AP US. History

Mr. Blanco / Academic year 2014-2015

Syllabus - AP United States History

The main focus of this course is to prepare students for the AP Exam in the spring. Therefore, this course is designed to provide students with the factual knowledge of U.S. history, practice in critical thinking activities, and experience in effective writing techniques that will help prepare them for the AP Exam. This course is divided into time periods and emphasizes themes prescribed in the AP Course Description for United States History , provided by the College

Board. Additionally, training students to handle the free-response section of the AP Exam provides the focus for the writing component of the course. To this end, students will complete document –based questions (DBQs) and write a number of essays throughout the duration of the course.

At the beginning of the course, students receive the “Dos and Don’ts of the AP Exam”, a student guide that contains the grading rubric and explains the grading standards for both the Free

Response Essay Questions and the Document-Based Questions. Students are introduced in these lessons to the concepts of categorizing documents, recognizing bias in documents, and gleaning historical evidence from documents.

MAJOR THEMES OF THE COURSE

The following themes are woven throughout unit discussions and projects, with assessments

(quizzes, essays, and exams) being structured around them:

American Diversity

American Identity

Culture

Demographic Changes

Economic Transformations

Environment

Globalization

Politics and Citizenship

Reform

Religion

Slavery and Its Legacies in North America

War and Diplomacy

EXAMS / AP REVIEW

An exam will be composed of a similar format as the AP examination in May. That is, a multiple choice portion followed by Free Response Essay questions (FRQs) and a Document Based

Question (DBQ).

In anticipation to the May AP Exam, (sometime in April) a comprehensive review will be administered for about one week. This review will also serve as a “trial run” for the actual AP

Exam as students will also use the College Board’s 2015 U.S. History Practice Exam.

TESTING GRADE SCALE (for multiple choice)

90-100 = A

80-89 = B

70-79 = C

60-69 = D

Below 60 = F

TEXTBOOK

Brinkley Alan. American History, Connecting with the Past AP Edition.

( 14th ed .). New York:

McGraw 2012.

SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES

Brinkley’s AP Exam View

. It includes hundreds of AP-style multiple-choice questions.

Brinkley’s AP Teacher’s Manual

. It includes chapter objectives, essential questions, lessons, and activities.

McGraw-Hill’s Primary Source Investigator . www.glencoe.com/psi . It provides access to over

650 primary and secondary sources including documents, images, maps, and videos.

Divine, Robert A. et al.

America: Past and Present DBQ’s Booklet AP Edition.

(7 th

ed.). New

York: Pearson/Longman, 2005.

Divine, Robert A. et al.

America: Past and Present Instructor’s Resources AP Edition.

(7 th

ed.).

New York: Pearson/Longman, 2005. - It includes primary and secondary documents.

Divine, Robert A. et al. America: Past and Present Test Bank AP edition.

(7 th

ed.). New York:

Pearson/Longman, 2005.

Kellogg, William O. Ed.M.

Barron’s AP United States History.

(8 th

ed.). New York: Barron’s educational Series, Inc., 2008.

2006 AP United States History Released Exams (Practice).

Various scholarly journals, magazines, and other publications (i.e. American Heritage,

Economist, Foreign Affairs, National geographic, Wall Street Journal, etc.).

COURSE OUTLINE

Chapter 1: The collision of Cultures

Note-taking, summary and lecture.

Chapter essay questions (from: Instructor’s Resources).

Analyzing primary sources: Christopher Columbus Letter to Luis De Sant’ Angel (1493). Alvar

Nunez Cabeza de Vaca “Indians of the Rio Grande”(1528-1536). Bartolome de las Casas “Of the Island of Hispaniola” (1542).

Debating the Past-Essay: The American Population Before Columbus .

America in the World-Essay: Mercantilism and Colonial Commerce .

Textbook chapters review questions, vocabulary, map interpretation, analyzing tables and figures.

Current events/weekly: (Articles from various internet news sources and magazines). Students will each bring to class an article which will be presented and analyzed for its impact at the national and /or the international level for the U.S.

Quiz (weekly)

Chapter 2: Transplantations and Borderlands


Chapter essay questions.

