AP UNITED STATES HISTORY
Year-long Syllabus
This class will focus on an intensive study of the history of the United States. There are some specific expectations that are unique to this class, including:
College Level: This is a freshman-level college course with an emphasis on analytical writing and analysis of primary and secondary sources/articles. It will be taught at an accelerated rate with high rigor.
Readings and Textbooks: The following texts will be used for class:
The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society
Gary B. Nash and Julie Roy Jeffrey
Addison Wesley Longman 2001
Portrait of America: Volumes One and Two
Stephen B. Oates and Charles J. Errico
Houghton Mifflin 2003
American Issues: A Documentary Reader
Charles M. Dollar and Gary W. Reichard
Glencoe McGraw-Hill 2002
You are responsible for the subject matter from the main textbook, (Nash). We will not go over every aspect of every chapter in detail but rather we will have overviews of what each chapter has to offer. Again, you are responsible for all subject mater in assigned readings whether we have specifically reviewed them or not. The American Issues book will be a source for many of our primary source documents. We will thoroughly analyze and dissect these articles as well as those secondary articles from the Portrait of America text.
Homework: The vast majority of the assigned homework in this class will be reading the assigned text and articles. However, each chapter will have a written outline assigned to it with the dual goal of ensuring your understanding of the chapter material and helping you to learn and utilize outlining for both tests and notes. Only those outlines completed on time will be assigned full credit. Once an outline is three days late or more, barring illness, that assignment will not be eligible for point credit.
AP Test: The AP U.S. History test is given each May. It is my expectation that by signing up for this class you will be taking the AP Test. It is a difficult test, but if you score a 3 or higher on the test, (I will explain scoring in detail in class), you will receive college credit for taking this course.
Writing: Because the AP Test consists of a writing component that makes of 50% of the test, and because you will be expected to write at a high level when you get to college, we will focus our papers heavily on proper writing techniques and analyzing of documents. Each essay in this class will count as a test grade, (between 30 and 40 points). The first two essays will be take-home while the remainder will be done in class under AP time restrictions. You will learn how to properly write a free-response essay, (12.5% of the test grade and there are two on the AP Test), and how to properly write a document-based question, (DBQ), essay, which makes up 25% of your total AP Test score.
Tests: The multiple choice portion of the AP test is worth 50% of the test score. As a result, all tests will be multiple choice questions taken from AP review books and previous AP tests and will be solely from the unit, (time period) we are currently studying. The tests will not only prepare you for the AP Test, but also be useful in preparing you for the information you will need to know once in college.
MAJOR COURSE THEMES:
The following general themes will be woven throughout each unit in the course and will be the overall themes that we will be concentrating on over the course of the year:
- Ethnic identity and diversity
- Economic development in a free market system
- Political stability and change
- America in the international arena
- Ever-changing national identity
UNIT CURRICULUM (In order of expected completion)
Outlining of all readings will be expected of each student
Unit I: Pre-Columbian to Colonial History (1763)
The first 7 classes will be spent looking at the founding of the original American colonies with an emphasis on the differences between Virginia and Massachusetts and relationships with the relative indigenous populations
- Reading and outlining of chapters 1-3 of the Nash text with emphasis of questions posed by the teacher in class.
- Reading of chapters 1-4 in the Dollar text with a writing assignment that asks the students to differentiate the experiences of Jamestown colonists versus those in Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay.
The first 7 classes will focus on the slavery issue as being a significant force in early American history. As such, the students will be asked, in their first free response essay, to identify and interpret bias in primary source documents. They will also be asked to recognize historical evidence in documents through their first multiple choice exam.
Unit II: The American Revolutionary War
The unit will focus on the causes, events and outcome of the American Revolution. The key areas for study will be the difference in colonial protest both in style and geography; the British response; the military and political course of the war and the outcome of the Treaty of Paris.
- Reading and outline chapters 5-6 of the Nash text and outline.
- Outlining articles 7, 8 and 10 of the Oates text and outline.
- Reading chapter 5 of the Dollar text and outline.
There will be a significant document-based assignment where the students will paint a verbal “portrait,” of Samuel Adams, Jefferson and Washington based on the respective documents and further documents presented in class. Further, the students will show how each man represented a different spectrum of the prevailing political philosophies in the Colonies.
There will be a DBQ essay with this unit. The students will be asked to synthesize an essay based on documents from class and primary research documents that they have obtained in order to portray the economic differences between the patriot New England and the Tory-dominated South and how those differences lead, or didn’t lead to those areas’ respective responses to British control.
