AP U.S. HISTORY
SYLLABUS 2009-2010
Course Description and Objectives:
As stated by the College Board, “The AP Course in United States History is designed to provide students with the analytic skills and factual knowledge necessary to deal critically with the problems and materials in United States history. The program prepares students for intermediate and advanced college courses by making demands upon them equivalent to those made by full-year introductory college courses. Students should learn to assess historical materials –their relevance to a given interpretive problem, reliability, and importance –and to weigh the evidence and interpretations presented in historical scholarship. An AP United States History course should thus develop the skills necessary to arrive at conclusions on the basis of an informed judgment and to present reasons and evidence clearly and persuasively in essay format.” 1
In the course of the year, students will read the core text, America Past and Present, and will analyze, discuss, and assess topics ranging chronologically from the age of exploration to the present day. In addition to regular written assessments, each student will draw from primary and secondary documents to write a short research paper on an approved U.S. history topic of their choice. Special attention will be paid to political institutions, social and cultural developments, diplomacy, and economic trends in U.S. history. In conjunction with the chronological topics, the following themes will be developed: American Diversity, American Identity, Culture, Demographic Changes,
Economic Transformations, Environment, Globalization, Politics and Citizenship, and
Reform, Religion, Slavery and Its Legacies, and War.
Required Course Texts and Readings:

America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., New York: Pearson Longman, 2005.

AP Text Plus Test Workbook, Barbour, et al., New York: Pearson
Longman, 2005.

Primary Documents

Skills Activities

Web Resources , Documentaries and Films
Supplemental Readings:

U.S. History: A Document-Based Skillbook, Beverly Vaillancourt,
Saddlebrook: The Peoples Publishing Group, Inc., 2006.

U.S. History Skillbook, Michael Henry, Saddlebrook: The Peoples
Publishing Group, Inc., 2005.
1 AP United States History Course Description, located at apcentral.collegeboard.com
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
Threads of History, Michael Henry, Saddlebrook: The Peoples Publishing
Group, Inc., 2006.

United States History: Eyes on the Economy, Mark Schug, et al., New York:
National Council on Economic Education, 1998.

Document-Based Assessment Activities for U.S. History Classes, Portland:
Walch, 1999.

Doing the DBQ: Advanced Placement U.S. History Examination: Teaching and Learning with the Document –Based Question.

Ideas that Shape a Nation, James L. Smith, Las Cruces: Suncrest, 1998.

