Curricular Requirements
Selected examples are indicated by page numbers to provide evidence that each requirement has been fulfilled according to the College Board’s Syllabus Development Guide for AP U.S. History.
CR1a The course includes a college-level U.S. history textbook.
CR1b The course includes diverse primary sources consisting of written documents, maps, images, quantitative data (charts, graphs, tables), and works of art.
CR1c The course includes secondary sources written by historians or scholars interpreting the past.
CR2 Each of the course historical periods receives explicit attention.
CR3 The course provides opportunities for students to apply detailed and specific knowledge (such as names, chronology, facts, and events) to broader historical understandings.
CR4 The course provides students with opportunities for instruction in the learning objectives in each of the seven themes throughout the course, as described in the AP U.S. History curriculum framework.
CR5 The course provides opportunities for students to develop coherent written arguments that have a thesis supported by relevant historical evidence. — Historical argumentation
CR6 The course provides opportunities for students to identify and evaluate diverse historical interpretations. —Interpretation
CR7 The course provides opportunities for students to analyze evidence about the past from diverse sources,
such as written documents, maps, images, quantitative data (charts, graphs, tables), and works of art. — Appropriate use of historical evidence
CR8 The course provides opportunities for students to examine relationships between causes and consequences of events or processes. — Historical causation
CR9 The course provides opportunities for students to identify and analyze patterns of continuity and change over time and connect them to larger historical processes or themes. — Patterns of change and continuity over time
CR10 The course provides opportunities for students to investigate and construct different models of historical periodization. — Periodization
CR11 The course provides opportunities for students to compare historical developments across or within societies in various chronological and geographical contexts. — Comparison
CR12 The course provides opportunities for students to connect historical developments to specific circumstances of time and place, and to broader regional, national, or global processes. — Contextualization
CR13a The course provides opportunities for students to combine disparate, sometimes contradictory evidence from primary sources and secondary works in order to create a persuasive understanding of the past.
CR13b The course provides opportunities for students to apply insights about the past to other historical contexts or circumstances, including the present.
AP United States History
Course Description: Advanced Placement United States History is year-long course designed to develop analytical and critical thinking skills as students deal with the problems and events in United States History. Students should learn to assess historical materials or information and make valid interpretations. The course is designed to develop skills necessary to arrive at conclusions based on informed judgments. Students will be taught that in forming conclusions all evidence will have to be presented in a clear and persuasive manner. The information may be presented in either oral or written exercises. The course will involve extensive reading and in-depth written assignments. It will cover United States History beginning with the pre-Columbian period and concluding with recent history. Students will be provided with the opportunity to take the Advanced Placement exam in May. Each unit utilizes discussions of and writing about related historiography: how interpretations of events have changed over time, how the issues of one time period have had an impact on the experiences and decisions of subsequent generations, and how such reevaluations of the past continue to shape the way historians see the world today.
Expectations: Study and homework outside the classroom each day should be expected. Students are expected to read the text
before class. All activities and assignments for the upcoming week will be listed on a weekly calendar to be posted in the classroom and online. Arrive on time and prepared for class each day. Be sure to check the weekly calendar regularly because the assignments may not always be specifically referred to in class. I expect homework to be turned in on the due date. The late policy for homework assignments is as follows: 1 day late = 50%
reduction of grade, 2 days late = no credit.
You and you alone are responsible for any lecture material as well as assignments if you miss class. Academic dishonesty violations normally result in a grade of zero for the test or assignment and in some cases a mandatory conference with the parent(s) or guardian(s). Plagiarism is defined as the use of another person’s words, ideas, or writing without giving proper credit. Engaging in plagiarism will result in a “0” on the assignment. A “0” on a test, paper, or project will do serious damage to your grade.
Grading: Grades are based on demonstrated ability to do the work of the course as measured by tests (40%), papers and projects (30%), participation and attendance (10%), and a final exam each semester (20%). The grading scale is as follows: A = 100% - 90%; B = 89% - 80%; C = 79% - 70%; D = 69% - 60%; F = 59% or below.