Unit III: The Confederation Experience
This unit will focus on the creation of America’s first independent government; the structure and key pieces of the Articles of Confederation; the inherent weaknesses in the Articles both domestically and in foreign affairs; the political crisis caused by the weaknesses and the role of Hamilton, and Madison in starting the constitutional process.
- Reading of Chapter 7 in the Nash text and outline
- Selected readings from the Anti-Federalist Papers
- Maps of support for a more centralized government
There will be a free response essay at the end of this unit dealing with the impact that Shay’s Rebellion had on the calling of a Constitutional Convention in 1787.
Unit IV: The Federalists and the Constitution
This unit will focus on the events surrounding the creation of the U.S. Constitution and its ratification. Included in this will be a discussion of different personalities, the structures of government, the amendment process; the rise of political parties and politics in the United States from ratification until Jefferson’s election in 1800.
- Reading of Chapters 8 and 9 in the Nash text and outline
- Selected readings from both the Anti-Federalist and the Federalist Papers
- Reading Chapters 9, 10 and 13, 14 of the Oates text and outline
- Reading of Chapters 6 and 7 in the Dollar text
There will be a multiple choice exam at the end of this unit that will focus on information from units 3 and 4 as well as a DBQ based on the Constitution and using documents form the Dollar readings. Before the DBQ is assigned, the students will place the primary source and secondary source documents into different categories based on both why the documents were written and who the audience was or is for the respective documents.
Unit V: The Republican Era
This unit will focus on the impact of Jefferson and his political legacy as well as the growth of the competing philosophies of nationalism and sectionalism. We will discuss the causes and effects of both the Louisiana Purchase and the War of 1812 and the long-term impact of the Monroe Doctrine.
- Reading of Chapters 10 and 11 in the Nash text and outline
- Reading of Chapter 8 in the Oates text
- Reading of Chapter 8 in the Dollar text, paying particular attention to the primary source articles in the section
There will be a free response essay at the end of this unit which will ask about the foreign policy and domestic policy of Jefferson and how it was able, (or unable), to stay inline with his base political philosophy. Finally, the students will be presented with a series of visual sources from the time period and they will be asked to classify them based on premise and effectiveness.
Unit VI: The Jacksonian Era
This unit will focus on the impact of Jackson’s personality as well as his influence on the new form of “common man” democracy; the bank; treatment of the Native Americans; Jackson’s conflicts with Calhoun; rise of the Whigs and the working class.
- Reading Chapter 12 in the Nash text and outline
- Reading Chapter 9, “The Age of Jackson” in the Dollar text
- Read “Andrew Jackson, Flamboyant Hero of the Common Man”, by John Marszalek
- Read “Hell in Harness: The Iron Horse and the Go-Ahead Age”, by Page Smith
There will be a multiple choice test at the end of the unit which will review the information in units 1-6. There will also be a free response essay which will be a Jacksonian question taken from the Barron’s AP test prep book.
Unit VII: Westward Expansion and the Mexican War
REQUIRED READING:
- Chapter 13 in the Nash text and outline
- Chapter 10 in the Dollar text (Outline 10.2; 10.3 and 10.7)
- “Women and their Families on the Overland Trails”, by Johnny Faragher and Christine Stansell
KEY AREAS FOR DISCUSSION: Texas; Mexican territory; Oregon, (54/40 or fight!); Manifest Destiny 1821-1842; Polk’s presidency; Utah; The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
ASSESSMENT: A short multiple choice test and a free response essay dealing with expansion and slavery.
Unit VIII: The Causes of the Civil War
REQUIRED READING:
- Chapter 14 in the Nash text and outline
- “I Will be Heard! William Lloyd Garrison and the Struggle Against Slavery”, by Ira Berlin
- “The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner’s Fierce Rebellion”, by Oates
- “Life in a Totalitarian System”, by John Blassingame
- “Let My People Go: Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad”, by Benjamin Qualres
- “The Father of American Terrorism”, by Ken Chowder (John Brown)
- Chapter 12 of the Dollar text, “The Debate over Slavery”
KEY AREAS FOR DISCUSSION: 2nd Great Awakening and abolitionism; Missouri Compromise; Compromise of 1850; Kansas/Nebraska Act; Southern views on slavery by class, (the Peculiar Institution); North-South relations; Free Soil Party; Know Nothings; coming of the Republicans; Lincoln-Douglas debates; John Brown’s raid
ASSESSMENT:
- multiple choice test, (20 questions taken from previous AP tests about the era)
- free response essay concerning whether or not the compromises were really that or whether they were Northern capitulation to Southern demands
- take-home DBQ based on the primary source articles we read
Unit IX: The Civil War and Reconstruction
REQUIRED READING:
- Chapters 15 and 16 of the Nash text and outline both
- Chapters 27-30 of the Oates text
- Chapters 13-15 of the Dollar text
- “Sharecropping as a Way of Life”, by Fred Shannon
KEY AREAS FOR DISCUSSION: Northern strengths v. that of the South; Lincoln and Davis; key battles and impact; emancipation; Radical, moderate and Lincoln’s Reconstruction plans; Civil War Amendments; Grant’s presidency and scandals; Election of 1876 and the end of Reconstruction
ASSESSMENT:
- Free response essay comparing the primary sources in the Dollar readings from both a Northern and Southern and slave perspective.