Documents to Accompany America’s History,Vol. 1: to 1877, Melvin
Yazawa, Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004.
 Documents to Accompany America’s History,Vol. 2: to 1877, Kevin
Fernlund, Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004.
Grading and Expectations
AP U.S. History will help students develop their verbal, written, and analytical skills and will enhance their understanding of contemporary issues. Grades will be based on the student’s performance on the following assessments:
35% - Tests
20% - Document-Based Questions (DBQs)
20% - Quizzes
15% - Homeworks/Discussion
10% - Projects/Research/Presentations
Tests will consist of both multiple-choice and essay questions. DBQs will be in-class, closed-note timed assessments. In addition to the College Board AP exam, all students will sit for both a Midterm in December and a Final exam in April on the course material.
The Final exam consists of two parts: a multiple-choice exam and the short research paper on an approved U.S. history topic.
AP College Board Curriculum Units, Readings, and Activities
Unit 1: Pre-Columbian Societies (August)
Content:
Early inhabitants of the Americas
American Indian empires
American Indian cultures
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005. Chapter 1 New World Encounters.
Activities and Assessments:
U.S. History Skillbook: Writing an Introductory Paragraph, p. 154.
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U.S. History Skillbook: Writing a Concluding Paragraph, p. 167.
Unit 2: Transatlantic Encounters and Colonial Beginnings, 1492-1690 (August)
Content:
First European contacts with Native Americans
Spain’s empire in North America
French colonization of Canada
English settlement of New England the Mid-Atlantic region, and the South
Servitude and Slavery
Religious diversity in the American colonies
Resistance to colonial authority: Bacon’s Rebellion, Glorious Revolution
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005. Chapter 2, New World Experiments: England’s
Seventeenth-Century Colonies.
Activities and Assessments:
U.S. History Skillbook: Identifying Critical Words in Questions, p. 22-23.
U.S. History Skillbook: Steps in Writing a Document-Based Question, p. 196.
Unit 3: Colonial North America, 1690-1754 (August)
Content:
Population growth and immigration
Transatlantic trade and the growth of seaports
The eighteenth-century back country
Growth of plantation economies and slave societies
The Enlightenment and the Great Awakening
Colonial governments and imperial policy in British North America
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005. Chapter 3, Putting Down Roots: Opportunity and Oppression in Colonial Society, Chapter 4 Experience of Empire: Eighteenth-
Century America.
Activities and Assessments:
Threads of History: Religious Development 1619-1740, p. 6-7.
Smith, Puritan Quotes: Rate your opinion, p. 46, and 54.
The Colonies: Poster Research Project
Practicing for the DBQ: Colonial Period DBQ in Document-Based Assessment
Activities for U.S. History Classes, Portland: Walch, 1999, p. 1-5.
DBQ on Colonial America
Unit 4: The American Revolutionary Era, 1754-1789 (August/September)
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Content:
The French and Indian War
Resistance to Britain
The War for Independence
The Articles of Confederation
The Constitution
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 5 The American Revolution, Chapter 6
The Republican Experiment.
Activities and Assessments:
Class Debate: Patriots vs. Loyalists
The Constitution: Primary Document Reading and Directed Questions
Document-Based Skillbook: Articles of Confederation (1777), p. 35-37.
Document-Based Skillbook: The Federalist Papers (1787-1788), Hamilton, p. 44-45.
Threads of History: The Coming of the American Revolution, p. 12-13.
Unit 5: The Early Republic, 1789-1815 (September)
Content:
Washington, Hamilton, and shaping of the national government
Emergence of political parties: Federalists and Republicans
Republican Motherhood
Beginnings of the Second Great Awakening
Significance of Jefferson’s presidency
Expansion into the trans-Appalachian West
American Indian resistance
Growth of slavery
The War of 1812
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 7 Democracy in Distress, Chapter
8 Republican Ascendancy.
Activities and Assessments:
Smith, Jefferson Quotes: Rate your opinion activity, p. 117, 126.
U.S. History Skillbook, Putting Answers Into a Graphic Organizer, p. 60.
Document-Based Skillbook: Significant court cases. Group research and presentations on Marbury v. Madison (1803), McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), and Gibbons v. Ogden
(1824), p. 53-59.
Documentary: The Louisiana Purchase
Test
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Unit 6: Transformation of the Economy and Society in Antebellum America
(September)
Content:
The transportation revolution
The creation of a national market economy
Early industrialization
Immigration and nativist reaction
Planters, yeoman farmers, and slaves in the cotton South
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005. Chapter 9 Nation Building and Nationalism
Chapter 11 Slaves and Masters
Activities and Assessments:
U.S. History Skillbook, Analyzing Charts, p. 87-88.
Yazawa, Documents Book: The Blight of Slavery (1819), Daniel Raymond.
Unit 7: The Transformation of Politics in Antebellum America (September)
Content:
Emergence of the second party system
Judicial federalism
The Bank War
Tariff controversy
States’ rights debates
Jacksonian democracy
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 10 The Triumph of White Men’s
Democracy.
