et al., The American Pageant 14th Edition (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning), Chapters 28 and 29, pages 702-745.
Unit 2: Imperialism Under Progressivism, 1898-1920 (1 Week)
The focus of this unit will be to understand how the United States began to gain land and world influence as a result of control of many areas in both the Caribbean and the South Pacific under various presidencies.
Key Themes of the Unit: “American in the World,” “Environment and Geography,” and “Identity”
Specific Contents of the Unit:
- The causes and long term effects of the Spanish American War, including the Rough Riders, the Teller and the Platt Amendment
- Policies used by the United States in efforts to influence or control their imperial possessions, including dollar diplomacy, “Big Stick” policies, and Dollar Diplomacy, especially in the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua
- Students will learn how the United States asserted their influence and gained control of various areas including, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Cuba, China, and Hawaii,
- The support of the Panamanian rebels and the construction and US control of the Panama Canal and how the canal affected US naval power and trade
- Teddy Roosevelt’s mediation efforts in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 and how if gave rise to tension between the US and Japan
Activities for this Unit:
- Students will perform a Stanford University Reading Like a Historian exercise that seeks to look at primary documentation to understand the causes of the Spanish American War and why the US decided to go to war with Spain in 1898.
- Students will perform a debate concerning the pros and cons of Imperialism.
- Students will write a short essay determining whether political cartoons support or criticize the American government in its Imperialist actions.
***Students will be graded on their participation, engagement, discussion and assessment over material via quiz and Test
Primary Source Readings:
- Political Cartoons of the Imperial Era
“The United States Looking Outward” by Alfred T. Mahan (1890) in Heffner A Documentary History of the United States 8th ed. (New York: Signet, 2009), 286-293.
“Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine” by Teddy Roosevelt (1904, 1905) in Ibid., 294-296.
Secondary Source Readings:
- Kennedy, David M. et al., The American Pageant 14th Edition (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning), Chapter 27, pages 669-697.
Unit 3: The United States and the First World War (1 Week)
This unit will illustrate how the First World War began, how the United States was eventually a participant in the war, and the ways in which the war affected the world.
Key Themes of the Unit: “American in the World”
Specific Contents of the Unit:
-How nationalism, militarism, imperialism, and an alliance system allowed for the environment that saw the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand lead to an entire global war
- The ways in which Germany, and to some extent, Britain, angered America during its time as a neutral power, including the British blockade of Germany, the Zimmermann Telegram, and the sinking of merchant ships by German U-boats, including the Lusitania and the Sussex
- New technology effect on war including machine guns, gas, airplanes, tanks, and submarines
- America’s effect on the war at the Argonne Forest and at St. Mihiel and how Pershing led American troops
- The end of the war, including Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the failure of the US Senate to ratify participation on the League of Nations
Activities of the Unit:
***Students will be graded on their participation, engagement, discussion and assessment over material via quiz and Test
Primary Source Readings:
“Austria’s Ultimatum to Serbia” (1914) hosted by Michael Duffy at http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/austrianultimatum.htm
“The Zimmermann Telegram” (1917) hosted by The US National Archives and Records Administration at http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/zimmermann/
“The Sussex Pledge” hosted by Michael Duffy at http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/uboat1916_jagowresponse.htm
“Fourteen Points” by Woodrow Wilson (1918) in Heffner A Documentary History of the United States 8th ed. (New York: Signet, 2009), 334-338.
Secondary Source Readings:
- Kennedy, David M. et al., The American Pageant 14th Edition (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning), Chapter 29, pages 738-744 and Chapter 30, pages 745-768.
Unit 4: The Roarin’ Twenties (2 Weeks)
This unit will cover how America’s economy attained post-WWI prosperity and how that prosperity impacted American citizens and the society in which they lived.
Key Themes of the Unit: “Work, Exchange, and Technology,” “Ideas, Beliefs, and Culture.”
Specific Contents of the Unit:
- Sense of turmoil during the 1920s, including the Red Scare of 1919, the Scope’s Trial, immigration, and the second rise of the Ku Klux Klan
- The Growth of the American economy, including the increase of corporate stock sells, mass consumption of cars, houses, appliances, and radios, among other things.
