Subject Area: History
Course Title:
Course Length:
U.S. History 8
1 Year
: The pupil should/ will be able to:

Study and discuss history from a distinctly Christian worldview.

Place themselves (by imagination, of course) into the situations that they are studying so that the events and people of history seem real to them

Begin to point to similarities and differences in particular historical situations by the process of abstraction

Understand (on a very basic level) the disciplinary connections between history, economics, geography, etc.

Point to (reasonable) connections between American history and the cultural context in which they are presently living –late twentieth century America

Explore the art and literature of many of the periods we study, looking for relationships between culture and its artifacts

Express an understanding of the basic principles that are the basis of American democracy, and the fact that they were well conceived, but not consistently applied in our history

Explain the environment in the U.S. leading up to the American Civil War

Identify and describe the main events (battles, etc.) that comprise the American Civil War

Describe the condition and problems of the post Civil War United States, especially in the south
– the need for Reconstruction

Understand and explain the development of the U.S. into a leading industrial state and world power between the American Civil War and the first World War.

Explain the causes, courses, consequences, and the resolutions of both world wars

Describe the causes of the Great Depression and assess the success/failure of FDR’s New Deal policies

Express an understanding of the Cold War between the U.S. and the USSR including major events and people

Describe the major people and events of the Civil Rights movement

Gain a basic understanding of the Vietnam War (if time permits at the end of the year)

A basic understanding of the roots of modern America and a look at important issues ahead (if time permits at end of the year
:

The American Journey: Modern Times . Appleby et al. Glencoe Publishing, 2012


America the Story of Us . The History Channel

Maps – European and American (especially showing the progress of time)

Excerpts of selected American literature (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Claude McKay, Hawthorne,
Whitman, Frost, etc.)
:
Essays
Unit tests
Cumulative semester exams
Stories and other pieces of creative writing
Major Research Paper – cooperative assignment with English

Course: U.S. History 8 Length: 1 Year
History may be thought of as a story. In this conception, the important people, places, and events of history are analogous to basic story elements like beginning, end, characters, setting, plot, etc. When it is presented to them in this way, students begin to see relationships between the events of history that they were not previously equipped to see. We are all accustomed to stories – in fact, I believe that story is one of the fundamentally important ways in which humans understand and interpret their world. The history-as-story metaphor may not seem on the surface to be a way of integrating faith and the teaching of history, but it is. God is the author of this story – His sovereign hand guides the events of history from the very beginning (creation), through the central point (incarnation/resurrection), to the very end
(consummation). This conception has the added benefit of providing its own historiography. History is linear, with an existence in time that does not limit its eternal author’s ability to act within it.
The history course intended to introduce students to the concept of history as story, as outlined above. It should quickly move beyond introduction into illustration, as it surveys American history from the westward expansion of the nineteenth century up to World War II (and as far beyond as time allows).
The course is organized by its texts into four basic units (one per quarter), each of which contains several component units.
1. Civil War/Reconstruction covers the sequence of events that led to the Civil War, the main events
(battles, etc.) that comprise the Civil War, the problems of the reconstruction period in the South, and the migration West that began before the Civil War and continued through it.
2. An Age of Extremes covers Mark Twain’s description “the Gilded Age,” the economics of post Civil
War America (monopolies, the rise of labor, etc.)
3. War, Peace, and All that Jazz covers the causes, courses, consequences, and resolutions of both world
wars, from the league of nations to the cold war
4. Cold War and Modern America – looks at the battles for world dominance between the U.S. and the
USSR after WWII and the emergence of modern United States
The course should be geared toward helping students establish an understanding of what history is, what it means for people to “do history,” and why it is important. In order to do this, the course should help students to understand (on a very basic level) the disciplinary connections between history, anthropology, economics, geography, etc. It will also build on skills developed in the previous year of
U.S. History, encouraging more independent work (projects, papers, and the like).