Grades are earned. No adjustments will be made at the end of the semester and extra credit will NOT be offered.
Lecture and Class Discussion: Each chapter students will participate in a Socratic Class Discussion. Students will be provided with a set of critical thinking questions (with connections to the Learning Objectives), prior to reading the chapter. Students will then come to class prepared to discuss those questions in depth. Students will be required to take notes over each chapter.
Additional Activities: Students will participate in class activities individually or in small groups using a number of both primary and secondary sources.
Assignments and Assessments: Students will be asked to write short-answer responses, free-response essays and Document Based Question (DBQ) essays during the course. Additionally students will take a test at the end of each unit and a final exam at the end of each semester.
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Unit Tests and Final Exams: Each unit students will take a multiple choice test. Each semester students will take a final exam consisting of a multiple choice section and an essay section.
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Essay Assignments: Students will work in groups to analyze a DBQ periodically and write an essay on their own. These require students to engage with documents from the DBQ using APPARTS or a similar device to analyze documents. Each semester students will write an in-class formal timed DBQ essay.
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Additional Writing Activities: Each unit students will practice responding to short-answer and free-response questions as a way to assess student progress informally. These will be written in conjunction with the discussion of the chapters or as a culminating activity to review the chapter and/or unit.
Textbook
Kennedy, David M., Lizabeth Cohen, and Thomas Bailey.
The American Pageant. 16th ed. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2016.
[CR1a]
Additional Readings
Cobbs-Hoffman, Elizabeth, Jon Gjerde, and Edward J. Blum, eds.
Major Problems in American History. Volume II. 3rd ed. Boston, Mass.: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012.
[CR1b] [CR1c]
Major Problems in American History is a collection of various documents organized around critical questions or problems in the American past. Each chapter also includes essays by two historians, each offering conflicting or differing interpretations of the problem, to give us a sense of what "the culture of argument" within the historical profession looks like in practice.
There will also be various articles and handouts from time to time provided by the teacher.
Suggested Readings - Since 1877 [CR1c]
Anderson, Karen, Wartime Women: Sex Roles, Family Relations, and the Status of Women during World War II
Ayers, Edward L., The Promise of the New South: Life after Reconstruction
Blum, John Morton, V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture during World War II
Bodnar, John, The Transplanted: A History of Immigration
Dudziak, Mary, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy
Evans, Sara, Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left
Flanagan, Maureen, America Reformed: Progressives and Progressivisms, 1890s-1920s
Goodwyn, Lawrence, Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America
Grossman, James, Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration
Handlin, Oscar, The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations that Made the American People
Hine, Robert V., and John Mack Faragher, The American West: A New Interpretive History
Hofstadter, Richard, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to FDR
Isserman, Maurice, and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s
Kennedy, David M., Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945
---, Over Here: The First World War and American Society
LaFeber, Walter, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2002
Leuchtenburg, William E., Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940
