4.17 Homework:Must We Hate?

4.16 Homework: Your Asheville School Experience

4.13 US Presidency and Television (ten important dates) http://www.museum.tv/debateweb/html/equalizer/essay_usprestv.htm

The Great Debate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QazmVHAO0os

Homework: Read and analyze JFK’s inaugural address. Monday you will hand in an analysis (about a page long, single spaced) analyzing JFK’s message and rhetoric. What images and references does he make to help convey his message? What is powerful about his tone and structure? Why is this speech viewed as one of the most memorable political speeches of the century?

http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres56.html

4.3 Truman’s Foreign Policy research assignment

Homework Over Weekend 3.30 Enola Gay exhibit

“Fear, altruism, the desire to ‘make the world safe for democracy,’ as much as capitalist method, drove forward the effort. Nuclear weapons were thus the product of American morality as well as of its productive skill.”

The atomic bomb was the most characteristic product of American entrepreneurial energy…the bomb was a ‘democratic’ bomb, and was spurred on by genuine idealism of a peculiarly American kind” (785)

Read 3.27 Atomic bombs in Iran discussion questions and be prepared to enter the conversation of nuclear disarmament—you will be assigned to a side when entering the class—10 min. or prep and then a class discussion for 30 min.

The 1920s was yet another decade of jarring social change in America, even as immigration was sharply reduced by Congress. For the first time, urban Americans outnumbered rural Americans, and city life affected family structure, employment, the role of women, and educational and cultural opportunities. New ideas—about marriage, child rearing, contraception, and women’s rights—gained currency. A younger generation, disillusioned by the outcome of the war, behaved in ways that confounded their elders. And, in addition, the emergence of radio, the movies, and spectator sports transformed leisure and popular culture. Rural Americans saw the urban culture as threatening; they were resistant to the changes society was undergoing. This resistance was played out in a number of ways: a rise of fundamentalism and the Scopes “Monkey Trial,” a new Ku Klux Klan, and Prohibition. And in rural and urban areas alike, immigrants and foreigners remained suspect, as illustrated by the travesty of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial. Such paranoia coupled with the carnage of World War I led intellectuals to abandon the hope for social change implicit in the work of the realists and progressives. Authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway formed a “lost generation” (many of them expatriates) and along with H. L. Mencken and Sinclair Lewis wrote as critics of society and of alienation. Likewise, blacks in the 1920s were disillusioned: the hope that their patriotism in World War I would lead to more opportunity was shattered. The 1920s did, however, see a flowering of black culture epitomized by the Harlem Renaissance. But in spite of this dissatisfaction, the “New Era” of the 1920s was very prosperous and good to many Americans. It was the first true age of the consumer. Meanwhile, the automobile made Americans even more mobile and became a symbol of freedom, prosperity, and individualism, and the airplane fascinated the public, especially after Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight. (Digital History)

The stock market crash of October 1929 brought the economic prosperity of the 1920s to a symbolic end. For the next ten years, the United States was mired in a deep economic depression. By 1933, unemployment had soared to 25 percent, up from 3.2 percent in 1929. Industrial production declined by 50 percent, international trade plunged 30 percent, and investment fell 98 percent.

Students frequently echo sentiments such as, “The government is too big,” or “The government should make welfare mothers pay for their own needs.” It seems that many citizens, high schoolers included, have begun to believe in reduced government combined with increased personal responsibility. Such sentiments suggest a move away from belief in the welfare state, created largely by the New Deal in the 1930s and reinforced by the “Great Society” legislation of the 1960s. In this unit—I want you all to be analyze and pay attention to the rise of the welfare state—try to figure out why the government felt a need to take care of its people–how this type of welfare state started so that you can then evaluate the current need of government programs, such as welfare, Medicare and Social Security, on the federal and state level.