Unit 1
Antebellum America
(2 Weeks)
Unit 2
The Civil War
(3 Weeks)

Compromises to slavery issue
(Missouri, 1850, etc)

Bleeding Kansas

Creation of
Republican Party

Dred Scott court case

Lincoln Douglass
Debates

Secession

Fort Sumter

Fugitive Slave
Act

Strengths/Weaknesses of North
& South

Life for Soldiers during the War

Major Battles
(Antietam,
Chancellorsville,
Shiloh,
Gettysburg,Vicksburg,
Fredericksburg, etc)

Generals

Emancipation
Proclamation

Gettysburg
Address
 Women’s roles in war

Reading/quizzes

Lecture / note taking

Discussion
(formal, structured,
 teacher directed)
Writing assignments

Test

Slavery Debate

Reading/quizzes

Lecture / note taking

Discussion
(formal, informal, student generated)

Writing assignments

Review game

Test

Civil War
Activity Day

Memorization of
Gettysburg
Address

Slavery Debate

The American
Journey: Modern
Times . Appleby et al

Maps

Various handouts

The American
Journey: Modern
Times . Appleby et al.

America the
Story of Us : Civil
War

Maps

Various handouts

Selected literature

Copies of
Gettysburg
Address &
Emancipation
Proclamation

Unit 3
Reconstruction
(2 Weeks)
Unit 4
The “Wild” West
(2 Weeks)

54 th
Massachusetts
 Sherman’s March to the Sea

Total War

Ulysses S. Grant

Robert E. Lee

Different
Reconstruction
Plans
 Lincoln’s
Assassination

Black Codes

14 th
& 15 th
Amendments

Radical
Republicans

Pres. Andrew
Johnson
(impeachment)

Scalawags and
Carpetbaggers

Sharecropping

Pres. Grant

Pres. Rutherford
B. Hayes

Jim Crow &
Segregation

Gold Fever
(boomtowns and mines)

Transcontinental
Railroad

Indian Conflicts
(Little Bighorn,
Wounded Knee, etc)

Reservations vs.

Reading / quizzes

Lecture / notetaking

Discussion

Writing assignments

Review game

Test

Reading

Discussion

Test

Plains Indians
Research Project

Video clips

Lecture/Notes

Worksheets

Powerpoint on
The Wonderful

The American
Journey: Modern
Times . Appleby et al.

America the
Story of Us:
Heartland

Various handouts

The American
Journey: Modern
Times . Appleby et al.

Various handouts

Library resources for research project

Assimilation

Homesteaders

Oklahoma Land
Rush

Populist Party

Pres. McKinley
Wizard of Oz as a political analogy

Unit 6
Cities
(2 Weeks)
Unit 5
The Industrial Age
(2.5 Weeks)

Railroad Barons

New Inventions

Inventors

Thomas Edison

Henry Ford

Factors of
Production

John D.
Rockefeller

Andrew Carnegie

Vertical &
Horizontal
Integration

Robber Barons or
Industrial
Philanthropists?

Working
Conditions

Labor Unions

New Immigrants

Ellis & Angel
Island

Settling in
America

Nativist
Movement
(social & political)

Cities in the late
1800s (classes, problems, & changes)

Gilded Age

Education, Art, and Leisure during late 1800s


Reading/quizzes
Lecture / note taking

Discussions
(formal & informal)

Informal debate

Assembly Line activity

Reading / quizzes

Lecture / note taking

Discussion

Writing assignments

Tests

Historical Fiction
Novel

The American
Journey: Modern
Times . Appleby et al.

American the
Story of Us:
Boom

Various handouts

The American
Journey: Modern
Times . Appleby et. Al.

America the
Story of Us:
Cities

Various handouts

Maps

Land of Hope . By
Joan Lowery
Nixon

Unit 7
Progressive Era
(2 Weeks)
Unit 8
Rise to World Power
(2 Weeks)

Political
Machines &
Bosses

Muckrakers

Regulating businesses

17 th
Amendment

Suffragist
Movement

Social Reforms

Temperance movement

Pres. Teddy
Roosevelt

Conservationism

Pres. Taft

Pres. Wilson

Discrimination & fight for equality

Isolationism

Expansionism

Imperialism

Open Door
Policy

Annexation of
Hawaii

Japan

Spanish-
American War

Rough Riders

Yellow
Journalism

Filipino-
American War

Panama Canal

Reading / quizzes

Lecture / note taking

Discussion

Test

Review Game

Lecture/Notes

Quizzes

Test

Handouts

Board game project

The American
Journey: Modern
Times

Various handouts

Maps

Selected literature (Upton
Sinclair, Ida
Tarbell, etc)

The American
Journey: Modern
Times

Various handouts

Maps

Unit 9
WWI & the U.S.
(2 Weeks)
Unit 10
The Roaring Twenties
(2 Weeks)

