Keyport High School AP United States History
AP Audit for The College Board: Course Syllabus
Introduction:
Advanced Placement United States History is an accelerated and challenging
introduction to American history for the motivated high school scholar. This class is
similar to a college level freshman survey course; therefore, students should expect that
the reading and writing load will be far heavier than most typical high school history
classes. The intellectual skills and historical interests developed in this class, include, but
are not limited to, critical thinking, analyzing dates, synthesizing evidence, and
evaluating mainstream as well as varying historical perspectives. In addition, AP United
States history students may be able to receive college credit and possible college
scholarship offers and awards based upon their effort in this class and performance on the
Advanced Placement United States History test.
*Special Note: This class is taught in a half year block schedule. Each class is
83 minutes long; and the course will be completed in January, 2011. This presents a
considerable scheduling obstacle in that the actual Advanced Placement test is given in
May, 2011. In an effort to circumvent this scheduling conflict, after school AP study
sessions will be held twice a month on the first and third Thursdays. While these after
school exam preparation sessions are not mandatory…they are strongly suggested.
Evaluation:
The majority of evaluations are objective, including DBQ’s, or free response
questions, in conformance with the national AP test. All essays/writing evaluations are
graded in accordance with the nine (9)-point rubric provided by The College Board. The
College Board’s AP U.S. History rubric is available on their website and it is recommend
all students become familiar with the rubric prior to attempting any assignments.
Students are provided an array of assessments, including tests and quizzes,
including a midterm and final exam. Students are responsible for keep up with all
reading assignments. Graded course work can include the items listed below, with
additional requirements being incorporated throughout the school year.
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completion of summer assignments
chapter tests
homework including notes on each chapter, Varying Viewpoints, and short (2
page) position papers.
class interactive notebook on lectures, reflections, questions, This Day in History,
and class activities
group work and reports
class participation in discussions
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semester and final exams
historical note cards
essay writing including sample DBQ’s and free response questions
PowerPoint presentations
completion of DBQ and Free Response questions from previous AP national
exams and teacher created tests
creation of DBQ questions with response
practice AP exam in January
research reports/position papers
AP National Exam:
The national AP Exam is given in early May. It is recommended that all students
enrolled in this class attempt to take the national exam. This exam consists of 80
multiple choice questions, one document-based essay (DBQ) on an unannounced section
of U.S. history, and two free response questions. The exam covers American history
from Pre-Columbian Societies to the United States in the Post-Cold War World. The
major themes of the examination include: American Diversity, American Identity,
Culture, Demographic Changes, Economic Transformations, Environment,
Globalization, Politics and Citizenship, Reform, Religion, Slavery and Its Legacies
in North America, and War and Diplomacy.
Course Objectives:
Keyport High School Advanced Placement United States History students will work to:
- Master a broad body of historical knowledge
- Use historical facts to support arguments and positions
- Approach the study of history with a scholarly and mature attitude
- Demonstrate an understanding of historical chronology
- Interpret and apply data from original documents, including cartoons, graphs, and
letters
- Effectively use analytical skills of evaluation, cause and effect, compare and
contrast
- Work effectively with others to produce products and solve problems
- Prepare for and successfully pass the AP U.S. History Exam
- Put their very best effort into all assignments!
Major Themes of the Class:
American Diversity
American Identity and Citizenship
Immigration
Pluralism and Group Identity
Political Ideologies
War and Diplomacy
Religious Trends
Global Economies and Free Market Ideals
Selected Course Materials and Textbooks:
(* denotes require texts for students)
The course’s main text is *A People and a Nation: A History of the United States, Sixth
Edition Mary Beth Norton, Cornell University, David M. Katzman, University of Kansas
et al.
Additional selected readings for handouts, power points, and class activities, to
accompany daily lessons are listed below:
*Bullard, Sara. Free at Last: a History of the Civil Rights Movement and Those Who
Died in the Struggle. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. Print.
Dershowitz, Alan M. America on Trial: inside the Legal Battles That Transformed Our
Nation. New York: Warner, 2004. Print.
*Ellis, Joseph J. Founding Brothers: the Revolutionary Generation. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 2000. Print.
Henry, Michael. Threads of History: a Thematic Approach to Our Nation's Story for AP
U.S. History. Saddle Brook, NJ: Peoples Pub. Group, 2006. Print.
Monk, Linda R. Ordinary Americans: U.S. History through the Eyes of Everyday People.
Alexandria, VA: Close Up Pub., 2002. Print.
Patriots History of the United States From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on
Terror. Penguin USA, 2004. Print.