The Depression transformed the American political and economic landscape. It produced a major political realignment, creating a coalition of big-city ethnics, African Americans, and Southern Democrats committed, to varying degrees, to interventionist government. It strengthened the federal presence in American life, spawning such innovations as national old-age pensions, unemployment compensation, aid to dependent children, public housing, federally-subsidized school lunches, insured bank depositions, the minimum wage, and stock market regulation. It fundamentally altered labor relations, producing a revived labor movement and a national labor policy protective of collective bargaining. It also transformed the farm economy by introducing federal price supports. (Digital History)

Monday’s Homework: Please read the following articles: David Leonhardt’s “Lesson From a Crisis: When Trust Vanishes, Worry,” (http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/featured_articles/20081006monday.html), and Jodie Allen’s “How a Different America Responded to the Great Depression.” (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1810/public-opinion-great-depression-compared-with-now)

Focus on the following ideas:
a. How does David Leonhardt use the story of Meyer Mishkin to illustrate the connection between the Great Depression and today’s economic uncertainty?
b. Underline and number the economic conditions and events that occurred between October 1929 and 1933.
c. Circle all of the references to the economic conditions and events of the last 13 months.
d. How does the issue of “trust” relate to both past and present economic conditions?
f. what is the role of the government? What should the role of the government be? e. Based on the evidence presented, do you think another Great Depression is possible? Why or why not?

Tuesday’s Homework: Use the below articles to fill out the worksheet comparing the Great Depression to today’s Recession and write a response (about 300 words) to the discussion question.

1. http://money.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/economy/recession_depression/
2. http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/25/news/economy/depression_comparisons/index.htm
3. http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2011/11/08/how-does-the-current-economic-recession-compare-to-the-great-depression/
4. Huffington Post: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/01/27/60822/congressional-budget-office-compares.html
5. http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2008-11-03-economy-depression-recession_N.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/weekinreview/23duhigg.html?_r=1

Monday, February 20: Emerging World Power and Economic Reform

Homework: America’s History pg 662-676 1877-1918

Tuesday, February 21: Teacher work day

Wednesday, February 22: CWRA

Homework: Chapt 22. pgs 685-701

Thursday, February 23: Joint. Edit Papers

Homework: Harlem Renaissance Group Project

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

Harlem: the Early Years

The textbook reading: 22. 1918-1929 Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance

Jazz in Time: the Roaring Twenties

Ken Burns: Jazz Intro

 Friday, February 24: Group Project In-Class Work/Papers

Homework: Group Project and Peer Evaluation of Group Work

Saturday, February 25: Presentations!

Homework: Optional Re-write

Monday, February 27: In-Class Group Research Pt 2: ROARING TWENTIES!

Homework: no homework

Tuesday, February 28: Finish Presentations/Conclude Roaring Twenties

“The Horatio Alger stories of ‘rags to riches’ were true for a few men, but mostly myth, and a useful myth for control” (Zinn, 254)

Imagine it’s 1888. New York City. The Lower East Side is the most densely populated place on Earth: Block after block of tenements house the working-poor immigrants of the city, including Italians, Irish, Germans, Jews, Czechs and Chinese.

Imagine the darkness of an unlit corridor in one of those tenements, a corridor that opens onto windowless rooms, 10 feet square, where entire families live and might even work — sewing, or rolling cigars.

Out of the darkness, a door opens. A man with a Danish accent leads a team of amateur photographers, who are accompanied by a policeman. They position their camera on a tripod and ignite a mixture of magnesium and potassium chlorate powder. A flash explodes, illuminating their squalor.

It would take the photographers a few minutes to reload that early ancestor of the flash bulb. And then, on to another tenement scene.

And despite the blackness of a room or an unlit street, a picture is taken, a document of urban poverty.

In the late 1880s, a New York City police reporter named Jacob Riis took pictures that way in lower Manhattan.  http://www.history.com/topics/jacob-riis/videos#super-cities-new-york-city Documenting the ‘slums’ of that era, Riis offers a lens into a world hard to imagine now–a world that was invisible to the millionaires lavishing in their new wealth at that time.

Monday, February 13: JOINT–Gatsby and Labor Movement/Immigration

Homework: Read Mary Antin and Frederick Douglas excerpt (~20 min)/Start Brainstorming for Paper (20 min). Paper Prompt!