Causes of WWI

New
Technologies of
WWI (weapons, communications, etc)

Propaganda

U-boats

Bolshevik
Revolution

Doughboys &
U.S. fighting in
WWI

Homefront during WWI

Treaty of
Versailles
 Wilsons’ 14
Points

League of
Nations

Red Scare

Anarchism

Great Migration

President
Harding

President
Coolidge

Isolationism

Consumerism

Age of
Automobile

Cultural changes of 1920s

Lost Generation

Harlem

Reading/quizzes

Lecture/notetaking

Discussion

Review game

Test

Readings

Writing assignments

Lecture/Notes

Quizzes

Test

Stock Market
Simulation

The American
Journey: Modern
Times.
Appleby et. Al.

Various handouts

Maps

American the
Story of Us

The American
Journey: Modern
Times

Various handouts

Selected literature

Unit 12
World War II
(2.5 Weeks)
Unit 11
Great Depression
(2 Weeks)



Renaissance
Prohibition
Nativism
Fundamentalism

Stock Market
Crash

Causes of Great
Depression
 Hoover’s
Reactions

FDR

First 100 Days

New Deal

Life during Great
Depression

Entertainment
(escapism and social critique)

Criticism of New
Deal

Second New
Deal

European dictators

Blitzkrieg

Winston
Churchill

Atlantic Charter

Pearl Harbor

American mobilization at home

Women and minorities during war

Japanese internment camps

Battles and campaigns of
WWII (N. Africa,
Europe, Pacific)

Reading/quizzes

Lecture/ note taking

Quizzes

Discussion

Review Game?

Essay Stock
Market
Simulation (Unit
10, and knowledge from current chapter)

Test

Readings

Lectures/Notes

Quizzes

Test

Review Game

Discussions

Informal debate on dropping atomic bomb

The American
Journey: Modern
Times . Appleby et. Al.

Various handouts

Selected literature

Worksheets

The American
Journey: Modern
Times . Appleby et. Al.

American the
Story of Us :
WWII

Various handouts

Maps


D-Day

Holocaust

Island Hopping

A-Bomb

Nagasaki &
Hiroshima

Unit 14
Civil Rights
(2 Weeks)
Unit 13
The Cold War Begins
(2 Weeks)

President Truman

United Nations

Marshall Plan

Berlin

China (Mao
Zedong)

Red Scare

McCarthyism

Fair Deal

Korean War

Pres. Eisenhower

Consumer
Society

Materialism

Khrushchev


NAACP

Brown v. Board

Integration

Rosa Parks

MLK Jr.

Civil
Disobedience

JFK

Lyndon B.
Johnson

Great Society

Civil Rights Act

Freedom Rides

Key Civil Rights
Events

Malcolm X

Equal Rights
Amendment

Sandra Day
O’Connor

Reading

Lecture/Notes

Quizzes

Discussion

Writing assignments

Test

Review Game

Readings

Quizzes

Lecture/notes

Discussion

Debate

Writing assignments

Tests

The American
Journey: Modern
Times . Appleby et. Al.

American the story of Us:
Superpower

Various handouts

Maps

The American
Journey: Modern
Times.
Appleby et. Al.

Various handouts

Selected literature

Unit 15
Vietnam War
(2.5 Weeks)
Unit 16
Modern America
(2 Weeks)

Latin American and Indian
American rights

JFK foreign policies

Cuba (Bay of
Pigs)

Berlin Wall

Cuban Missile
Crisis

Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh

SEATO

Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution

Vietcong

Napalm

Agent Orange

Protest
Movement

Tet Offensive

President Nixon

Watergate

Paris Peace
Accords

Carter Presidency

Iran hostage crisis

Pres. Reagan

Reaganomics

Pres. Bush

Iran-Contra

End of the Cold
War

Persian Gulf War

Pres. Clinton

Pres. G.W. Bush

9/11

Terrorism

Hurricane
Katrina

Reading

Lecture

Discussion

Debate – Should
U.S. be fighting in Vietnam?

Writing assignments

Test

Lectures/Notes

Readings

Quizzes

Discussions

Test

The American
Journey: Modern
Times.
Appleby et. Al.

Various handouts

Maps

Selected literature

The American
Journey: Modern
Times . Appleby et. Al.

American the
Story of Us :
Millennium

Various handouts

Maps

 Obama’s election