Activities and Assessments:
Smith, de Tocqueville Quotes: Rate your opinion, p. 149, 158.
U.S. History Skillbook, Analyzing Political Cartoons, p. 99-102.
Threads of History: Famous Rebellions, p. 4-5.
Document-Based Assessment Activities for U.S. History Classes, “Jackson, Reform, and
Expansion.”
Unit 8: Religion, Reform, and Renaissance in Antebellum America (September)
Content:
Religious revivalism
Social reforms
Ideals of domesticity
Transcendentalism and utopian communities
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Literary and artistic expressions
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 12 The Pursuit of Perfection.
Activities and Assessments:
Group Work: Evaluate Abolitionist Strategies
Internet Activity: Primary Sources and Slavery
Yazawa, Documents Book: Walden (1854), Henry David Thoreau, p. 276-277.
Smith, Elizabeth Cady Stanton quotes, Rate your opinion, p. 169, 177.
Unit 9: Territorial Expansion and Manifest Destiny (October)
Content:
Forced removal of American Indians to the trans-Mississippi West
Western migration
Territorial acquisitions
The Mexican War
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 13 An Age of Expansionism.
Activities and Assessments:
Yazawa, Documents Book: Texas, California, and Manifest Destiny (1945), John L.
O’Sullivan, p. 290-291.
Threads of History: Expansion of the United States, 1783-1853, p. 34-36.
Unit 10: The Crisis of the Union (October)
Content:
Pro- and antislavery arguments and conflicts
Compromise of 1850
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
The emergence of the Republican Party
Abraham Lincoln
The election of 1860 and secession
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 14 The Sectional Crisis.
Activities and Assessments:
U.S. History Skillbook: Creating Categories to Answer Essay Questions, p. 113.
Unit 11: Civil War (October)
Content:
Two societies at war
Mobilization, resources, internal dissent
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Military strategies and foreign diplomacy
Emancipation
African Americans in the war
Social, political, and economic effects of war
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 15 Secession and the Civil War.
Activities and Assessments:
Yazawa, Documents Book: The Crisis at Fort Sumter (1861), Mary Boykin Chesnut, p.
322-323.
Yazawa, Documents Book: The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation (1862),
Abraham Lincoln, p. 330.
Documentary: The Civil War
DBQ: The Civil War
Unit 12: Reconstruction (October)
Content:
Presidential and Radical Reconstruction
Role of African Americans
Compromise of 1877
Impact of Reconstruction
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 16 The Agony of Reconstruction.
Activities and Assessments:
Yazawa, Documents Book: The Mississippi Black Codes (1865), p. 347-349.
Threads of History: Compromises and the Union: 1787, 1820, 1850, 1877, p. 28-29.
Document-Based Assessment Activities for U.S. History Classes, “Reconstruction’s
Failure.”
Unit 13: The Origins of the New South (October)
Content:
Sharecropping
Expansion of manufacturing and industrialization
Jim Crow and disfranchisement
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 16 The Agony of Reconstruction.
Activities and Assessments:
Primary Documents
Test
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Unit 14: Development of the West in the Late Nineteenth Century (October)
Content:
Expansion and development of western railroads
Competitors for the West: miners, ranchers, homesteaders, and American Indians
Gender, race and ethnicity in the West
Environmental impacts of western settlement
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 17 The West.
Activities and Assessments:
Smith, Frederick Jackson Turner Document and questions, p. 276-283.
Document-Based Skillbook: The Dawes Act (1887), p. 27-29.
Unit 15: Industrial America in the Late Nineteenth Century (November)
Content:
Corporate consolidation of industry
Technological development
Labor and unions
National politics
Migration and immigration
Social Darwinism and Social Gospel
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 18 The Industrial Society.
Activities and Assessment:
Fernlund, Documents Book: The Army of Unemployed (1887), Terence V. Powderly, p.
62-64.
Threads of History: Political Parties in the Nineteenth Century, p. 20-22.
Unit 16: Urban Society in the Late Nineteenth Century (November/December)
Content:
Urbanization and the lure of the city
City problems and machine politics
Intellectual and cultural movements and popular entertainment
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 19 Toward an Urban Society.
Activities and Assessment:
Test
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MIDTERM EXAM: END OF SEMESTER 1 MATERIAL
________________________________________________________________________
Unit 17: Populism and Progressivism (January)
Content:
Agrarian discontent
Populism
Origins of Progressive reform
Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson as Progressive presidents
Women’s roles: family, workplace, reform
Black migration
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 20 Political Realignments, Chapter 22
The Progressive Era, Chapter 23 From Roosevelt to Wilson in the Age of Progressivism.
Activities and Assessment:
Fernlund, Documents Book: Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910), Jane Addams, p. 132-
133.
Fernlund, Documents Book: The Struggle for Social Justice (1912), Theodore Roosevelt, p. 140-141.
Class Debate: Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. DuBois
Documentary: Theodore Roosevelt
Test
Unit 18: The Emergence of America as a World Power (January)
