234 - College US History

Grades: 11
Duration: 1 Year
Credits: 1
Prerequisites: 90 overall average in Global 2 and a 90 or better score on the Global Regents exam.

FIRST SEMESTER:

This course is coordinated through Syracuse University Project Advance (SUPA). Students earn 6 college credits upon successful completion of both the first and second semesters. This course is an introductory course in American history covering the period from 1607 to 1865, it is not a "survey" course in the sense that we will not attempt to discuss every fact or cover every event in 250 years of American history. Rather, we will approach this period of history through a discussion of three themes:

  1. Through covering the period from the founding of America to the middle of the eighteenth century, we will deal with the question of how Europeans from a medieval culture became Americans.
  2. Exploration of the political, social and economic impact the revolution had on American society.
  3. A focus on the modernization of american society in the nineteenth century and examination of the relationship between modernization and the sectional crisis.

This course has two major objectives. First, we will study history as a process through which our society and our country came to be as it is today. Our society is the product of a diverse and complex past and a more complete understanding of that past will give us greater insight and perspective into the problems that challenge us today. The second objective of this course is to challenge students to develop their critical reading and writing skills. Students will be introduced to sets of complex historical problems and ask you to order, assess, analyze and conceptualize the material to gain greater understanding of a particular problem with all of its ramifications. Bringing multiple sources together and making sense of them is a key aspect of this class and will be critical to prepare students for their college experience.

SECOND SEMESTER:

The American History sequence is a full-year course comprising History 101: American History to 1865, and History 102: The United States Since 1865.

History 102 is intended to be an introduction to U.S.History from the end of the Civil War until the present. While such a course cannot be fully comprehensive, it will focus on many of the important developments and major trends that have shaped modern American life. These include: the impact of the end of slavery upon African Americans, the South, and the nation as a whole; the effects of immigration, ethnicity and religious diversity; the rise of modern culture, technology, consumerism and communications; U.S. expansionism and growing involvement in World affairs; struggles for equal rights and justice; protest movements and resistance to change; the upheavals of the 1960s and the impact of Vietnam and Watergate; the "Reagan Revolution"; the end of the Cold War; the presidency of Bill Clinton; the beginnings of the third "American century" and the consequences of globalism. Although much of this inevitably will center on public events and persons in national leadership, we shall explore the lives and experiences, contributions and insights, of ordinary people.

In the various readings, textbook, primary sources, and "coming of age" accounts as well as through multimedia resources, students will see how others have experienced, written about, and interpreted history. More importantly, through discussions and various types of assignments, students will have a chance to do history, and not just to read about it. In the process, they will begin to learn something of how historians think about and investigate the past, and will start to develop their own critical, historical perspectives. It is intended that, by the end of the semester, students will not only know more about the American experience, but will have learned how to construct persuasive arguments, to use evidence effectively, and to hone a variety of analytic skills that will be of value to them both in college and in the future.