Patterson, James, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974
Sanchez, George, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945
Wiebe, Robert, The Search for Order, 1877-1920
Wilentz, Sean, The Age of Reagan: A History 1974-2008
Woodward, C. Vann, The Strange Career of Jim Crow
---, Origins of the New South: 1877-1913
Young, Marilyn, Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990
Course Overview
Second Semester: Since 1877
Unit 7: The Gilded Age (1869-1896) (3 weeks)
Unit 8: Imperialism, Progressivism, and World War I (1890-1918) (4 weeks)
Unit 9: The Twenties, the Great Depression, and the New Deal (1919-1939) (2 weeks)
Unit 10: World War II and the Beginning of the Cold War (1933-1952) (2 weeks)
Unit 11: The Eisenhower Era and the Sixties (1952-1968) (2 weeks)
Unit 12: The Seventies, Conservatism, and a New Century (1968-Present) (2 weeks)
AP EXAM
Unit 13: Local History (17th Century-Present) (2 weeks)
Final Exam
WEEK ONE
Unit 7: The Gilded Age (1869-1900)
[CR2]
Themes: ID, WXT, PEO, POL, WOR, ENV, CUL
American Pageant: Chapter 23, Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age (1869-1896)
[CR2]
Topics: The Origins of the New South, Reconfiguration of southern agriculture: sharecropping and crop-lien system, The politics of segregation: Jim Crow and disfranchisement
Additional Readings: excerpt from The Gilded Age (1880)
The Assassination of President Garfield (1889)
The People’s Party Platform (1892)
From Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Quantitative Data Activities: The Changing Labor Force (charts) [CR1b]
Industry and Urban Growth (charts) [CR1b]
-
Theme 3 (PEO-3) - Students will examine a set of charts looking at how the changing labor force and the growth of industry affected urbanization in the late 19th century. Students then engage in small groups to report on the causes for the settlement patterns revealed in the charts. [CR4]
WEEK TWO
American Pageant: Chapter 24, Industry Comes of Age (1865-1900)
[CR2]
Topics: Expansion of manufacturing and industrialization, Expansion and development of western railroads, Corporate consolidation of industry, Labor and unions, National politics and influence of corporate power
American Pageant: Chapter 25, America Moves to the City (1865-1900)
[CR2]
Topics: Migration and immigration: the changing face of the nation, Effects of technological development on the worker and workplace, Urbanization and the lure of the city, City problems and machine politics, Women’s roles: family, workplace, education, politics, and reform
Additional Readings: from “Wealth and Its Uses”
from The History of the Standard Oil Company
On the Goals of Trade Unions, 1883
“The Talented Tenth” by W. E. B. Du Bois
from How the Other Half Lives [CR11]
from Twenty Years at Hull-House
WEEK THREE
Book Selection Form: Early America to 1877 (See Suggested Readings, p. 2)
American Pageant: Chapter 26, The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution (1865-1896)
[CR2]
Topics: Competitors for the West: miners, ranchers, homesteaders, and American Indians, Government policy toward American Indians, Gender, race, and ethnicity in the far West
Environmental impacts of western settlement, Agrarian discontent and political issues of the late 19th c.
Major Problems: Patricia Nelson Limerick, “The Frontier as a Place of Ethnic and Religious Conflict” &
Donald Worster, “The Frontier as the Forefront of Capitalism” [CR6]
Historian Frederick Jackson Turner Articulates the “Frontier Thesis,” 1893
Additional Readings: Congressional Report on Indian Affairs (1887)
Tragedy at Wounded Knee (1890)
Benjamin Harrison, Report on Wounded Knee Massacre and the Decrease in Indian
Land Acreage (1891) [CR11]
Video: Freedom: A History of US - Episode 9: Working for Freedom & Episode 10: Yearning to Breathe Free
Short-Answer Question: The West and the Frontier
TEST: The Gilded Age, Chapters 23-26
[CR2]
WEEK FOUR
Unit 8: Imperialism, Progressivism, and World War I (1890-1918)
[CR2]
Themes: ID, WXT, PEO, POL, WOR, ENV, CUL
American Pageant: Chapter 27, Empire and Expansion (1890-1909)