Analyzing primary sources:

Bacon’s Rebellion: The Declaration (1676). The Examination and

Confession of Ann Foster at Salem Village (1692).

Debating the Past: Native Americans and the “Middle Ground” .


Current events (weekly)

Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 3: Society and Culture in Provincial America



Analyzing primary sources: Benjamin Franklin, from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

(1771). Jonathan Edwards, from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741). Benjamin

Franklin, Testimony Against the Stamp Act (1766).

Debating the Past-Essay: The Origins of Slavery



Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 4: The Empire in Transition



Analyzing primary sources: Jonathan Edwards, from Some Thoughts Concerning the Present

Revival of Religion in New England (1742). Phillis Wheatley, Our Modern Egyptian (1774).

America in the World-Essay: The First Global War.

Consider the Source-Essay: Tea Parties .


Current events (weekly).

Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 5: The American Revolution



Analyzing primary sources: The Virginia, or Randolph, Plan (1787). Publius (James Madison),

Federalist Paper # 10 (1788).

America in the World-Essay: The Age of Revolutions .



DBQ: Regional Colonial Differences in British America, and Articles of Confederation v. the

Constitution.

Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 6: The Constitution and The New Republic



Analyzing primary sources: Benjamin Banneker, Letter to Thomas Jefferson (1791). Molly

Wallace, Valedictory Oration (1792). Samuel Cornish, An Independent Press.

Debating the Past-Essay: The meaning of the Constitution.



Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 7: The Jeffersonian Era



Analyzing primary sources: States v. Boon (1801) and Marbury v Madison (1803).

America in the World-Essay: The Global Industrial Revolution.



DBQ’s: “No Entangling Alliances” – U.S. Foreign Policy from Washington to Monroe, and

Jefferson Presidency.

Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 8: Varieties of American Nationalism



Analyzing primary sources: The Harbinger Female Workers of Lowell (1836), Letters to the

Voice of Industry (1846), and Harriet Hanson Robinson Lowell Textile Workers (1898).



DBQ: Colonial Slavery in the South

Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 9: Jacksonian America



Analyzing primary sources: Frederick Douglass,

“Whipping Slaves”,

and Peter Randolph,

“Culture and Religion in the Quarters”

.

Debating the Past-Essay:

The “Age of Jackson”.



DBQ: Manifest Destiny, Slavery, and the Breakdown of the Union

Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 10: America’s Economic Revolution



Analyzing primary sources: Elizabeth Emery and Mary P. Abbott, Letter to The Liberator

(1836).

Consider the Source-Essay: Nativism and Anti-Immigration Sentiment.



Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 11: Cotton, Slavery, and the Old South



Analyzing primary sources: John L. O’Sullivan, The Great Nation of Futurity (1845) and Female

Labor Reform Association, Testimony Before the Massachusetts Legislature (1845).

Debating the Past-Essay: The Character of Slavery.



Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 12: Antebellum Culture and Reform



Analyzing primary sources: William Lloyd Garrison, from The Liberator (1831), Frederick

Douglass, Independence Day Speech (1852), and George Fitzhugh, The Blessings of Slavery

(1857).

America in the World-Essay: The Abolition of Slavery.



DBQ: Reforms of the Second Great Awakening

Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 13: The Impending Crisis



Analyzing primary sources: The Testimony of a Former Slave (1843) by Lewis G. Clarke and Let

Your Motto Be Resistance (1848) by Henry Highland Garnet.

Patterns of popular Culture: Lyceums.



DBQ: Evolution of Sectional Interests 1810-1860, and Slavery as a Cause of the Civil War

Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 14: The Civil War



Analyzing primary sources: Clara Barton, Medical Life at the Battlefield (1826), and Lucy

Breckinridge, Diary .

Consider the Source: Suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus.



DBQ: African American Civil Rights

Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 15: Reconstruction and the New South



Analyzing primary sources:

The Freedmen‘s Agenda for Reconstruction

, Bayley Wyatt, A Right to the Land, and Henry Blake, Working on Shares.

Debating the Past: Reconstruction.



Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 16: The Conquest of the Far West



Analyzing primary sources: Black Elk, Account of the Wounded Knee Massacre (1890),

Benjamin Harrison, Report on Wounded Knee Massacre and the Decrease in Indian Land

Acreage (1891), and Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American

History (1893).

Debating the Past:

The “Frontier” and The West.



DBQ: Violation of Political Rights

Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 17: Industrial Supremacy



Analyzing primary sources: Andrew Carnegie, from The Gospel of Wealth (1890), Mother Jones

The March of the Mill Children (1903), and Rose Schneiderman, The Triangle Fire (1911).

Consider the Source: Philantropy.



Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 18: The Age of the City



Analyzing primary sources: Charles Lorin Brace, The Life of the Street Roles. The Secret Oath of the American Protective Society (1893) and Charles Loring Brace, The Life of the Street Rats

(1872).

America in the World: Global Migrations.



DBQ: Social Turmoil: 1900-1929

Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 19: From Crisis to Empire



Analyzing primary sources: Susan B. Anthony, Bread Not Ballots (1867).

Debating the Past: Populism.



Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 20: The Progressives



Analyzing primary sources: Mary Elizabeth Lease, Populist Crusader (1867).

America in the World: Social Democracy.



Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 21: America and the Great War



Analyzing primary sources: The March of the Flag (1898) by Albert Beveridge and On Empire and the Phillipines (1898).

Patterns of Popular Culture: Billy Sunday and Modern Revivalism .



DBQ: African-American Leadership in Conflict

Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 22: The “New Era”



Analyzing primary sources: Booker T. Washington’s, Atlanta Exposition Address (1895),

W.E.B. Du Bois’,

Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and others (1903), and by Ida B. Wells-Barnett

A Red Record (1895).

Patterns of Popular Culture: Dance Halls .



Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 23: The Great Depression



Analyzing primary sources: Boy Scouts of America from, Boy Scouts Support the War Effort

(1917), Newton D. Baker The Treatment of German Americans (1918), and F.J. Grimke

Address of Welcome to the Men Who Have Returned from the Battlefront (1919).

Debating the Past: Causes of the Great Depression.



Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 24: The New Deal



Analyzing primary sources: Comprehensive Immigration Law (1924), Bartolomeo Vanzetti,

Court Statement (1927), and Advertisements (1925, 1927).

Debating the Past: The New Deal.



Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 25: The Global Crisis



Analyzing primary sources: Louise Mitchel, Slave Markets in New York City (1940).

America in the World: The Sino-Japanese War, 1931-1941.



DBQ: Responsibilities of Government – Depression Era.

Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 26: America in a World at War



Analyzing primary sources: Joseph D. Bibb, Flirting with Radicalism.

Debating the Past: The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb.



Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 27: The Cold War



Analyzing primary sources: Albert Einstein, Letter to President Roosevelt (1939), and Franklin

Delano Roosevelt, The Four Freedoms (1941). Debating the Past:

“McCarthyism”.



Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 28: The Affluent Society



Analyzing primary sources: Ronald Reagan, Testimony Before the House Un-American Activities

Committee (1947).

Patterns of Popular Culture: Lucy and Desi.



DBQ: Social and Economic Change – Impact of World War II.

Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 29: Civil rights, Vietnam, and the Ordeal of Liberalism



Analyzing primary sources: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Decision not to Intervene at Dien Bien Phu

(1954).

Debating the Past: The Vietnam Commitment.



Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 30: The Crisis of Authority



Analyzing primary sources: Rosa Parks, The Montgomery Bus Boycott (1977), and Martin Luther

King Jr., The Strategy of Nonviolent Direct Action (1963).

Debating the Past: Watergate.



Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 31: From the “Age of Limits” to the Age of Reagan



Analyzing primary sources: National Organization for Women, Statement of Purpose (1966).



DBQ:

Women’s Rights.

Quiz (weekly).

Chapter 32: The Age of Globalization



Analyzing primary sources: House Judiciary Committee, Conclusion on Impeachment

Resolution (1974).

America in the World: The Global Environmental Movement.



DBQ:

Origins of the “Credibility Gap” in the Vietnam War.

Quiz (weekly).

AP US. History

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