A.P. United States History
2011-2012 Academic Year
Mr. Zachary Diskey
Introduction to course:
History is an ever changing complex subject that can be difficult to understand at times. The
goal of this course is to ultimately prepare you for the AP Exam, as well as give you a better
understanding of how to study history. Once someone understands how deeply personal
history can be they can begin to learn from it to form a better understanding of who we are as
a people.
As the year progresses students will be expected to show practical knowledge of a body of
information. Students will have to prove that they can think critically about the information
provided and use effective writing to support their ideas. Practice in these disciplines will not
only prepare students for the upcoming AP Exam but for their future studies.
Course Content:
This course shall cover the beginning of American History from European exploration to the
present. The course will be broken up into parts to reflect the different themes that take place
over the course of U.S History. These themes include: American identity, economic evolution,
and American foreign policy.
Course Materials:
Divine, RA. (2011). America past and present . New York New York:
Pearson.
Grading:
In-class activities, homework, quizzes, tests, projects and a final will be used to determine your
grade.
A 100-93 A- 92-90 B+ 89-87 B 86-83 B- 82-80
C+ 79-77 C 76-73 C- 72-70 D+ 69-67 D 66-63
D- 62-60 F (no credit) 59-0
Homework:
Expect to have homework two to four times a week. Completion of these assignments will help
you build upon your knowledge and understanding of the course content. Late homework will be
reduced by Twenty percent. Homework will make up ten percent of your grade
Projects:
Projects will require a significant amount of preparation outside of class. There will be ample time
to work and ask questions. As a result, no late projects will be accepted. If you are in the building
at any time on the day a project is due, but do not attend class, you are still responsible for
turning in your project. NO EXCEPTIONS. Projects will make up ten percent of your grade.
Quizzes:
Expect quizzes on a weekly basis. Pop quizzes may occur in the first few minutes of class to assure
that students are active in their reading assignments. Quizzes will make up twenty percent of
your grade.
Class Participation:
Being active during class is essential to your success. Students will be expected to participate in
discussions, as well as asking questions if necessary. Participation is worth five percent of your
grade.
Tests:
If you have an unexcused absence on the day of a test, you will not have the opportunity to make
the test up. If you are in the building at any time on the day of the test, but do not attend class,
you are still responsible for checking in with me to make arrangements that same day. NO
EXCEPTIONS. Tests will make up fifty five percent of your grade.
Attendance:
Attendance is crucial to success in this course. Students are expected to be in class and ready
when the bell rings. When class is missed, it is the student’s responsibility to talk to the teacher
and make up assignments.
Expectations for Behavior:
A classroom environment that encourages everyone to do their best does not happen
accidentally. I have high expectations for each of you both in how you interact in the classroom
and how you process the content of the course. A set of rules is in place to help you “exercise personal
freedom, and at the same time act in ways that protect the common welfare.” (Barbara McEwan, 2000).
The expectations include:
1. Respect all students’ right to learn.
2. Respect the teacher’s right to teach.
3. Take responsibility for your actions.
4. Communicate your concerns with me.
5. Be an appropriate, active participant in class.
6. Do your best and be willing to work hard.
Classroom Rules:
1. Listen carefully to directions the first time they are given.
2. Raise your hand to be recognized and do not interrupt others when they are speaking.
3. Be prepared to start class when the bell rings.
4. Remain in your seat until you are dismissed by the teacher.
5. Leave your desk and the surrounding area clean.
6. Only water is permitted into the classroom.
7. No cell phones or electronic devices allowed.
Please FILL OUT, SIGN, AND RETURN
Course: Honors U.S. History
Email: zdiskey@somersetacademy.com
Room: 415
Student’s Name ____________________________
I have read Mr. Diskey’s Syllabus posted on the class page and the Rules/procedures have been
explained to me. I accept responsibility for my work and actions in the classroom.