- Map of the major battles and their impact
- Map of the destabilization of Southern agriculture over the course of the War.
UNIT X: The Gilded Age
REQUIRED READING:
- Chapters 17-20 of the Nash text and outline them
- Chapters 17-19 of the Dollar text
KEY AREAS FOR DISCUSSION: New West and South; Treatment of Native Americans; social Darwinism and laissez faire economics; organized labor; urbanization; immigration and the social gospel; political corruption; rise of populism and progressivism
ASSESSMENT:
- mid-year exam over a three day period including multiple choice questions and free response essays, one of which will be based on the Gilded Age, and a DBQ based on documents from the Gilded Age
UNIT XI: The Progressive Era (Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson)
REQUIRED READING
- Chapter 21 of the Nash text and outline it
- “Varieties of Progressivism: T.R. and Wilson”, by John Milton Cooper, Jr.
- “Women’s Suffrage and the Working Class”, these are visual sources
KEY AREAS FOR DISCUSSION: muckrakers; trust busting; social justice movement; temperance; presidential personalities; differences between the Square Deal and the New Freedom
ASSESSMENT:
- One free response essay comparing and contrasting progressivism and populism
UNIT XII: Age of American Imperialism:
REQUIRED READING:
- Chapters 20 and 22 of the Nash text and outline it
- Chapter 20 of the Dollar text, (focusing on the primary source documents by Alfred Thayer Mahan and the American Anti-Imperialist League)
KEY AREAS FOR DISCUSSION: Spanish-American War; Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” policy; Roosevelt Corollary; Taft’s Dollar Diplomacy; The Canal; neutrality and policies therein at home; World War I from a U.S. perspective; Versailles and the debate over ratification
ASSESSMENT:
- 1991 AP Test DBQ in class, (50 minutes)
- Multiple choice test based on era-related questions
Unit XIII: The Roaring 20’s
REQUIRED READING:
- Chapter 23 of the Nash text and outline
- Chapter 21 of the Dollar text (including 2 major primary source articles)
- Plessy v. Ferguson
KEY AREAS FOR DISCUSSION: The Republican Presidents and their economic policies; Return to Normalcy; the Red Scare (Sacco and Vanzetti); immigration; the new segregation; Harlem Renaissance; Marcus Garvey et al; The Crash; Hoover’s policies towards the Depression
ASSESSMENT:
- small multiple choice test
- free response essay on the causes of the Crash and the onset of the Depression
Unit XIV: The Great Depression and the New Deal
REQUIRED READING:
- Chapter 24 of the Nash text and outline
- Chapter 22 of the Dollar text
- Transposition of one of Roosevelt’s “fireside chats”
KEY AREAS FOR DISCUSSION: Causes and impact of the Depression; Roosevelt’s policies v. Hoover’s; First Hundred Days; relief, recovery and reform (2nd New Deal); opposition to the New Deal (Coughlin, Long and the Supreme Court); specific legislation that is with us today (social security, SEC, NLRB etc.)