Tuesday, February 14: Immigrants/Worker Movement

Homework: Populist Movement Packet

Wednesday, February 15: Populist Movement

Homework: Paper

Thursday, February 16: Tutorials on Paper

Homework: Paper

Friday, February 17: Paper during D period, Anarchism and Foreign Policy B period

Homework: PAPER!!! due Monday!

Friday, February 10: Turner Thesis and Introduction to new Industrial America

Homework: Johnson 531-533 (End at “it is calculated that the total direct aid…) and 550-569

Reading Questions to think about:

1. What was Andrew Carnegie’s American Dream?


2. What was Carnegie’s attitude about business?


3. How does Carnegie grow the steel industry?


4. What is Carnegie’s attitude about money?


5. “He was in no sense a robber baron.” Explain.


6. What movements did debtors back? Why?


7. What were Morgan’s two beliefs?


8. What is a trust? What did Morgan think of trusts?


9. According to Johnson, what is Morgan’s “greatest moment”?


10. Who was Samuel Gompers?


11. “That was all very well, but it meant that American labor tended to fall between two stools.” Explain.


12. How did Carnegie react to the Homestead strike?


13. What is Johnson’s opinion of Carnegie and Morgan?

Saturday, February 11: Gospel of Wealth/Robber Baron vs Captain of Industry

Homework: Please read Zinn, Chapter 11 “Robber Barons and Rebels”.

http://www.history.com/videos/andrew-carnegie-and-the-homestead-strike#history-of-the-holidays-the-story-of-labor-day

Monday, February 13: Robbers, Barons and Rebels

Homework: Paper (due Monday)

_____________________________________________

“In America there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is—that is what makes American what it is” –Gertrude Stein

“What is the chief end of man?–to get rich. In what way?–dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must.”

– Mark Twain-1871

Essential Questions for this Unit:

-What does it mean to be American? Do you have to have something, look a certain way, do something to be identified as an American?

-Does the perception of America change when the nation runs out of space?

-What is the Wild West, and how does the West contribute to the vision of what it means to be an American?

How does the image of the cowboy compare with Crevecoeur’s ‘new American man?’

Mark Twain dubbed the Gilded Age, illustrating an era that was glittering on the surface and corrupt underneath. In an era of forgettable presidents, the 19th century was a period of greed and guile: of rapacious Robber Barons, unscrupulous speculators, and corporate buccaneers, of shade business practices, scandal-plagued politics, and vulgar display. It is easy to caricature the Gilded Age as an era of corruption, conspicuous consumption, and unfettered capitalism. But it is more useful to think of this as modern America’s formative period, when an agrarian society of small producers was transformed into an urban society dominated by industrial corporations…an age to explain the emergence of modern America. (digitalhistory)

Tuesday February 7, 2012: Intro to Gilded Age and Inventing the Wild West

Homework: Johnson 517-531

Custer\’s Last Stand

Gilded Age Timeline

Number Overview of start to Gilded Age

Wednesday, February 8, 2012: JOINT–Artwork (Remington, Bierstadt, Leutze)

Homework: The Turner Thesis

Thursday: AP Seminar (Chapters 19-20)

Friday: Turner Thesis and Introduction to start to Industrial Revolution

Even though the military battles were over, what constitutes the end of the war? The union had been ‘saved,’ but without the South’s heart and readiness for social change, was the war really over? Or was the North just using the superior resources and manpower to monitor a region who was uncommitted to the same morals as the union?

To start, the period after the Civil War in many American textbooks is given a title (Reconstruction) and dates (1865-1877). But what was Reconstruction? What did it construct? What constitutes as the end of Reconstruction? We will explore the meaning of this term, the events, people, and social issues of the era, and how today we are arguably still re-building the United States.