[CR2]
Topics: The sources of American expansionism, The Spanish-American War, American imperialism: political and economic expansion
Major Problems: The American Anti-Imperialist League Denounces U.S. Policy, 1899
The Platt Amendment Limits Cuban Independence, 1903
Additional Readings: In Favor of Imperialism
The Spanish American War (1898)
William McKinley, “Decision on the Philippines”(1900) [CR11]
The Monroe Doctrine & The Roosevelt Corollary
Video: Teddy Roosevelt: An American Lion (Part 2)
WEEK FIVE
American Pageant: Chapter 28, Progressivism and the Republican Roosevelt (1901-1912) [CR2]
Topics: Origins of Progressive reform: municipal, state, and national, Roosevelt and Taft administrations
American Pageant: Chapter 29, Wilsonian Progressivism in Peace and War (1913-1920)
[CR2]
Topics: The Wilson administration, The New Freedom versus the New Nationalism, War in Europe and American neutrality, The First World War at home and abroad, Wilsonian idealism and the Fourteen Points, Treaty of Versailles
Additional Readings: “The Modern City and the Municipal Franchise for Women” by Jane Addams
“The Status of Woman” by Susan B. Anthony [CR13a]
Map Activity: The Movement Toward Woman Suffrage
WEEK SIX
Major Problems: Michael McGerr, “Class, Gender, and Race at Home: The American Birthplace of
Progressivism” & Daniel T. Rodgers, “American Progressivism in the Wider Atlantic
World” [CR6]
Additional Readings: The Zimmermann Note
Request for a Declaration of War 1917
Woodrow Wilson, The Fourteen Points (1918)
On the Terms of Peace by
Henry Cabot Lodge
Map: A New Look for Europe
Activity: Causes of the First World War
-
In this activity, students analyze both the long-term and immediate causes of World War I and how the war itself shaped the modern world. [CR8] [CR13b]
Video:
American Experience: One Woman, One Vote
WEEK SEVEN
DBQ Essay: Progressivism
-
Students engage in a class debate answering the question: Who were the Progressives? Students will explain what kind of people were a part of the Progressive Movement and when the Progressive Movement began and ended. Following the debate, students will use the AP DBQ Essay instructions and write an essay from the 2003 AP U.S. History exam: Evaluate the effectiveness of Progressive Era reformers and the federal government in bringing about reform at the national level. In your answer be sure to analyze the successes and limitations of these efforts in the period 1900- 1920. [CR10]
TEST: Imperialism, Progressivism, and World War I, Chapters 27-29
[CR2]
Additional Readings: “What We Lost in the Great War” by John Steele Gordon (American Heritage, Jul/Aug 1992, Vol. 43 Issue 4) [CR1c]
Video: Freedom: A History of US - Episode 11: Safe for Democracy
Unit 9: The Twenties, the Great Depression, and the New Deal (1919-1939) [CR2]
Themes: ID, WXT, PEO, POL, WOR, ENV, CUL
American Pageant: Chapter 30, American Life in the “Roaring Twenties” (1920-1929) [CR2]
Topics: Black America: urban migration and civil rights initiatives, The business of America and the consumer economy, The culture of Modernism: science, the arts, and entertainment, Responses to Modernism: religious fundamentalism, nativism, and Prohibition, The ongoing struggle for equality: African Americans and women
WEEK EIGHT
American Pageant: Chapter 31, The Politics of Boom and Bust (1920-1932)
[CR2]
Topics: Republican politics: Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover
American Pageant: Chapter 32, The Great Depression and the New Deal (1933-1939)
[CR2]
Topics: Causes of the Great Depression, The Hoover administration’s response, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal, Labor and union recognition, The New Deal coalition and its critics from the Right and the Left, Surviving hard times: American society during the Great Depression
Major Problems: Langston Hughes: Poet of the 1920s Harlem Renaissance
Song of the Depression: “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” 1931
Additional Readings: Bartolomeo Vanzetti’s Speech to the Jury [CR3]
from “When the Negro Was in Vogue” by Langston Hughes