Student Signature ____________________________ Date _______________
Parent Signature ____________________________ Date _______________
Parent Contact information
Names ________________________________________
Email addresses __________________________________
Please circle the best number/s to reach you:
Home Phone # _________________________
Work phones # _________________________
Curriculum Calendar
Unit 1:
Reading Assignments: America past and Present chapters 2-3
Key Discussion Topics: European interactions with Native Americans; Historical interpretations
of Christopher Columbus; Motivations for exploration and colonization; Early colonial life; The
impact of the Seven Years’ War on the North American continent
Unit 2: The American Revolution
Reading Assignments: America past and Present chapters 4-5
Key Discussion Topics: The impact of the French and Indian war, Britain’s financial crisis,
Colonial resistance to Britain, The origins of resistance; the British response The War for
Independence,
Special Activities: “Who Fired That Shot?”—a class analysis and discussion based one
eyewitness accounts of hostilities at Lexington and Concord. Document Shuffle—the causes of
the American Revolution from British, American, and Tory perspectives. In these small-group
sessions, groups of four or five students are provided with a packet of 12 to 15 documents, a
large piece of newsprint, a glue stick, and a marker. Each group is asked to distribute the
documents equitably, determine the “document messages,” deciphering the categories into
which the documents fall, and submit a group report on the newsprint. Variations on this
activity include requiring students to provide outside information related to some of the
documents, including an “oddball” document that does not fit with the remaining documents.
First Writing Assignment—Students are given the documents and questions from the “old-
style” Wethersfield DBQ and are asked to respond, using only the documents, in a paper of 750
words or less. (For this first attempt, analysis of the documents begins in class.)
Unit 3: The Republican Experiment (1781–1789)
Required Reading:
America Past and Present Chapter 6
Key Discussion Topics: Government structure under the Articles of Confederation; weaknesses
and accomplishments of the Articles’ government; the emergence of the Federalists and
Republicans; the Constitutional Convention; the debate over ratification; Government structure
after the debate
Special Activities: Document shuffle entitled “Feds vs. Antifeds”—all documents used here are
contemporary letters to newspapers during the ratification debate.
Unit 4: The Federalist Era (1788-1800)
Required Reading: American Past and Present Chapter 7
Key Discussion Topics: The new government’s structure; an overview of the Constitution of
1787; Hamilton versus Jefferson; the rise of political parties; foreign affairs with Great Britain,
France, and Spain; the “Revolution of 1800”
Document shuffle entitled “Hamilton vs. Jefferson—the Spectrum of Disagreement” using
reader documents Second take-home DBQ—Students are asked to compare the relative
effectiveness of U.S. foreign policy toward Great Britain and France under Washington and
Adams versus under Jefferson and Madison (1800–1815)
Unit 5: The Republican ascendancy (1801–1828)
Required Reading: American past and present chapters 8 and 9 in
Key Discussion Topics: The affects of the Jefferson presidency; The causes of the war of 1812;
Post war nationalism; The Missouri compromise, The Monroe doctrine
Special Activity: Document shuffle—recognizing and differentiating among aspects of
nationalism and sectionalism.
Unit 6: The Age of the Common Man (1828–1840)
Required Reading: America a Past and Present chapters 10 and 11
Key Discussion Topics: Jackson versus Calhoun; Jacksonian Democracy; Vetoing the bank
charter; the Indian removal; the rise of the working class; The emergence of the Whig party;
Specie circular,
Special Activity: The third take-home DBQ the College Board’s 1990 Jackson DBQ.
Unit 7: Manifest Destiny
Required Reading: America Past and Present chapter 13
Key Discussion Topics: Champions of Young America ; Westward Expansion; War with Mexico;
and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Special Activity: Final take-home DBQ—The causes of the Mexican–American war.
Unit 8: The Slave System and the Coming of the Civil War
Required Reading: America Past and Present Chapter 14,
Secondary-source readings on slavery and abolition
Key Discussion Topics: Abolitionism; The forming tension between the North and the South;
Founding of the Free Soil Party; The Compromise of 1850; Kansas Nebraska Act; Election of
Lincoln;
Special Activities: Document Shuffle in which groups categorize the same set of documents
from the points of view of assigned personalities—John Brown, Hinton Helper, Stephen A.