Content:
American imperialism: political and economic expansion
War in Europe
The First World War at home and abroad
Treaty of Versailles
Society and economy in the postwar years
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 21 Toward Empire and Chapter 24 The Nation at War.
Activities and Assessments:
Document-Based Skillbook: Fourteen Points (1918), Woodrow Wilson, p. 100-102.
Unit 19: The New Era: 1920s (February)
Content:
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The business of America and the consumer economy
Republican politics: Harding, Coolidge, Hoover
Culture and religion
The struggle for equality: African Americans and women
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 25 Transition to Modern America.
Activities and Assessments:
1920s project (from classzone.com) Choose one of the following projects:
1. Multimedia presentation about early automobiles
2. Documentary film script on the movie industry of the 1920s.
3. Short essay on how appliances influenced the lives of women in the 1920s.
4. Oral presentation: Mock 1920s radio show
Unit 20: The Great Depression and the New Deal (February)
Content:
Causes of the Great Depression
The Hoover administration’s response
Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal
Labor and union recognition
New Deal critics
Surviving hard times: American society
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 26 Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New
Deal.
Activities and Assessments:
Threads of History: Transformation of Capitalism in the 1930s (First and Second New
Deals), p. 59-60.
United States History: Eyes on the Economy, Activity Unit: The Great Depression.
Unit 21: The Second World War (February)
Content:
The rise of fascism and militarism
American neutrality
The attack on Pearl Harbor
Fighting a multifront war
Diplomacy, war aims, and wartime conferences
The atomic bomb
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 27 America and the World, 1921-1945.
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Activities and Assessments:
Class debate on the atomic bomb
Test
Unit 22: The Home Front During the War (March)
Content:
Wartime mobilization of the economy
Urban migration and demographic changes
Women, work, and family during the war
Civil liberties and civil rights during wartime
War and regional development
Expansion of government power
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 27 America and the World, 1921-1945.
Activities and Assessments:
WWII Poster Analysis Project (Based on collection available at: http://www.library.northwestern.edu/govinfo/collections/wwii-posters/adv-search.html
)
Unit 23: The United States and the Early Cold War (March)
Content:
Origins of the Cold War
Truman and containment
The Cold War in Asia: China, Korea Vietnam, Japan
Diplomatic strategies and policies of the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations
The Red Scare and McCarthyism
Impact of the Cold War on American society
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 28 The Onset of the Cold War.
Activities and Assessments:
Communists in the U.S. Government (1950), Joseph R. McCarthy, p. 324-326.
Unit 24: The 1950s (March)
Content:
Emergence of the modern civil rights movement
The affluent society and poverty
Consensus and conformity
Social critics and cultural rebels
Technological change
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Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 29 Affluence and Anxiety.
Activities and Assessments:
Fernlund, Documents Book: Help Wanted-Women (1957), Classified ads, Chicago
Sunday Tribune, p. 346-347.
Unit 25: The Turbulent 1960s (April)
Content:
From the New Frontier to the Great Society
Civil Rights
Cold War confrontations
The antiwar movement and the counterculture
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 30 The Turbulent Sixties.
Activities and Assessments:
Smith, Betty Friedan: excerpt from The Feminine Mystique, p. 359-362: Class
Discussion
Threads of History: Reform Movements of the Twentieth Century, p. 55-56.
Threads of History: Failure of Containment – The Vietnam War, p. 65-66.
Unit 26: Politics and Economics at the End of the Twentieth Century (April)
Content:
The election of 1968
Nixon’s challenges: Vietnam, China, Watergate
The energy crisis
The new Right and the Reagan revolution
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 31 A Crisis in Confidence, 1969-1980.
Activities and Assessments:
Threads of History: Famous Doctrines – From Monroe to Nixon, p. 67-68.
Unit 27: Society and Culture at the End of the Twentieth Century (April)
Content:
Demographic changes: immigration, Sunbelt migration, aging population
Computers
Politics in a multicultural society
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Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 32 The Republican Resurgence and Chapter 33 America in Flux.
Activities and Assessments:
Fernlund, Documents Book: Friction-Free Capitalism (1995), Bill Gates, p. 425-427.
Unit 28: The United States in the Post-Cold War World (April)
Content:
Globalization and the American economy
Domestic and foreign terrorism
Environmental issues in a global context
Readings: America Past and Present, Revised Seventh Edition, AP Edition, Divine, et al., Pearson Longman, New York, 2005, Chapter 33 America in Flux.
Activities and Assessments:
Fernlund, Documents Book: United States National Security Strategy (2002), George
Bush, p. 434-436.
Review for Final Course Exam and AP Exam (April)
In-Class Final Exam: TB
Review for AP Exam
AP Exam: Friday, TBD
Research Paper Due: TBD
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