US History 10 Honors
Mrs. Dawn Suiter
Room 208
Textbook: The American Pageant, 12th Edition
Link to Chapter Quizzes
Standards Addressed in Course
Overview of course:
This class is, essentially, the first half of the AP U.S. History class. It is designed to foster the analytic skills and factual knowledge necessary to deal critically with the problems and materials in U.S. history. The AP program prepares students for intermediate and advanced college courses by making demands on them equivalent to those made by full-year introductory college courses. Students should learn to assess historical materials--their relevance to a given interpretive problem, reliability, and importance--and to weigh the evidence and interpretations presented in historical scholarship. An AP U.S. History course should thus develop the skills necessary to arrive at conclusions on the basis of an informed judgment and to present reasons and evidence clearly and persuasively in essay format (source: The College Board, 2007).
And now, let's get down to business...
Welcome to class! This week we will begin by assigning textbooks, looking at classroom procedure and expectations, and getting to know each other. We have a lot of material to cover this year so you will need to begin summarizing Chapter 1. I will check for completion on Thursday.
Mrs. Dawn Suiter
Room 208
Textbook: The American Pageant, 12th Edition
Link to Chapter Quizzes
Standards Addressed in Course
Overview of course:
This class is, essentially, the first half of the AP U.S. History class. It is designed to foster the analytic skills and factual knowledge necessary to deal critically with the problems and materials in U.S. history. The AP program prepares students for intermediate and advanced college courses by making demands on them equivalent to those made by full-year introductory college courses. Students should learn to assess historical materials--their relevance to a given interpretive problem, reliability, and importance--and to weigh the evidence and interpretations presented in historical scholarship. An AP U.S. History course should thus develop the skills necessary to arrive at conclusions on the basis of an informed judgment and to present reasons and evidence clearly and persuasively in essay format (source: The College Board, 2007).
And now, let's get down to business...
Welcome to class! This week we will begin by assigning textbooks, looking at classroom procedure and expectations, and getting to know each other. We have a lot of material to cover this year so you will need to begin summarizing Chapter 1. I will check for completion on Thursday.
US HISTORY 10 Honors
Instructions: You are to summarize each paragraph in one bullet as demonstrated below. If your depth of knowledge is weak and you need supporting details, then you may include details under the bullets. Do NOT, however, rewrite the book. Be sure to skip a line when you go to another topic as demonstrated/stated below.
CHAPTER 1: New World Beginnings (Chapter # and title on top line of first page)
——-skip a line—–
1. The Shaping of North America (first topic in the chapter)
*single supercontinent broke apart 225M yrs ago (composite statement that
summarizes the first paragraph)
*mountain ranges formed by shifting/folding of earth’s crust— before formation of various continents—350M yrs ago. (composite statement that summarizes second paragraph)
*10M yrs ago – North America was shaped (summarizes third paragraph)
* (summarize fourth paragraph)
* (summarize fifth paragraph)
——skip a line between the topics—-it helps with visualization of material—–
2. Peopling the Americas
*(summarize the first paragraph)
*(summarize the second paragraph)
*(summarize the third paragraph)
——skip a line——-
3. The Earliest Americans
*(summarize the first paragraph)
*(summarize the second paragraph)
*(summarize the third paragraph)
*(summarize the fourth paragraph)
*(summarize the fifth paragraph)
*(summarize the sixth paragraph)
*(summarize the seventh paragraph)
*(summarize the eighth paragraph)
*(summarize the ninth paragraph)
Follow this procedure for the remainder of the topics in Chapter 1. Staple the Chapter notes together. Now, start on a new page with the notes for Chapter 2. Follow this procedure for Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6. Some chapters include a section entitled “Makers
of America”, MOA, on blue pages. Include MOAs in your notes for the chapter.
Critical Thinking/Reading Questions: These questions require you to apply the information that you have been reading and on which you have been making notes. This requires you to THINK about what you’ve read and written. You will have to synthesize a response based on what you have read as well as prior knowledge on the material. You are encouraged to write formal answers to each of the questions; however, this is not required.
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS UNIT I: The Colonial Era—Chapters 1-6
Chapter 1
How did the Indian societies of South and North America differ from European societies at the time the two came into contact? In what ways did Indians retain a “world view” different from that of the Europeans?
What role did disease and forced labor, including slavery, play in the early settlement of America? Is the view of the Spanish and Portuguese as especially harsh conquerors and exploiters valid—or is this image just another version of the English “black legend” concerning the Spanish role in the Americas?
Are the differences between Latin America and North America due primarily to the differences between the respective Indian societies that existed in the two places, or to the disparity between Spanish and English culture? What would have happened if the English had conquered densely settled Mexico and Peru, and
the Spanish had settled more thinly populated North America?
MAKERS OF AMERICA (MOA) Should the Spanish conquistadors be especially blamed for the cruelties and deaths, including those by disease, inflicted on the original Indian populations of the Americas? Is it possible to make such criticisms without falling into the traditional English fallacies of the “black legend”?