- The 18th Amendment and Prohibition
- Changes in culture and entertainment, including movies, literature, sporting events, and jazz music
- The Presidencies of Coolidge and Hoover
- Changes in farming techniques in the Midwest
- The end of economic good times, bursting the housing bubble, over-production of goods, and the Great Crash of 1929
Activities of the Unit:
-Primary Document exercise: students will write an essay concerning the synthesizing the challenges of immigrants when crossbing the Atlantic when emigrating to the United States from letters to and from Polish immigrants
- Students will complete a Reading Like a Historian document activity concerning the Scopes’ Trial
***Students will be graded on their participation, engagement, discussion and assessment over material via quiz and Test
Primary Resource Readings:
-Polish Immigrant Letters hosted by the Heritage Discovery Center at http://www.jaha.org/edu/discovery_center/push-pull/letterstohome.html AND http://www.jaha.org/edu/discovery_center/push-pull/lettersfromhome.html
-Scopes Trial Documents
Secondary Resource Readings:
- Galbraith, John Kenneth, The Great Crash: 1929 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997), 108-118.
- Kennedy, David M. et al., The American Pageant 14th Edition (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning), Chapter 31, pages 770-796.
Unit 5: The Great Depression (1 Week)
The main focus of this unit will be to understand how Franklin D. Roosevelt used the power of the Federal Government to help the American economy recover from the effects of the Great Depression.
Key Themes of the Unit: “Politics and Power”
Specific Contents of the Unit:
- Causes of the Great Depression including buying stock “on the margin”, overproduction of goods, easily-given credit, and artificially high stock prices
- Hoover’s failures as president including laissez faire politics, Hawley-Smoot Tariff, Hoovervilles, unwillingness to use federal money to relive hard times, and the Bonus Army March fiasco
- The Election of 1932 and FDR’s first 100 days: implementation of the “New Deal” and efforts to relive, recover, and reform the economy (the Three R’s)
- New Deal Agencies including the CCC, the FDIC, AAA, SEC, TVA, WPA, FHA, FERA, NLRA, NRA, and SSA
- The Dust Bowl
- The end of Prohibition
- Critics of the New Deal, including Father Coughlin and Huey Long
- FDR’s failures: minorities and The New Deal, Court-Packing Scheme, the Supreme Court’s conservatism, and failure of Keynesian economics to fully recover the economy
Activities of the Unit:
- Write an essay over how the average person experienced the Great Depression via analysis of political cartoons
***Students will be assessed over the content via quiz
Primary Source Readings:
Political cartoons of the Great Depression
Secondary Resource Readings:
- Kennedy, David M. et al., The American Pageant 14th Edition (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning), Chapter 33, pages 823-850.
Unit 6: WWII: Background, Ideologies, and Major Events, and Impact (1 Week)
This unit will outline European and Asian history in order to more fully understand the reasons for the ideologies and events that lead to WWII, how the conflict was fought, and the impact of the war on world events to come.
Key Themes of the Unit: “American in the World”
Specific Contents of the Unit
- Japanese industrialization of its military and economy and its aggression on mainland China in the 1930s.
- The failures of the Appeasement talks, the beginning of WWII, American and Lend-Lease Act
- Pearl Harbor and entry of the United States into WWII
- Major military engagements including Stalingrad, El Alamein, and the Normandy Landings
- The end of the war in Europe and concentration on the Pacific War with a focus on Iwo Jima and “Island hopping”
- Japanese Internment and the Korematsu v. United States case
- Decision to drop the atomic bomb
- The origins and impact of the Holocaust
Activities of the Unit:
Students will write an essay that analyzes the reasons for US propaganda and what it hoped to persuade the American public to do
***Students will be assessed over the content via quiz or test
Primary Source Readings
- United States WWII Propaganda posters
Secondary Resource Readings
- Adams, Michael C. C., The Best War Ever: American and World War II (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press: 1994), 91-113. à Dispelling the myths of WWII and what it was like being “over there.”