The Stock Market Crash
Activity: Political Cartoon [CR1b]
WEEK NINE
Major Problems: John Steinbeck Portrays the Outcast Poor in The Grapes of Wrath, 1939
David M. Kennedy, “FDR: Advocate for the American People” & Burton Folsom, “FDR: Architect of Ineffectual Big Government” [CR6]
Additional Readings: Attack on the Bonus Army
Letter from a Dust Bowl Survivor
Father Charles E. Coughlin, “A Third Party” (1936)
Map Activity: Decade of the Democrats
-
Students participate in a an activity and class discussion to determine how political allegiances shifted as a result of the Great Depression, and how the New Deal, or Roosevelt Coalition, came together to allow Democrats to dominate politics from the 1930s through the 1960s. [CR9]
Visual Activity: WPA Posters
Film: Cinderella Man
Video: Freedom: A History of US - Episode 12: Depression and War
Long-Essay Question: FDR and the New Deal
TEST: The Twenties, the Great Depression, & the New Deal, Chapters 30-32 [CR2]
WEEK TEN
Unit 10: World War II and the Beginning of the Cold War (1933-1952) [CR2]
Themes: ID, WXT, PEO, POL, WOR, ENV, CUL
American Pageant: Chapter 33, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Shadow of War (1933-1941)
[CR2]
Topics: The rise of fascism and militarism in Japan, Italy, and Germany, Prelude to war: policy of neutrality, The attack on Pearl Harbor and United States declaration of war
American Pageant: Chapter 34, America in World War II (1941-1945)
[CR2]
Topics: Fighting a multifront war, Diplomacy, war aims, and wartime conferences, The United States as a global power in the Atomic Age, 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
Additional Readings: Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Quarantine Speech” (1937)
Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Four Freedoms (1941)
The Bombing of Pearl Harbor
Japanese Relocation Order, February 19, 1942
Activity: Developing Historical Perspective (from Adolf Hitler’s speech, reprinted in Time,
December 23, 1940, 17–18)
-
Students are asked to analyze a transcript of a speech by Adolf Hitler to German munitions workers near the end of 1940. Students will answer questions using the APPARTS strategy to determine how Hitler came to power in Germany by appealing to the emotions of his audience and addressing their needs. [CR7]
Film:
Pearl Harbor
Primary Source: War Poster
Recording: FDR Addresses Congress [CR1b]
WEEK ELEVEN
American Pageant: Chapter 35, The Cold War Begins (1945-1952)
Topics: Origins of the Cold War, Truman and containment
Major Problems: General Dwight Eisenhower Testifies to the German Concentration Camps, 1945
John Morton Blum, “G.I. Joe: Fighting for Home” & Alan Brinkley, “American Liberals: Fighting for a Better World” [CR6]
Additional Readings: On the Declaration of War
A. Philip Randolph, “Why Should We March?” (1942)
Albert Einstein, Letter to President Roosevelt (1939)
Harry S. Truman, Statement on the Atomic Bomb (1945)
Video: Band of Brothers
Book Review: Since 1877 (See Suggested Readings, p. 2)
WEEK TWELVE
Additional Readings: Harry S. Truman, The Truman Doctrine (1947)
TEST: World War II and the Beginning of the Cold War, Chapters 33-35 [CR2]
Unit 11: The Eisenhower Era and the Sixties (1952-1968) [CR2]
Themes: ID, WXT, PEO, POL, WOR, ENV, CUL
American Pageant: Chapter 36, American Zenith (1952-1963)
[CR2]
Topics: The Cold War in Asia: China, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan, Diplomatic strategies and policies of the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, The Red Scare and McCarthyism, Impact of the Cold War on American society, Emergence of the modern civil rights movement
Major Problems: Independence Leader Ho Chi Minh Pleads with Harry Truman for Support, 1946
President Dwight Eisenhower Warns of Falling Dominoes, 1954
Additional Reading: Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
Map Activity: The Brown Decision, Ten Years Later
-