Douglas, Frederick Douglass, President Buchanan. First in-class DBQ — Five documents, 40
Minutes — “Radicals in both the North and South made the Civil War inevitable by 1861.”
Unit 9: Secession and the Civil War
Required Reading: America Past and Present Chapters 15 and 16
“Freed Women?” by Jacqueline Joves in Women, Families, and Communities
“Why They Impeached Andrew Johnson” by David Donald in Historical Viewpoints
Key Discussion Topics: The crisis of succession; The North’s struggle to find leadership;
The Emancipation Proclamation; the military course of the war in brief; Gettysburg;
Reconstruction; the sharecropping system; and the Compromise of 1877.
Special Activities: Review Document Shuffle—Student groups are asked to categorize
documents representing a series of events of the 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s through the eyes of a
freedman, a Ku Klux Klan member, Andrew Johnson, Thaddeus Stevens, and W. E. B. Du Bois.
Maps and charts on Southern agriculture patterns First in-class non-DBQ free-response essay —
Students are given three topics to research over the holiday vacation and will be asked to
answer an essay question based on one of them on their first day back from vacation. The
topics usually are review topics selected from major events as early as the Revolutionary
period.
Unit 10: The Gilded Age (1865-1900)
Required Reading: America Past and Present Chapters 17, 18, 19, and 20
“Robber Barons and Rebels” in Chapter 11 of A People’s History
Key Discussion Topics: The Gold Rush; Settling the West: The emergence of Laissez-Faire;
Industrialization; The response of Labor ; urbanization; immigration; Boss Tweed ;”The Social
Gospel”; The politics of the 1890’s;The populists; Big government republicans
Special Activity: Document Shuffle—Events of the Gilded Age as seen through the eyes of
Bryan, Coxey, and Debs.
Unit 11: The Progressive Era (1900-1917)
Required Reading: America Past and Present Chapters 22 and 23
“The Fight for Woman’s Suffrage: An Interview with Alice Paul” in
Historical Viewpoints “The Socialist Challenge” in A People’s History
Key Discussion Topics: Progressivism; Muckraking; reform in the states; Reforms in the cities;;
progressive presidents — Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson; “Trust- Busting”, the “Square
Deal” and the “New Freedom”; women’s suffrage and the Nineteenth Amendment.
Unit 12: Foreign Policy (1898–1920)
Required Reading: America Past and Present Chapters 21 and 24
“The Needless War with Spain” in Historical Viewpoints
Key Discussion Topics: Imperialism; Annexation of Hawaii; The Destruction of the Maine; War
between the U.S. and Spain; The Roosevelt corollary; the Panama Canal; U.S. neutrality ;
Lusitania torpedoed ; The U.S. entrance into WWI; The Fourteen Point Plan.
Special Activity: In-class DBQ—40 minutes using the DBQ from the AP Exam in 1991.
Unit 13: The Roaring ’20s
Required Reading: America Past and Present Chapter 25
“Sacco and Vanzetti: The Case of History vs. Laws” in After the Fact
Key Discussion Topics: The “Red Scare”; immigration legislation; The consumer economy;
Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover: “Republican Orthodoxy”; the “new” Ku Klux Klan; the Harlem
Renaissance; the crash of the stock market and the onset of the Great Depression; and Hoover
and Voluntarism.
Special Activity: Document Shuffle in which groups are asked to categorize documents
representing key issues of the 1920s from either a “traditional rural” or “modern urban” point
of view.
Unit 14: The Great Depression (1929–1940)
Required Reading: America Past and Present Chapter 26
Twelve readings from the Golden Owl Publishing Company’s Jackdaw entitled “The New Deal,”
which includes all six “Broadsheet” essays on various aspects of the Depression and New Deal
as well as the transcript of a “fireside chat,” a speech by Huey Long, and entries from Harry
Hopkins’s diary, among other items.
Key Discussion Topics: The origins of the Great Depression; Hoover’s Response; Franklin
Roosevelt and the New Deal; Relief Recovery and reform; critics of the New Deal; the Supreme
Court fight and the end of the New Deal.
