Grade 11-12
5 Credits
This is a course that is designed to provide students with a college-level experience and to prepare them for the AP U.S. History Exam. An emphasis is placed on interpreting documents, mastering a significant body of information, and writing critical essays. Topics include life and thought in colonial America, the American revolutionary era, constitutional development, Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy, the rise of the middle class and reform movements during the antebellum period, territorial expansion and Manifest Destiny. Other topics include the Civil War and Reconstruction, immigration, industrialism, Populism, Progressivism, World War I, the Jazz Age, the Great Depression, the New Deal, World War I, the Jazz Age, the Great Depression, the New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, the post-Cold War era, and the United States at the beginning of the twenty-first century.The themes will include discussions of American diversity, the development of a unique American identity, the evolution of American culture, demographic changes over the course of America’s history, economic trends and transformations, environmental issues, the development of political institutions and the components of citizenship, social reform movements, the role of religion in the making of the United States and its impact in a multicultural society, the history of slavery and its legacies in this hemisphere, war and diplomacy, and finally, the place of the United States in an increasingly global arena.
Prerequisite: US History Honors I and/or II and social studies teacher recommendation
