ADVANCED PLACEMENT UNITED STATES HISTORY
COURSE SYLLABUS 2007-2008
The Course: this course has two central purposes:
The first is to acquaint the student with historical method and content and prepare
the student to be an effective college history student.
The second is to prepare the student for the AP exam given in May.
In addressing these goals, this course will review essential skills like organizing a
large amount of facts, analyzing primary materials, assessing the perspectives of
secondary sources, thinking critically, researching historical topics, and perhaps
most importantly, writing clear, fluid, fact-based essays.
Course Requirements: In addition to regular, (if not enthusiastic) participation in
lectures and discussions, class will include chapter quizzes, short in-class timed writing
assignments, periodic unit tests, and written assignments of various length and scope.
Outside Assignments: There will be two major outside-of-class projects in AP US
History. In the first quarter, students will read and analyze an approved scholarly work
on a significant American topic. In the second and third quarters, students will write a
rough draft of a research paper on an approved topic. After the AP exam and in lieu of a
class exam, students will revise their research papers. In addition, at various points
throughout the year, teams of students will give short powerpoint presentations on their
choice of cultural topic.
Grades: The grading scale I prefer is one of cumulative points. Each assignment is
graded on a scale consistent with its difficulty, time requirements, etc. For example, a
quiz is generally worth 10 points, a written homework assignment anywhere from 5 to 25
points, a test 100 points, and an outside project 150-250 points. A student’s grade is
determined by the number of earned points divided by the total number of points
possible.
Textbooks:
Garraty,Carnes American Destiny: Narrative of a Nation
Wheeler and Becker, Discovering the American Past, Concise Edition
Kenneth Davis, Don’t Know Much about History
The American Tradition in Literature (English textbook)
Unit One: Discoveries
Lectures: First Contact, “Errand in the Wilderness”
Source Analysis: Paintings: Perceptions of Native Americans (W & B, Ch. 1
“First Encounters: The Confrontation Between Cortes and Montezuma)
Discussion: Myth and Reality: Pocahontas and the Pilgrims (ATL 10-19 Readings
from John Smith The General History of Virginia)
Workshop: Essay Writing: Doing the DBQ
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 1
Unit Two: Social Foundations
Lectures: Family Life in the Colonies; Great Awakenings
Slide Show/Discussion: Salem, Anne and Social History
Discussion: The Use and Misuse of Statistics (W&B, Ch. 2 Rhythms of Colonial
Life: The Statistics of Colonial Massachusetts Bay)
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 2
Unit Three: Building a Fire
Lectures: Mercantilism, Crisis and the Empire; The French and Indian War
Source Analysis: Journal Article “Germ Warfare” (from the Journal of American
History)
Workshop: Test Preparation and the dreaded Multiple-Choice Test
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 3
Test #1- Units 1-3 (Tests consist of 25-35 multiple-choice questions and a free-response
question drawn from a previously released AP Exam)
Unit Four: Revolution
Lectures: American Revolution: Causes and Interpretations; Republican
Motherhood
Video: “The American Revolution”
Discussion: Rhetoric and Revolution (ATL p.201, 210-212,218-220 Excerpts from
the writings of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine)
Workshop: Historiography and Perspective (“The Reinvention of History” Xerox
from W&B, 3rd Edition—out of print)
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 4
Unit Five: Trial and Error: Building a Government, 1781-1800
Lectures: Confederation to Constitution; Birth of Politics
Debate: The Constitution: For Liberty or Capitalism?(Excerpts of
assorted monographs—this year Charles Beard and Forrest MacDonald)
Looking at Art: American Icons
(http://www.georgewashington.si.edu/portrait/index.html; Autobiography of Ben
Franklin in ATL pps. 154-63,177-181)
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 5 and 6
Test #2- Units 4 and 5 (1763-1800)
Unit Six: Becoming a Nation, 1800-1840
Lectures: “The Second American Revolution”; Nationhood
Discussion: Industrialization and the Cult of Domesticity (W&B, Ch. 4 “Away
from Home: The Working Girls of Lowell)
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 7 and 8
Unit Seven: Jacksonian America
Lectures: Myth and Jacksonian Democracy
Discussion: Cherokee Removal (assorted primary and secondary sources)
**Powerpoint Presentation: Manifest Destiny
Music: Democracy and Campaign Songs
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 9
Test #3- Units 6 and 7 (1800-1840)
Unit Eight: Creation of an American Culture
Lectures: Antebellum Reform; Highbrow, Lowbrow
Discussion: Emerson, Thoreau (ATL readings “Civil Disobedience” and excerpts
from “An American Scholar”)
Slideshow: Hudson River School, American Landscapes
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 10; Ch. 11 (Terms only)
Unit Nine: Conquering a Continent
Lectures: “Manifest Destiny/Destiny’s Child?”