Special Activities: Small-group Document Shuffle entitled: “The New Deal: Measures and
Criticisms.” In-class DBQ using the documents and question from the 1984 AP Exam which
asked students to characterize FDR and Hoover in terms of the labels of “liberal” and
“conservative.”
Unit 15: America and the World (1921–1945)
Required Reading: America Past and Present Chapter 27
A packet of op-ed and magazine pieces collected during the year 1995 leading up to the fiftieth
anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and reflecting the disagreement over
whether the bombings were justified
Key Discussion Topics: Rise of fascism and militarism in Germany, Italy , and Japan; U.S.
Neutrality; the ramifications of U.S. Neutrality; neutrality legislation of the 1930s; Pearl Harbor;
halting the German blitz; turning the tide in the Pacific and the decision to drop the A-bomb;
the war on the home front; wartime diplomacy.
Special Activity: Debate—Resolved: “Harry S. Truman was a War Criminal.”
Unit 16: Truman, Ike, and JFK: The Cold Warriors (1945–1963)
Required Reading: America Past and Present Chapters 28 and 30
Key Discussion Topics: Origins of the Cold war, containment (Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan,
NATO); crisis in Berlin; expansion of the Cold War: the loss of China and the Korean War;
McCarthyism; Eisenhower, and the Cold War in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America; JFK ;
the Cuban missile crisis.
Special Activity: In-class review essay. Students are given three topics to review over a
weekend and write a non-DBQ essay on one of them. Review topics: The
Unit 17: From the Fair Deal to the Great Society: The Triumph of Reform (1945–1968)
Required Reading: America Past and Present Chapter 29
“Desegregating the Schools” by Liva Barker in Historical Viewpoints
Key Discussion Topics: The postwar economic boom and the rise of the suburbs; did the 1950s
represent the true “good life?”; the civil rights movement; the New Frontier; the Warren court;
and the Great Society.
Special Activity: Over a weekend, students are given short biographical sketches of 10
important historical figures from the 1950s and 1960s. They are also given 10 quotations taken
from the writing and speeches of the same 10 figures. The students’ assignment is to write a
paper of two to three pages attributing the quotes to the proper author and explaining why the
attributions are the correct ones. The task is made more difficult by the inclusion of people with
fairly similar views, such as Thurgood Marshall and Earl Warren.
Unit 18: Protest and Turmoil: Vietnam and Watergate
Required Reading: America Past and Present Chapters 30 and 31
“Instant Watergate: Footnoting the Final Days” in After the Fact
Key Discussion Topics: Involvement and escalation in Vietnam; Vietnam dilemma and
stalemate; the student revolt; Black Power and Women’s Lib; the election of 1968; Nixon,
Kissinger — ending the Vietnam War; the election of 1972; and Watergate.
Special Activity: In-class practice DBQ using the DBQ from the May 1995 AP Exam to review the
past two units.
Unit 19: Malaise: Ford, and Carter in the Seventies
Required Reading: America Past and Present Chapter 32
Key Discussion Topics: OPEC and the oil shock; inflation and the new economy; the start of
affirmative action; setbacks and gains for women; the election of 1976; Carter; Sadat;
Khomeini; and disillusionment and the renewed Cold War.
Special Activity: Document shuffle in which groups are asked to differentiate among
statements and policies of the two one-term presidents of the 1970s—Ford and Carter.
Unit 20: A 10-Day Review for the AP U.S. History Exam
The two chief aspects of the review period are the assignment of three or four chapters per
night for review and a quiz made up of 10–15 multiple-choice questions taken from the 1984
and 1988 exams to be given the next morning, graded immediately, and discussed. For the
remaining 25-30 minutes of each class, an essay question or DBQ is placed on the board
(selected to dovetail with the previous night’s review chapters), and the class analyzes,
brainstorms, and outlines an answer to it. After the exam, the class prepares for the Regents
Exam in late June. First, the class studies a series of 10–12 lessons on the Constitution and U.S.
government. Finally, the class culminates with practice in answering Regents-style essays.