American History [Honors] (1st semester)

Course Description

In American History, students will study the framework of cultural, political, and social issues that have touched and impacted American society. Focusing on reading as an historian, students will begin with the necessary skills needed for reading primary and secondary resources. They will incorporate these skills as they delve into the course material. Picking up with Reconstruction and concluding with globalization in the Twenty-First Century, students will uncover how cooperation, innovation, and spirit have shaped the United States into the country it is today.

Course Breakdown

• Reading like a historian
• Reconstruction
• Civil rights
• Second Industrial Revolution
• Business and government
• Immigration
• Social and political reform Immigration
• Westward expansion and Native Americans
• Political and economic reforms
• Rise of labor unions
• Women's rights
• Spanish-American War
• Causes and implications of World War I

Course Goals

1. Analyze primary and secondary sources and identify cause-and-effect relationships related to specific historical events and eras.
2. Analyze the Reconstruction Era in terms of race relations, government reunification, and social changes in the United States.
3. Explain the development of the American economy after the Civil War.
4. Compare and contrast various social reform movements in the United States during the late 1800s. Relate the phenomenon of westward expansion to conflict between the United States government and Native American tribes.
5. Summarize the hardships faced by farmers and ranchers in the western territories during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
6. Assess the impact of imperialism on American politics and culture.
7. Analyze the political, social, and technological causes and effects of World War I from an American perspective.