Debate: Manifest Destiny or Manifest Design
**Powerpoint Presentation: Oregon Trail
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 12
Test #4- Units 8 and 9
Unit Ten: Breaking Apart: 1850-1860
Lectures: Slavery, Antislavery; Coming of War
Discussion: “The World the Slaves Made” (W&B Ch. 5 “The ‘Peculiar
Institution’: Slaves Tell Their own story; Douglass excerpt ATL)
Video: “Africans in America”
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 13 and 14
Unit Eleven: War
Lectures: “War is Hell”
Discussion: Causes (assorted readings from historical monographs--this year
Schlesinger and Craven)
Video: Ken Burns’ Civil War
**Powerpoint Presentation: Matthew Brady’s War Photographs
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 15
Test #5- Units 10 and 11 (1850-1865)
Unit Twelve: Reconstruction and the New South
Lectures: “Tragedy or Triumph”
Discussion: Public Opinion and Reconstruction (W&B, Ch. 7 “Reconstructing
Reconstruction: The Political Cartoonist and the National Mood)
Video: Birth of a Nation
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 16
Unit Thirteen: Up and Out: A New American Society
Lectures: “Go West, Young Man”; Towards an Industrial Economy
Discussion/ Video: “Wild West” (assorted primary and secondary sources—this
year on John Wesley Hardin)
Source Analysis: Historical Films:Excerpts from Stagecoach, Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kid, Unforgiven
**Powerpoint Presentation: “The Wild West: Myth and Reality”
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 17
Test #6- Units 12 and 13 (1865-1890)
Unit Fourteen: Becoming an Industrial Nation
Lectures: Making Money; Part I: Industry, Part II: New Ways of Looking at
Wealth
Discussion: Labor in the Gilded Age (assorted primary and secondary sources—
this year focusing on the Haymarket Square Riot)
Debate: Robber Barons or Captains of Industry?
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 18
Unit Fifteen: Response to Industrialism
Lectures: Workers in the Industrial Age; The City
Source Analysis Workshop: Jacob Riis and Assessing Photographs
**Powerpoint Presentation: Chicago
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 19
Test #7- Units 14 and 15 (1865-1900)
Unit Sixteen: The Gilded Age
Lectures: Politics of Scandal; Farmers’ Revolt
Presentations: Gilded Age Elections and Thomas Nast’s Cartoons
www.harpweek.com
Discussion: The Wizard of Oz
**Powerpoint Presentation: Culture of Excess- Newport, RI
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 20 (terms only); Ch. 21
Unit Seventeen: The Progressive Era
Lectures: Progressivism and Reform
Source Analysis: Emergence of the Middle Class-Advertisements at the turn of
the century (W&B, Ch. 8, “How They Lived: Middle-Class Life, 1870-1917”)
Debate: Booker T. or WEB? (College Board released DBQ)
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 22
Test #8- Units 16 and 17 (1877-1917 Politics)
Unit Eighteen: Taking on the World
Lectures: “The Splendid Little War”; American Approaches to Foreign Policy
Powerpoint: Panama Canal: Exercise in Imperialism
Video: TR
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 23
Unit Nineteen: “The Great War”
Lectures: WWI: Background and Basics; Wilson and Versailles
Powerpoint: WWI and Propaganda
Video: “The Great War”
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 24
Test #9 Units 18 and 19 (1898-1917)
Unit Twenty: “The Roaring Twenties”
Lectures: Conflict and Change in the 20s
Discussion: Women in the 20s (W&B, Ch. 9 “The ‘New’ Woman of the 1920s:
Image and Reality)
**Powerpoint Presentation: Jazz
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 25,26
Unit Twenty-One: The Great Depression
Lectures: Hoover and FDR; The New Deal
Slideshow: Dustbowl; FSA photographs (W&B, Ch. 10 “Documenting the
Depression: The FSA Photographers and Rural Poverty)
Discussion/Debate: The New Deal
**Powerpoint Presentation: WPA Murals
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 27
Test #10 Units 20 and 21 (1920-1940)
Unit Twenty-Two: Road to War
Lectures: WWII: Background and Basics; The Homefront
Slideshow/Music: “Rosie the Riveter”
Video/Discussion: Propaganda- “Why We Fight”
Discussion: Dropping the Bomb (W&B, Ch. 11 “The Burdens of Power: The
Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb)
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 28
Unit Twenty-Three: The Cold War
Lectures: Origins of the Cold War; The Red Scares and the American Mindset
Discussion: US in Central America (assorted primary and secondary sources on
Guatemala )
Video: Atomic Café, Good night, and good luck
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 29
Test #11 Units 22 and 23 (1945-1960)
Unit Twenty-Four: Modern America
Lectures: “People of Plenty: the American Economy in the post-war period”;
Civil Rights
Discussion: Sit-ins (MLK; “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”)
Video: “Eyes on the Prize”
**Powerpoint Presentation: Rock and Roll
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 30
Unit Twenty-Five: “This is the end, beautiful friend…” (Almost)
Lectures: Vietnam: Into the Quagmire; JFK, LBJ, RMN: The Fall of Three
Presidents
Discussion: Vietnam (W&B,Ch. 12 “A Generation in War and Turmoil: The
Agony of Vietnam)
Music: Pop Culture and Protest
**Powerpoint Presentation: Woodstock or Altamont
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 31
Test #12 Units 24 and 25 (1960-1972)
Unit Twenty-Six: The End
Lecture: Ford, Carter, Reagan and the New Politics
Discussion: The 70s: A Decade to Forget?
**Powerpoint Presentation: The 70s
Text Reading: Garraty, Ch. 32
Essay in lieu of a test
The remainder of class days will be spent reviewing for the exam and revising your
research papers