- Kennedy, David M. et al., The American Pageant 14th Edition (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning), Chapter 34, 857-73 and Chapter 35, 875-884 à Testable material NOT covered in class with any depth
Unit 7: The Beginnings and Major Events of the Cold War (1 Week)
This unit will focus on why the US and the USSR became political, geographical, and ideological enemies after WWII and how each country sought to undermine the values of the other in many cases across the globe.
Key Themes of the Unit: “America in the World,” “Ideas, Beliefs, and Culture,” “Environment and Geography,” and “Politics and Power”
Specific Contents of the Unit:
- A History of distrust between the two countries since WWI
- Disagreements at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences and development of hydrogen bombs on both sides
- Domino Theory and the Marshall Plan; containment and the Truman Doctrine
- The Berlin Airlift, the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis
- The Korean war and the Vietnam war with a focus on home front discontent including escalation into war, the media, student protests, the draft, and the end of the Vietnam war
Activities of the Unit:
***Students will be assessed over the content via quiz or test
Primary Source Readings:
- Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of 1964 hosted by ourdocuments.com at http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=98&page=transcript
- War Powers Resolution of 1971 hosted by the Lillian Goldman Law Library at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/warpower.asp
Secondary Source Readings:
- Kennedy, David M. et al., The American Pageant 14th Edition (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning), Chapter 34, 857-73 and Chapter 36, 920-940.
Unit 8: Culture of the 1950s (1 Week)
In this unit students will understand the major issues and events of post-war American culture, including economic prosperity, social conservatism, and the fear of communism that was culturally and politically invasive.
Key Themes of the Unit: “Identity,” “Politics and Power,” and “Ideas, Beliefs, and Culture”
Specific Content of the Unit:
- Reasons for economic prosperity during the 1950s including growth of jobs, spending on leisurely activities and products, housing, appliances, television, and The Affluent Society
- Cars and car culture including drive ins, drive in movies, and the Federal Highway Act of 1956
- Conservatism of the decade: economic, political, and women’s gender roles, and the Election of 1952
- Levittown/suburbs growth and “white flight,”
- Popular Cold War panic including the launch of Sputnik, and reaction to it including “Duck and Cover” and the motto “In God We Trust”
- Joseph McCarthy and McCarthyism/the Red Scare and social response including Edward Murrow and The Crucible
- Attempts at desegregation in the South including the “Little Rock Nine” and the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision
- New forms of entertainment including Rock ‘n Roll and television shows
- Eisenhower Doctrine and its check of USSR influence in the Middle East
Activities of the Unit:
“Find the Communist Activity”
***Students will be assessed over the content via quiz or test
Primary Resource Readings/Activities:
- “Duck and Cover” video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqXu-5jw60
- “He May Be a Communist” video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWeZ5SKXvj8
- “Radio and Television News” Speech by Edward. R. Murrow in Heffner, A Documentary History of the United States 8th ed. (New York: Signet Books, 2002), 499-508.
Secondary Resource Readings:
- Kennedy, David M. et al., The American Pageant 14th Edition (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning), Chapter 37, pages 943-958.
