Final Exam

The final exam will be held in class on Friday, December 9th. You will choose five (5) questions from the following list of chapter questions to answer as completely and in as much detail as time allows.

• (17) No Question
• (18) Corporate America: How did giant corporations develop under men like Rockefeller and Carnegie, and how was labor affected?
• (19) Immigration & Urbanization: How did middle class America respond to issues of immigrations and urbanization?
• (20) Expansion: Why did the United States go to war against Spain, and what were the outcomes?
• (21) Progressive Era: What were the main issues supported by Progressives and to what extant was Theodore Roosevelt a Progressive president?
• (22) WW I: Why did the United States enter WW I, and what affects did it have back home?
• (23) Roaring 20's: What changes came with mass production and consumerism, and what were negative reactions to change?
• (24) Depression & the New Deal: What caused the Great Depression, and how did Hoover and FDR respond?
• (25) WW II: What were the major effects of WW II on American society, including minorities and women?
• (26) Cold War: What impact did it have on American society?
• (27) Mid-Century Modern:What were the ideals of post-war suburban society? Should we add anything about who was left out or the role of TV?
• (28) Civil Rights: What were the major successes and failures of the civil-rights movement from 1961- to 1968?
• (29) Hippie Days: How and why did young people rebel in the 60's and 70's? What about Watergate?
• (30) What were the effects of Reagan's main domestic and international policies?
• (31) Why did the United States go to war in Iraq, and what were/are the consequences?

Thanksgiving Eve

There will be no class meeting on Wednesday, November 23rd. Instead, please write two paragraphs on either (a) the Watergate scandal or (b) Nixon's Southern strategy, and bring them to class on Monday, November 28th. You should be able to find ample information on the Internet on both topics.

In addition, please use your blog to post suggestions for questions for the final exam. The format will be the same as for the midterm exam. We will discuss them on Monday along with your Nixon material.

Next Wednesday, November 30th, we will be back on schedule with a discussion of Chapter 29.

Have a very happy Thanksgiving break!

Factions Revisited

fac·tion¹

ˈfakSH(ə)n/

noun

1. a small, organized, dissenting group within a larger one, especially in politics.

Madison: "By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community."

For our final writing assignment, I would like you to revise your analysis essay on the Federalist Paper #10 and add a research component to it. Explore the constitution of a modern government of your choice, and show and explain how it explicitly or implicitly deals with Monroe's problem of factions. The final paper should again follow MLA format and be approximately 2000 words. It is due in Turnitin.com on Monday, November 14th, by 11:59p.m.

Midterm Exam II

For the midterm exam, you will answer your choice of five of the following fifteen chapter questions in detail.

1. Who was in North America on the eve of European contact?
2. Describe early attempts at establishing settlements in North America.
3. What role did religion play in the early European colonies?
4. How did France, Britain, and Spain compete in North America before 1750?
5. What led to resistance against Britain?
6. How did the colonists defeat the greatest empire of the day?
7. What was the process of creating the current government of the USA? (documents)
8. What was the significance of the war of 1812?
9. What is the connection between industrialization and westward expansion?
10. Andrew Jackson, discuss.
11. ---
12. Describe the social divisions of the pre-civil war south and the importance of cotton.
13. How did immigration and westward expansion influence American party politics?
14. Why did the South secede?
15. How did the issue of emancipation transform the war?
16. Why did Reconstruction fail?

If you would like to suggest an alternative or improvement to a question or questions, please post a comment to this post before midnight tonight.



 

Midterm Exam

After reviewing the suggestions posted in the student blogs, I have concluded that this is a very diverse group. The only key-term definition overlap was "bill of rights." Recommendations of an exam with definitions and short essay(s) (with one being an opinion option) occurred more than once. Listing the presidents in order and describing there importance was an interesting idea that might be transformed into something other students would like if we made it the opinion essay questions (e.g., who was the most important president up to 1870?). True or False is pedagogically even less sound than multiple choice, so that's not happening.

I did some exploring and discovered Patti Andrews' exam from 2013 for this class. Her students were to answer five questions from a list of about twenty that they had put together at their review session. Sample questions were

• How did life change for Americans after the revolution? For whom did it change and for whom did it remain much the same?
• What was the purpose of having a “separation of powers” in the new government of the United States?

I'm going to pull together a list of basic questions, one for each of the sixteen chapters we've covered, and bring them to our review session on Monday. I will take your blog post suggestions into consideration as I create them. We can work through them and rework them in class to create an exam that is fair and useful.

Federalist No. 10

We've covered chapters 1-6 of our textbook, or at least we should have. Now it is time to regroup, switch gears, and explore some details. Your first written assignment, not including your blog posts due every Wednesday of course, is an analysis of Federalist Paper Number 10. Please download and review the short document before class on Friday. In class we will discuss it and have a workshop on writing analysis papers. Feel free to explore the seemingly endless supply of internet sources on the subject, but bear in mind that your analysis paper must be your own original work. For some background, I recommend having a look at the Wiki entry for Federal No. 10. As for how to write and analytical essay, please have a look at this article. Although it was written for an American literature course, it is valid and useful for other sorts of texts, or film, or art, or whatever.

Update: The essays should be approximately 1500 words long and follow MLA format. It is due in class on Wednesday, September 21st.

All written work must be submitted in class and via TurnItIn.com. You will need to create an account on TurnItIn if you have not done so before, and enroll in our class site.

• Class ID #: 13420312
• Class Enrollment Password: ah2016

Welcome to American History!

Welcome to the whirlwind tour of American history!

Your first dangerous assignment is to create a web log (blog) for this class, preferably using blogger.com. Once you have created the blog, please email me the address (URL) in the form blogname.blogspot.com (where blogname is the name you have given your blog). You will need to have a google email account to use blogger.com. Technical incompetence will not be an acceptable excuse for missing or delaying this assignment. Get help from a friend, colleague, or me if you run into difficulties.

I recommend linking to this class blog by email (see button on right) so that you will be alerted every time there is an update (i.e. new assignment/information) posted here.