Terkel, Studs. "The Good War": an Oral History of World War Two. New York: New,
1984. Print.
*Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States: 1492-present. New York:
HarperCollins, 1999. Print.
Curriculum Calendar:
(The following calendar of course activities list only the major activities incorporated
with each unit. *Also, be aware that each class meeting in our block schedule actually
translates to the equivalent of two “traditional” class meetings.)
Unit 1 (Four Weeks)
Founding of the American Nation: Pre-Columbus to the End of the
American Revolution (2,000 B.C.-A.D. 1783)
Key Topics:
Native-Americans before the arrival of the Europeans, Spanish, British, and French
conquest, Jamestown and Plymouth settlements, Maryland settlement, regional
differences, Puritan faith, New York settlement, tobacco, indentured servants, slavery and
the Middle Passage, Salem Witch Trials, The Great Awakening, French and Indian War,
New England, Middle Colonies, Southern Colonies, First and Second Continental
Congress, Declaration of Independence, Saratoga, French Alliance, and the
Revolutionary Crisis and War.
Readings/Activities:
Trace Lockean governmental theories and principles present in The Declaration of
Independence.
Chapters 1-5 in Norton.
A People and a Nation Multiple Choice Test
DBQ questions; comparison of New England and the Chesapeake Region, as well as the
level of unity before and during the period of 1754-1776.
“Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress,” in Zinn.
“The Friendship,” in Founding Brothers, Ellis
Unit 2 (Three weeks):
Building the New Nation: Articles of Confederation to Reform and
Culture (1776-1860)
Key Topics:
Articles of Confederation, Northwest Land Ordinances, Shays Rebellion, Constitutional
Convention, First Presidency, Hamilton’s Impact, Washington’s Farewell Address,
Alien and Sedition Acts, Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, “Revolution of 1800,”
Jefferson’s Presidency, War of 1812 and Baltimore City, the big three (Clay, Calhoun,
and Webster), John Marshall and the U.S. Supreme Court, Virginia dynasty, Monroe
Doctrine, Jackson and visions of democracy, economic growth and disputes, Lowell
factories, national bank, Clay’s American system, Hudson River School, and religious,
social, and political reform.
Readings/Activities:
Jefferson Activity: While in office Jefferson was called upon to perform some duties (i.e.
The Louisianan Purchase) that simply were NOT specified under Article II of the U.S.
Constitution. Which other president most significantly expanded his presidential powers,
possibly to the detriment or benefit of the Nation at large?
DBQ: Jefferson and Madison
“The Intimately Oppressed,” in Zinn.
Chapter Test of A People and a Nation
Chapters 5-8 in Norton
“The Silence” in Founding Brothers, Ellis
Unit 3 (Three weeks):
Testing the New Nation: Slavery to the end of Reconstruction (18201877) with an Inclusion of the Civil Rights Movement (1877-2006)
Key Topics:
King Cotton, George Fitzhugh and The Sociology of the South, abolitionist movement,
Underground Railroad, Frederick Douglass, Manifest Destiny, Mexican War, Lincoln’s
Spot Resolutions, popular sovereignty, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Dred Scott Case, John
Brown, Maryland My Maryland, Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation, Gettysburg
Address, Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Address, role of the African-American soldier, women
and the war, New York draft protests, Antietam (Sharpsburg), Sherman, assassination of
Lincoln, 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, Reconstruction policies, Ku Klux Klan,
impeachment of Johnson, Freedmen’s Bureau, military occupation, lynching, and the
legacy of Reconstruction. Ida B. Wells, NAACP, Jim Crow, Plessy v. Ferguson, Birth of
A Nation (film), African-Americans in World War I and II, Roosevelt’s New Deal,
CORE, 1948 integration of the Armed Forces, Brown v. Board of Education, Rosa Parks,
Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dr. Martin Luther King, Central High School in Little Rock,
Elizabeth Eckford, SNCC, Freedom Rides, Birmingham protests, March of Washington
1963, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Freedom Summer, Bob Moses, Selma March, Stokely
Carmichael, Watts Riot, 1968, Dr. King’s Assassination, Poor People’s March on
Washington, Black Panthers, Affirmative Action, Rodney King and the Los Angeles
Riots, and modern struggles for equality (including the development of the modern
women’s movement)
Readings/Activities:
Mid-term Exam
DBQ on Reconstruction and/or Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and/or 1960’s.
Class presentations on the history of slavery through the modern Civil Rights Movement.
Included will be a review of the current struggles (last 40 years) for equality for women
as well other minority groups.
Trace, using a thematic focus, not only the struggle for equality of African-Americans,
but also the history of Native-Americans, immigration, labor, and women’s rights to the
modern period.