Unit 9: The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and the Turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s (2 Weeks)
Students will understand the roots of the Civil Rights Movement and its major players and the general sense of distrust of the American public felt by the populace of the country
Key Themes of the Unit: “Identity,” “Politics and Power,” and “Ideas, Beliefs, and Culture”
Specific Contents of the Unit:
- The political and economic state of African Americans in the South, including Jim Crow laws and black codes, jury service inequality, lynchings, segregation of schools, trains, and public places, the Klan, sharecropping, economic poverty, inequal voting rights, and overall failure of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
- The Montgomery Bus Boycott, Rosa Parks, sit-ins, marches, freedom rides, Martin Luther King, Jr., and his failure in the north
- Malcolm X, black power, and separatism
- Major Supreme Court cases including Brown v. Board of Education, Sweatt v. Painter, and Loving v. Virginia
- Assassinations of major political figures, including Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Malcolm X
- Major legislation in response to the Civil Rights Movement including the Civil Rights Act of 1963, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, affirmative action, the Fair Housing Act, and the American with Disabilities Act
- Lyndon B. Johnson’s ascension to power and his Great Society legislation
- Women’s fight for equality including the National Organization of Women, Betty Freidan and The Feminine Mystique, Women’s Liberation, and major Supreme Court cases concerning women including Reed v. Reed, Eisenstadt v. Baird, Griswold v. Connecticut, Frontiero v. Richardson, and Roe v. Wade
- Nixon’s involvement in the Vietnam war, including détente, the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks, and his errors including fighting in Cambodia, the Watergate Scandal, and finally his resignation from the Presidency
- Vietnam’s unpopularity on the home front including protest from the media, students protest groups, protest of the draft, the Tet Offensive and finally the fall of Saigon
- The Iranian Hostage Crisis and its eventual resolution
Activities of the Unit:
- Student will write an essay synthesizing the new rights of women gained via Supreme Court rulings and argue which amendment specifically protected these new actions
- Students will write an essay that outlines the efforts and methods of Martin Luther King Jr. and that of Malcolm X and ultimately compare and contrast the two leaders of the Civil Rights movement
***Students will be assessed over the content via test
Primary Source Readings
- Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court decision by Chief Justice Earl Warren (1954) in Heffner, A Documentary History of the United States 8th ed. (New York: Signet Books, 2002), 431-436
- Letter from Birminghan Jail Letter by Martin Luther King Jr. in Ibid., 463-472.
- “I have a Dream Speech” by Martin Luther King Jr. (1963) in Ibid., 472-476.
- “Great Society” Speech by Lyndon B. Johnson (1964) in Ibid., 476-480.
- National Organization of Women Statement of Purpose in Ibid., 484-490
- Roe v. Wade decision of the Supreme Court written by Justice Blackmun in Ibid., 542-548.
Secondary Source Readings/Activities
- Kennedy, David M. et al., The American Pageant 14th Edition (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning), Chapter 39, pages 1002-1029.
Unit 10: 80s, 90s, and New Century (2 Weeks)
Students will learn American history in a more modern era and be able to understand how that history shapes American culture, politics, and society today.
Key Themes of the Unit: “America in the World,” “Ideas, Beliefs, and Culture,” “Politics and Power,”
Specific Contents of the Unit:
- The major events and policies of the Reagan administration, including Supply-Side Economics/Reaganomics, the “Star Wars” initiative, and the social conservative resurgence during the 1980s with Sandra Day O’Connor, Phyllis Schlafly, the National Rifle Association, Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority, and the Heritage Foundation
- Reagan’s foreign policies such as the Reagan Doctrine and sending peace-keeping forces to Lebanon
- President H. W. Bush’s foreign policies and decisions such as the First Gulf War in Iraq, dealings with the end of the Cold War, and government-making in Panama
- The major events and issues of the Clinton Administration like the adopts of NAFTA, his impeachment process, Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, and his efforts to end genocidal/religious war in Bosnia
- W. Bush’s administration including the War on Terror in Afghanistan, war in Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Patriot Act
- Major events of the Obama Administration including his historical election, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act/the “Bailout,” and the Affordable Care Act/”Obamacare,”
Activities of the Unit:
- Students will write an essay concerning Clinton’s efforts to create peace in Bosnia. They will decide whether or not he acted accordingly or intervened in the wrong way. To support their arguments, students will use historical examples of how American intervened in foreign affairs and whether or not those good or bad decisions should have influenced Clinton’s decision making process in a different way.
- Students will write an essay comparing the Republicanism of Barry Goldwater versus that of Newt Gingrich and outline the differences between the two politicians to better understand conservatism of the Republican party during the 1980s and 1990s.
- ***Students will be assessed over the content via test
Primary Source Readings
- Senator Barry Goldwater Speech “Conservatism, Religion, and Politics” (1981) in Heffner, A Documentary History of the United States 8th ed. (New York: Signet Books, 2002), 548-550.
- Newt Gingrich, “Republican Contract with America” (1994)
Secondary Sou
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