Theme 5 (WOR-4) - Students are asked to engage in a classroom discussion using the following question as a prompt: How did events during World War II lay the groundwork for African Americans to fight for civil rights in the 1950s? Students will focus particular attention to the federal government’s actions regarding civil rights during WWII and how citizens pressed for rights during and immediately after the war. [CR4]
WEEK THIRTEEN
American Pageant: Chapter 37, The Stormy Sixties (1963-1973)
[CR2]
Topics: From the New Frontier to the Great Society, Expanding movements for civil rights, Cold War confrontations: Asia, Latin America, and Europe, Beginning of Détente, The antiwar movement and the counterculture
Additional Readings: John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, 1961
from “I Have a Dream” by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Video: Letters from Vietnam
DBQ Essay: The Civil Rights Movement [CR5]
-
Students write an essay on why the Civil Rights Movement gained momentum after WWII and not at any other time between Reconstruction and WWII. Students will use the AP DBQ Essay instructions and write an essay from the 1995 AP U.S. History exam: Analyze the changes that occurred during the 1960's in the goals, strategies, and support of the movement for African American civil rights. Use the documents and your knowledge of the history of the 1960's to construct your response. [CR12]
WEEK FOURTEEN
TEST: American Zenith and the Sixties, Chapters 36-37
[CR2]
Video: Freedom: A History of US - Episode 13: Democracy and Struggles & Episode 14: Let Freedom Ring
Unit 12: The Seventies, Conservatism, and a New Century (1968-Present)
[CR2]
Themes: ID, WXT, PEO, POL, WOR, ENV, CUL
American Pageant: Chapter 38, Challenges to the Postwar Order (1973-1980)
[CR2]
Topics: The election of 1968 and the “Silent Majority,” Nixon’s challenges: Vietnam, China, and Watergate, Changes in the American economy: the energy crisis, deindustrialization, and the service economy
American Pageant: Chapter 39, The Resurgence of Conservatism (1980-1992)
[CR2]
Topics: The New Right and the Reagan revolution, End of the Cold War, Demographic changes: surge of immigration after 1965, Sunbelt migration, and the graying of America
Additional Readings: from All the President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
Quantitative Data Activity: Oil Consumption in the 1970s
WEEK FIFTEEN
Short-Answer Question: The Role of Government
American Pageant: Chapter 40, America Confronts the Post-Cold War Era (1992-2000)
[CR2]
Topics: The Clinton presidency, the Clinton impeachment trial, the controversial 2000 election, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Obama presidency
American Pageant: Chapter 41, The American People Face a New Century (2000-2014)
[CR2]
Topics: Globalization and the American economy, Unilateralism vs. multilateralism in foreign policy, Domestic and foreign terrorism, immigration and assimilation, the changing economy
Senator Robert Byrd Condemns Post-9/11 Foreign Policy, 2003
Additional Readings: from Ronald Reagan’s Farewell Address
from Contract
with America
from “A Bridge to the Future” by Bill Clinton
Activity: Political Cartoon
DBQ Essay: The Seventies, Conservatism, and a New Century
[CR2]
Video: Freedom: A History of US - Episode 15: Marching to Freedom Land & Episode 16: Becoming Free
*UNITED STATES HISTORY AP EXAM
WEEK SIXTEEN
Unit 13: Local History (17
th Century-Present)
DuPage Roots: Chapter 1, Earth Making - Natural History To 10,000 BC
Chapter 2, The Planting - The Pioneer Epoch To 1850
The Prairie State: From Patrick Henry, “Letter of Instruction to John Todd, 1778”
From Josiah Harmar, “Letter to the Secretary of War, November 24, 1787”
Video: American Experience: Chicago - City of the Century
WEEK SEVENTEEN
DuPage Roots: Chapter 3, The Uprooting - The Civil War Era 1850-1870
Chapter 4, The Tap Root - Into the Modern Era 1870-1920
Chapter 5, The Transplants - Post World Wars 1920-1950
Chapter 6, Succession Community - Since 1950
Video: American Experience: Chicago - City of the Century
WEEK EIGHTEEN
Film: Forrest Gump
Review for Final Exam
Final Exam: Since 1877 (Chapters 23-41)
[CR2]
WEEK NINETEEN
Final Exam: Since 1877 (Chapters 23-41)
[CR2]