Chapters 8-13 in Norton
Free At Last: A History of the Civil Rights Movement and Those Who Died in the
Struggle (entire book).
Unit 4 (Three Weeks):
Forging an Industrial Society (1865-1914)
Key Topics:
Grant, corruption and reform, transcontinental railroad, Chicago fire, labor movement,
growth of urban America, strikes (1877 Railroad Strike to Ludlow Massacre of 1914,
including the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire of 1911), immigration, Ellis Island,
nativist concerns, women and the new morality (Woodhull), Jane Addams and Hull
House, Social Gospel, New York City Armory Show of 1913, Native-American history
(Jamestown, Trail of Tears, Little Big Horn, Wounded Knee, Helen Hunt Jackson,
Frederick Jackson Turner, citizenship, Navajo Code Talkers, Alcatraz Island and recent
tribal changes), Populist movement, westward settlement, sodbusters, industrialization,
captains of industry versus robber barons, Thomas Nast, Jacob Riis, child labor,
tenements,. Progressive Movement, Roosevelt and trusts, consumer protection,
muckrakers, women and the right to vote, Hawaii, expansionism, USS Maine, SpanishAmerican War, Philippines Insurrection, McKinley, Mark Twain, Panama Canal,
Roosevelt Corollary, Social Darwinism, conservation, John Muir, and “trust busting.”
Readings/Activities:
DBQ/Free Response Questions on immigration, labor, western movement, and the
women’s struggle for equality in the marketplace, at home, or in politics.
Mock Trial: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
Chapters 13-16 in Norton
“Robber Barons and Rebels’ and “The Empire and the People” in Zinn.
Excerpt from The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
Unit 5: (Three Weeks)
Struggling for Justice at Home and Abroad (1914-1945)
Key Topics:
“New Freedom versus New Nationalism”, World War I, propaganda, draft, role of the
African-American soldier and his return to American life, Langston Hughes, Harlem
Renaissance, Fourteen Points, League of Nations, “Red Scare”, Palmer Raids, Marcus
Garvey, Liberia, Prohibition, growth of organized crime, cultural changes, automobile,
sports, radio, crash of the stock market, First and Second New Deal, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Social Security Act, labor sit-down strikes, John L. Lewis, CIO, internal
migration, Republic of Steel Strike of 1937 (Memorial Day Massacre), Lead-Lease Act,
Atlantic Charter, Pearl Harbor, World War II (home front and overseas), JapaneseAmerican internment, U.S. and the Holocaust, D-Day, international conferences
(Casablanca, Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam), death of Franklin Roosevelt, atomic bomb
development, and Hiroshima.
Readings/Activities:
Selected DBQ’s: 1920’s, Depression, and the Atomic Bomb.
“Self-Help in Hard Times” in Zinn.
Rosie the Riveter in World War II: group presentation/activity.
Chapters 16-19 in Norton.
Unit 6: (Four Weeks)
Creating Modern America and the Cold War (1945-present)
Key Topics:
Presidential administrations from Truman to Clinton, Truman Doctrine, Marshall
Plan, NATO, Berlin Airlift, McCarthyism, Korean War, atomic race, Eisenhower’s
Doctrine, Eisenhower’s Farewell Address and the military-industrial complex, beat
generation, Kennedy’s election and Inaugural Address, Cuban Crisis, 11/23/1963,
Johnson’s Great Society, Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam, King and Robert Kennedy,
countercultural movements of the 1960’s, Warhol, 1968, protests, Nixon’s failures,
Watergate, Ford, Carter, energy problems, Star Wars, Camp David Accords, Iran
hostage situation, rise of global terrorism, Reagan, New Right, Iran-Contra scandal,
George Bush, Persian Gulf War, economic instability, LA Riots, Clinton’s domestic
and foreign policy, impeachment, Columbine, 2000 election, 9/11,. Afghanistan and
Iraqi, and Red/Blue states, modern economic life, and the age of modern terrorism.
Readings/Activities:
Group activities include review of primary source documents on the Vietnam War,
including perspectives of the American solider opposed and supportive of the war,
politicians opposed and supportive of the war, protestors, Vietnamese, and the AfricanAmerican soldier.
DBQ on the Regan administration.
Discussion: “Regan—A True Cold Warrior”
Review of primary source documents analyzing the Reagan presidency.
A final exam will be given to all students, whether or not they are taking the national
exam, during the last week of the semester.
“The Fog of War” (film) and discussion.
“The Impossible Victory: Vietnam” in Zinn.
Chapters 16-22 in Norton
AP Review