ASSESSMENT:
- DBQ form 1984 based on Hoover and Roosevelt and their responses to the Depression
Unit XV: The Second World War and Its Causes (1921-1945)
REQUIRED READING:
- Chapter 25 of the Nash text and outline it
- “America and the War in Europe”, by Charles Lindbergh
- “America and the Holocaust”, by David Wyman
- “Truman’s Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb”, by Harry Truman
- Study maps of German and Japanese aggression 1935-1941
- Excerpts from “At Dawn We Slept”, by Gordon Prange
- Chapter 24 of the Dollar text on the Home Front
KEY AREAS FOR DISCUSSION: Washington Naval Conference and its impact on Japan; Kellogg-Briand Pact; League of Nations and its failures; Isolationism an neutrality and their impact on American policy towards Europe; 1940 and steps towards war; America’s relations with Japan in the ‘30’s and how they helped lead to Pearl Harbor; Pearl Harbor Attack; American responses to the Holocaust; stopping the Germans first; military history of the War including major battles and people; atomic weapons; diplomatic history of the War; the Home Front
ASSESSMENT:
- DBQ on who was to blame for the attack on Pearl Harbor
- Create maps of the military progression of the war
- Free response essay on the legality of the internment of Japanese-Americans during the War
Unit XVI: The “Meat” of the Cold War (1945-1963)
REQUIRED READING:
- Chapter 27 of the Nash text and outline it
- “American Commitment to Cold War”, a memo released in the late 1950’s by the U.S. Dept. of State
- Eisenhower’s speech on the “military-industrial complex”
- “Origins of McCarthyism”, by Robert Griffith
- Map of containment and U.S. t security agreements after WW II
- “American Public Opinion and the Korean War”, a 1952 chart
KEY AREAS FOR DISCUSSION: containment; Cold War Europe and U.S. policy; atomic deterrent; Korean War; Truman Doctrine; Marshall Plan; Red China; McCarthyism; NATO; Cold War by continent; JFK and the Bay of Pigs; Berlin; Cuban Missile Crisis; beginning of Vietnam
ASSESSMENT:
- full multiple choice test on foreign policy from the years 1921-1963
- free response essay comparing isolationism to containment
Unit XVII: The Liberal State (1946-1968)
REQUIRED READING:
- Chapters 26 and 29 of the Nash text and outline both
- Chapter 26 of the Dollar text
- Map of racial demographic change in the U.S. during this time period
KEY AREAS FOR DISCUSSION: baby boom; economic boom; suburbs; civil rights struggle; Rosa Parks, et al; the New Frontier; loss of JFK and what it meant for social reform; the Warren Court; the Great Society and the War on Poverty
ASSESSMENT:
- Debate on Eisenhower’s reforms versus those of Kennedy/Johnson
- Short paper on “What if Kennedy had not been shot?”
Unit XVII: The Vietnam Era
REQUIRED READING:
- Re-read the second half of Chapter 27 in the Nash text
- Excerpts from “Going after Caciatto”, by Tim O’Brien
- Chapter 27 of the Dollar text
KEY AREAS FOR DISCUSSION: Johnson’s decision to escalate the war in Vietnam; Vietnam as a policy of containment; American social revolt against the war; music and its influence on protest; black power movement; women’s rights; Nixon and the end of the war; Kissinger and détente; Nixon and Watergate
ASSESSMENT:
- DBQ on whether Vietnam was wrong policy or if the war was simply poorly carried out
Unit XIX: Malaise of the ‘70’s
REQUIRED READING:
- Chapter 28 of the Nash text and outline it
- “Pardoning Nixon”, Ford’s speech
- “Malaise Speech”, by Carter
KEY AREAS FOR DISCUSSION: energy crisis; pardoning of Nixon; hangover from Vietnam; Carter’s economic failures; Carter’s foreign policy (Camp David; hostage crisis); Cold War heats up; 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team
ASSESSMENT:
- Debate on Presidential leadership: Ford v. Carter v. Reagan and the reasons for their successes/failures
Unit XX: The Rise of Conservatism
REQUIRED READING:
- Chapter 30 of the Nash text and outline it
- Chapters 28-30 of the Dollar text
- Studying graphs of the economic impact of “Reaganomics”
KEY AREAS FOR DISCUSSION: Reagan as leader; “small” wars of confidence; Reaganomics (trickle-down); Cold War climax; Iran/Contra; 1988 and Bush; fall of the Wall; winning the Cold War; recession and 1992; Clinton’s presidency; the dot-com economic boom; 2000 and Bush/Gore; 9/11 and the impact on foreign policy; Iraq and its influence on U.S. politics
ASSESSMENT:
- Current event documents collected by the students that show whether or not they feel that the major political parties are changing their basic platforms for the first time since the end of World War I.
FINAL REVIEW FOR THE TEST:
Over the course of the two weeks leading up to the test the students will be given two full AP practice tests which will be done Monday-Wednesday and then discussed from Thursday-Saturday. They will not be graded but rather used as a way to prepare the students fully for the rigor of the test and find ways they can more easily remember facts, especially from earlier in the year.