With the end of the Civil War, declared an Illinois Congressman in 1865, the United States was a “new nation,” for the first time “wholly free.” But what is freedom? Is it the bare privilege of not being chained? Did freedom simply mean the absence of slavery, or did it imply other rights for the former slaves, and if so, which ones: equal civil rights, the vote, ownership of property? “During Reconstruction, freedom became a terrain of conflict, its substance open to different, often contradictory interpretations. Out of the conflict over the meaning of freedom arose new kinds of relations between black and white southerners, and a new definition of the rights of all Americans.” (522, Foner)

http://www.ericfoner.com/reviews/030401nytimes.html

Monday, January 30: JOINT

Homework: White Southerners in Postbellum South packet. Type up answers to questions 1-4.

Tuesday, January 31: ‘the Black Problem’

Homework: “Emergence of Jim Crow” Worksheet.

Wednesday, February 1: Jim Crow and Reconstruction Pt II

Homework:

Thursday, February 2: “Without Sanctuary”–violence in Reconstruction

Homework:

Was the Civil War inevitable? What caused the Civil War? Why did the South secede? Was it just a ‘slavery issue,’ or was it more complicated than that?

As Whitman articulates, the Civil War ‘proved Humanity and proved America.’ Many historians argue that “although the war had much to do with differing conceptions, North and South, about the meaning of the American experiment, the rights of the states and the interpretation of the federal Constitution, the overriding cause of the conflict was the existence of slavery in one part of the Union.” (Cook)

In the next very quick 2-3 weeks, we will study the philosophies, arguments, and economic factors that led to the secession of the South and the Civil War.

The following attachment sets the stage for the Civil War, recapping the United States’ national identity going into what historians call the antebellum period (pre-Civil War): A Robber and a Jailer: The Antebellum Republic

Here is an overview of the Civil War:Civil War Overview Wksheet

Syllabus for Week January 23-31: Test Saturday

Monday: In-class exercise: “Valley of Shadow.” Meet in library.

Homework: Dolly’s letters and 479-496 in Johnson

Tuesday: Battles Synopsis and End to war (Ken Burns viewing)  [check this interactive map of Gettysburg out!]

Homework: Legacy of Civil War packet due Friday

———————

Syllabus for Week January 9-13

Monday, January 9: Declaration of Independence to Civil War.

Homework Foner pg 448-461

Optional: an alternative and in depth look at the political debates between parties- Slavery Expansion and Political Parties: 1848-1852

Tuesday, January 10: Events that illustrate the National Politics and Sectional Tension

Homework Foner 461-466 and Mapping Sectionalism worksheet (Make sure to type answers to Questions 1 and 2 and be prepared to discuss the Discussion Question #1 tomorrow).

Wednesday, January 11: Rise of Southern Nationalism, John Brown and Lincoln

Homework: Foner 467-479

Thursday, January 12: Republican Party, Lincoln, Secession and Jeopardy

Homework for weekend! In Groups: Causes of the Civil War worksheet and either Manisha Sinha’s “Revolution or Counterrevolution?” (optional) or Davis’s “Speech to Confederate Congress.” In Groups discuss and individually outline the varying opinions and conclude with your own response to the following prompt: the Civil War was caused by the issue of slavery. Agree or disagree. You will hand in the outline Monday (to Ms. Plaehn) and will debate Tuesday. We will get into different groups on Tuesday based on opinion, so you must arrive to class with a side (*you do NOT have to have the same opinion as everyone in your original group. The original groups are meant for discussion and exploration). Causes of Civil War prompt

Monday, January 16: Shots Fired! Fort Sumter and Bull Run with Guest Lecturer Helen Plaehn.**Meet in her classroom and hand in outlines from weekend

Homework: Lee’s letters to Jefferson Davis and Harrison’s Landing Letter (and answer questions attached) Reading Questions on Lee’s letters

Tuesday, January 17: DEBATE: Was the Civil War caused by the issue of slavery? Yes or no.

Homework: Lincoln’s Views on Slavery packet Lee’s letters to Jefferson Davis and Harrison’s Landing Letter (and answer questions attached) Reading Questions on Lee’s letters

Wednesday, January 18: JOINT (Lincoln)

Homework: Read Lincoln’s Views on Slavery Packet

Friday, January 20: Civil Rights Day

Saturday, January 21: Lincoln’s Views on Slavery

Homework: No Homework–art trip!