MOA: What is the long-term significance for Latin America of the “immortality” achieved by the conquistadors through intermarriage with Indian women?
Chapter 2
What did England and the English settlers really want from colonization? National glory? Wealth? Adventure? A solution to social tensions? New sources of goods and trade? Did they get what they wanted?
Were the English colonizers crueler or more tolerant than the Spanish
conquistadors? Why did the Spanish tend to settle and intermarry with the Indian population, whereas the English either killed the Indians, drove them out, or confined them to separate territories? How did this pattern of interaction affect both white and Indian societies?
Was the development of African slavery in the North American colonies inevitable? Consider that it never developed in some other colonial areas, for example, Mexico and New France. How would the North American colonies have been different without slavery?
How did the reliance on plantation agriculture affect the southern colonies? Were their societies relatively “loose” because they were primarily rural, or because they tended to rely on forced labor systems?
MOA: It is sometimes suggested that the Iroquois Confederacy may have provided a model for the union of states into the United States of America. What similarities and differences are there between the two confederations?
MOA: What role did the Iroquois play in the politics and warfare of British North America? Was the decision of most Iroquois to side with the British in the Revolutionary War the most decisive moment in their history? Why or why not?
Chapter 3
Did the Puritans really come to America seeking religious freedom? How did they reconcile their own religious dissent from the Church of England with their persecution of dissenters like Hutchinson and Williams? Does their outlook make them hypocrites?
How were government and religion, or church and state, related in New England and the middle colonies? How does the colonial view of these matters compare with more recent understandings?
How does the founding of the New England colonies compare with the origin of the middle colonies? In what ways were New England and the middle colonies each like the South and in what ways were they different?
In what ways were the middle colonies more “open” and diverse than New England? In what ways were they less democratic?
MOA: In what areas of their lives did the Puritans seem to draw on their old local English traditions, and in what areas did they draw on their religion? In what ways did the two conflict, and in what ways did they support one another?
MOA: How does this material, “Makers of America: the Puritans”, fit with the idea of America as a “new world” different from England? Was there a fundamental difference between those Englishmen who essentially tried to re-create their old way of life and those who saw life in America as a radical departure? What tensions might result between these two groups?
Chapter 4
Why was family life in New England so different from family life in the South?
Why did slavery grow to be such an important institution in colonial America? What were the effects of slavery on the Africans who were brought to the New World?
What was attractive and unattractive about the closely knit New England way of life?
Were the Salem witch trials a peculiar, aberrant moment in an age of superstition, or did they reflect common human psychological and social anxieties that could appear in any age? How harshly should those who prosecuted the “witches” be condemned?
MOA: How did African-Americans work to adapt their native traditions under the conditions of New World slavery? What kinds of traditions were most successfully preserved?
MOA: What enabled African-Americans in the Chesapeake region to develop societies where, unusual for the history of slavery, the population reproduced and grew through natural increase? What does this suggest about the nature of families under slavery? How might these circumstances have affected the
relationship between slaves and slaveholders?
Chapter 5
How democratic was colonial American society? Why was it apparently becoming less equal?
How were the various occupations and activities of colonial America related to the nature of the economy? Why were occupations like lawyer, printer, and artisan taking on greater importance?
What were the causes and effects of the Great Awakening? How did such an intense religious revival affect those who experienced “conversion” as well as those who did not? How did the Awakening help to create a sense of shared American identity?
In what ways was colonial life attractive, and in what ways would it seem tedious and dull to the average twenty-first-century American? How were the educational, cultural, and leisured sides of colonial life affected by the basic nature of the economy?
MOA: What characteristics did the Scots-Irish develop from their history before arriving in America? How did their American experience relate to that earlier history?
MOA: Why were the Scots-Irish likely to be especially fervent patriots in the American Revolution? What issues might separate them from other American revolutionists, like the New Englanders or the Virginia planters?
Chapter 6
How did the French defeat/English victory in the French and Indian War create conditions for a growing conflict between Britain and her American colonies?
Why was the French empire ultimately so much less successful than either the Spanish or the British empires?
If France instead of Britain had won the “duel for North America,” would the thirteen colonies ever have become independent of Britain, or would they have been forced to stay within the empire for protection against France? Would Detroit, St. Louis and New Orleans now be cities in “Canada” rather than in theUnited States?
How did the treatment of Americans by British officers and military during the war contribute to simmering resentment against the “mother country”? Do the attitudes and behavior of the colonists during the war suggest that Americans felt less real patriotic loyalty to Britain and that the ties had become largely practical ones?
Should the French and Indian War be considered one of the major causes of the American Revolution? Why or why not?
MOA: How did the eighteenth-century British conquest of New France permanently affect the French experience in America?
MOA: What differences and similarities exist between the two main
concentrations of Franco-Americans: the Cajuns of Louisiana and the migrants from Quebec in New England?