For anyone who is interested–check out this speech!  Dad’s InstallationSpeech

Introduction to Civil War

Cook’s first chapter: A Robber and a Jailer: The Antebellum Republic

 For Friday, November 11: Please read pp. 78-94 in Remini’s A Short History of the United States and answer the below questions:

1. What was the “American System”?
2. “It was a wholly new approach to governmental operations in that the central government, not the states, was expected to provide the kind of leadership that would advance the interests of the entire nation.” Please explain.
3. What did John Quincy Adams accomplish as Secretary of State?
4. How did Andrew Jackson’s actions lead to the acquisition of Florida?
5. What was the Missouri Compromise of 1820? Who worked this agreement out?
6. What was the Monroe Doctrine?
7. How does the rise of the working class affect politics?
8. Why was the Election of 1824 problematic? What was the “corrupt bargain”?
9. What marked the end of the “Era of Good Feelings”?
10. How did the issue of tariffs cause regional tensions?
11. What was the Tariff of Abominations? The “Exposition and Protest”? How does Calhoun’s document relate to Madison’s “Virginia Resolution” and Jefferson’s “Kentucky Resolution”?
12. Who wins the Election of 1828?

** RESEARCH NOTES DUE NOVEMBER 7TH, WORKING THESIS DUE NOVEMBER 8TH

November 3^rd: Review from Pre-Fall Break

Homework: “Republican Mothers” packet

Friday, November 4^th: Republican Mothers

Homework: Thomas Jefferson’s Agrarian Vision and Research for Integrated paper

Saturday, November 5^th: Thomas Jefferson

Homework: Research for Integrated Paper and Johnson pg 241-244, 251-257.

_________________________________________________________

Week Oct 10-14

Monday Oct 10: Declaration of Independence

Homework: Chapt 6 and 7 in Morgan’s Birth of the Republic

Reading Questions for Morgan chapt 6-7

Tuesday Oct 11: Paper due. Debate Prompt! bring Zinn, Morgan, American Lit…

Homework: Chapt 8 and 9 in Morgan

Reading Questions for Morgan Chapt 8-9

Wednesday Oct 12: Articles of Confederation/ Review 6-9 Chapters

Homework: Read the Constitution and fill out reading questions

Thursday Oct 13: Constitution

Homework: Oral Topic and Slavery packet: what came first?

Friday Oct 14: Oral Topics due. Review Morgan, ideas of the time (Constitution, Articles, Declaration)

Homework: Textbook Analysis worksheet

Week Oct 3-8

Wednesday Oct 5: Joint–Franklin day. Homework: “Common Sense” excerpt

Thursday Oct 6: First Half Common Sense/ Second Half AP Homework: Paper

Friday Oct 7: Loyalist Exercise and Zinn Chapter 4 Homework: full rough draft due Sat

Sat Oct 8: Review the week and peer edit papers/shape note singing Homework: Continue paper and ‘declaration of independence first draft’

Monday Oct 10: Declaration of Independence

Tuesday Oct 11: Paper due

Syllabus Week 1

Syllabus Week 2-3

Syllabus Week 3 REVISED

American Studies emphasizes an understanding of the major themes in American history and literature (including social, political, economic, intellectual, cultural, and artistic movements) that developed from the first permanent settlement of Jamestown in 1607 to the modern era. How and why has the concept of “American-ness” been defined, negotiated, and changed over the course of American history? Students will be pursuing an understanding of Crevecoeur’s essential question: “What, then, is the American, this new man [sic]?”  There will be a significant focus on what it means to be “an American,” the American Dream, and the notion of American exceptionalism as examined in the Puritan image of the City on a Hill.  Other themes, including the individual versus society and Nature, will be examined throughout the year. Integrated units will include the Colonial/Revolutionary eras, transcendentalism, the Civil War, and the Jazz Age. Through history readings, primary and secondary sources, American literature, art, and music, students will understand the “big picture” that is American Studies, while concurrently understanding the importance of chronology and context.

Syllabus Week 1