Social Studies
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About Mr. Krampitz

I’ve been at Lewis Mills since 2004. I teach Global Studies 10 and Advanced Placement U.S. History. I graduated from the University of Connecticut with a major in history, and I have a master’s degree in education from the University of New Haven.

Syllabus

Advanced Placement U.S. History

 

Course Purpose:

 

The goal of this course is to have students become familiar with U.S. History: the ideas, trends, and conflicts, and develop the Social Studies skills of inquiry, research, evaluation, analysis and synthesis so that you can apply the information in a number of logical ways.  Of course, the other goal is to prepare for the AP examination you will be taking in May.

 

Course format:

 

At the end of each week, students will receive an assignment sheet for the next week’s classes. Most weeks, students will be expected to read and outline a chapter in the textbook, as well as prepare an answer for one of the guiding questions for the chapter to be discussed in class. There will be multiple-choice quizzes on the reading. In addition, most weeks students will be asked to write an essay—either a free response essay or a Document Based Question. Smaller homework assignments will be given on a daily basis. There will be a midterm and final exam modeled on the AP test, with multiple choice questions, a DBQ, and free response essays.

 

Grading:

 

Grading is on a points-based system. The weekly chapter outlines are worth 10 points; chapter quizzes are worth 40 points; essays are worth 100 points. The daily homework and classwork assignments have varying point values—usually 10-25 points. The midterm and final exams are both worth 10% of the final grade. 

Required Text:

Nash, et al., The American People, 3rd edition. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.

Supplementary Text:

Newman, John J. and John M. Schmalbach. United States History: Preparing for the Advanced

Placement Examination. New York: Amsco School Publications, 1998.

Course Outline:

UNIT 1: Beginnings to 1763 (2 weeks)

Readings: The American People Chapters 1-4

Themes:

  1. The meeting of three worlds in the Americas and the culture that resulted
  2. Relationship between the societies of the American colonies and Europe

Content:

  • Native American life
  • Spanish, English, French exploration
  • Immigration to colonial America
  • Differences between Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies (Religion, economy, founding, immigration, etc.)
  • Introduction of slavery, the middle passage
  • The Enlightenment and the Great Awakening
  • Anglo-French rivalry and Seven Years’ War

Major Assignments and Activities:

  • Chapter outlines and quizzes
  • Discussion: How would American history have been different had the Americas been “discovered” 200 years earlier? 200 years later?
  • Essay: To what extent was the meeting of American, African and European culture diiferent in the New England vs. the Chesapeake colonies
  • Document analysis: New England vs. the Chesapeake (using primary sources to compare and contrast society and culture in these two different regions)
  • Activity: Democracy in colonial Wethersfield (using primary sources describing various aspects of colonial life)
  • Discussion: Is America experiencing a new Great Awakening? (sources: sermons from the Great Awakening, i.e. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, and recent news articles about religious influence in America

UNIT 2: The New Nation: American Revolution, Constitution and the Early Republic (4 weeks)

Readings: The American People Chapters 5-9

Themes:

  1. The role of British action and Enlightenment ideology in encouraging independence.
  2. The transformation of society before, during and after the Revolution.
  3. The difficulties faced by the new American government, and the influence of that early government on future American society.

Content:

  •        Imperial Reorganization of 1763
  •        Philosophy of Revolution
  •        Loyalists
  •        The War
  •        Articles of Confederation—strengths and weakness
  •        Constitutional Convention—conflicts and compromises
  •      Ratification debate—Federalists and Anti-federalists
  •        Bill of Rights
  •        Washington’s presidency and Adams’ presidency
  •        Beginnings of Political Parties—Jefferson and Hamilton

 

Major assignments and activities:

  • Chapter outlines and quizzes
  • Timeline: Buildup to Revolution
  • Essay: To what extent was American independence a product of Enlightenment philosophy, and to what extent was it a product of British policy?
  • Creating a Revolutionary resume: students will create a resume for a figure from the American Revolution in preparation for an in-class job interview.
  • DBQ: Impact of the American Revolution
  • Mock Constitutional Convention (students do research to represent the twelve states present at the convention)
  • Discussion: the Bill of Rights in the War on Terror
  • Debate: Hamilton vs. Jefferson (using their writings as a primary source)
  • Essay: In what ways was the Farewell Address a reaction to the events of  Washington’s presidency, and how well have we followed its advice since?
  • Timeline: The early republic
  • Essay: Did 24 years of Democratic-Republic rule fulfill the promises made in Jefferson’s inaugural address?

UNIT THREE: Making the New Nation: Westward Expansion and Jacksonian Democracy (4 weeks)

Readings: The American People, Chapters 10-13

Themes:

  1. The growing democratization of American politics and society.
  2. The different paths of development followed in the North, South and West
  3. The costs and benefits of expansion across the continent.

Content:

  • Jefferson’s presidency
  • Louisiana Purchase-- Lewis and Clarke
  • Supreme Court Decisions: Marbury v. Madison, McCulloch v. Maryland
  • War of 1812
  • Settlement of the West
  • Sectionalism
  • “Age of the common man”
  • Jacksonian vs. Jeffersonian democracy
  • Nullification Battle and the Bank of the U.S.
  • Manifest Destiny
  • Mexican War
  • Creating American Culture
  • Reform Movements

Major Assignments and Activities:

  • Chapter outlines and quizzes
  • Activity: Development of nationalism in American art and literature. Students will examine paintings from the Hudson River school and read a short selection by either Washington Irving or James Fenimore Cooper. They then have to explain how this art reflected growing American nationalism.
  • Essay: How did American society and culture respond to the economic changes of 1820-1850?
  • Document analysis: The Lowell system
  • DBQ: Impact of slavery on American culture
  • Research assignment on a reformer. Each student will research a prominent figure from one of the reform movements of the era-- abolitionism, women’s rights, temperance, etc.—and create a presentation for the class.
  • Essay: How did political personalities, states’ rights and economic issues contribute to the emergence of the second party system?
  • Debate: Was Jacksonian democracy actually democratic?
  • Document analysis: Trail of Tears
  • Essay: Was Manifest Destiny a benevolent movement or an expression of imperialism?
  • Reading: Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” 

UNIT FOUR: Slavery, Civil War and Reconstruction (3 weeks)

Readings; The American People, Chapters 14-16

Themes:

  1. The escalation of sectional tensions during the 1850s.
  2. The role of ideology in the Civil War
  3. The achievements of Reconstruction and the reasons for its failure 

Content:

  •        Slavery and Politics
  •        Compromises: Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1833, Compromise of 1850
  •        Slavery—Northern and Southern complicity
  •        Dred Scott Decision
  •        Events of the 1850s—Kansas-Nebraska, Bleeding Kansas, Lincoln-Douglas, John Brown, etc.
  •        Causes of Civil War
  •      Northern and Southern advantages and strategies in the war
  •        Abolition of slavery
  •        Achievements of Reconstruction—and why they didn’t last
  •        Carpetbaggers, Scalawags, and the “Gone with the Wind” interpretation of Reconstruction
  •  

Major Assignments and Activities:

  • Chapter outlines and quizzes
  • Case analysis: Dred Scott
  • Class debate: Lincoln vs. Douglas (using transcripts of the actual debates as primary sources)
  • Timeline: build-up to war
  • Essay: Was the Civil War inevitable?
  • Research activity: Civil War battles. Students will do research to create a map and brief description of a civil war battle to be presented to the class.
  • Document Analysis: Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural
  • Discussion: changing interpretations of Reconstruction (what is wrong with Gone with the Wind?, and how have historians’ interpretation of Reconstruction changed over time?)
  • Create a documentary about or interview with a person involved in Reconstruction to be presented to the class

UNIT FIVE: Industrialization, Immigration and the Gilded Age (3 weeks)

Readings; The American People, Chapters 17-19 

Themes:

  1. The effects of immigration on American society and culture.
  2. The growing divide between capital and labor in industrial America
  3. The role of government in the new economy 

Content:

  • Industrialization and Immigration—causes and effects
  • Costs and Benefits of Industrialization
  • Politics in the Gilded Age
  • Robber Barons, Social Darwinism and the Gospel of Wealth
  • New business strategies—vertical and horizontal integration
  • Growth of unions
  • The new immigrants
  • Urbanization and Urban problems
  • Railroads
  • Problems of the farmers         
  • Populist Party and the election of 1892
  • End of the frontier

Major Assignments and Activities:

  • Chapter outlines and quizzes
  • Essay: Post-war Indian policy compared to Jackson’s Great Removal
  • DBQ: The populist movement
  • Debate: Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois (using their writings as primary sources)
  • Writing a letter. Use primary sources describing immigrant life in the United States to help write a letter from the point of view of a newly-arrived immigrant writing to family or friends back home.
  • Essay: Analyze clashes between labor and capital in the late 19th century
  • Activity: Students will be assigned groups. Each group will represent workers in a certain industry, and the students will have to decide whether or not to join a union, and what type of union they should join.
  • Document analysis: social Darwinism
  • Interpreting political cartoons of the Gilded Age
  • Video excerpts: Gangs of New York as an examination of political machines

UNIT SIX: World Leader Emerging: Imperialism, Progressivism and WWI (3 weeks)

Readings: The American People, Chapters 20-22

Themes:

  1. Expansion of U.S. power around the world
  2. Expansion of the role of government in promoting domestic reform

Content:

  • Progressive political, economic and social reforms
  • Muckrakers
  • Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson: the Progressive presidents
  • Black America during the progressive age
  • U.S. Imperialism—Hawaii, the Philippines, Latin America
  • The Spanish American War
  • World War I—reasons for entering
  • Wilson’s 14 Points
  • The home front during WWI
  • First Red Scare

Major Assignments and Activities:

  • Chapter outlines and quizzes
  • Mock Trial: Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (Using documents from the actual trial as primary sources, students will recreate the trial of the owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, presenting evidence for both the prosecution and the defense.)
  • Reading: How the Other Half Lives
  • Activity: Comparing the progressive presidents
  • DBQ: Annexation of Hawaii
  • Essay: Compare American foreign policy from 1890-1910 to foreign policy today.
  • Debate: Was Theodore Roosevelt an imperialist?
  • Activity: Analyzing and creating World War I Propaganda
  • Video: Shell Shock
  • Analysis: The 14 Points and the Treaty of Versailles—students will use documents from the time to argue whether or not the Treaty of Versailles was an effective response to the problems that led to WWI

 

UNIT SEVEN: The 1920s, the Great Depression and WWII (3 weeks)

Readings: The American People, Chapters 23-25

  1. Changing economic conditions in America
  2. The conflict between tradition and change in modern America
  3. The debate over the role government should play in the economy and society
  4. The debate over the role America should play in the rest of the world before and during WWII

 

Content: 

  • The economy during the 1920s—big business, advertising, the automobile
  • The Harlem Renaissance
  • Tradition vs. Change: the Scopes Trial
  • Immigration and Nativism
  • Causes of the Depression
  • Hoover’s response to the Depression
  • FDR and the New Deal
  • Diplomacy in the 1930s and the buildup to WWII
  • Isolationism and “America First”
  • War in Europe
  • War in the Pacific

Major Assignments and Activities:

  • Chapter outlines and quizzes
  • Case study: Sacco and Vanzetti
  • Document analysis: Immigration law of 1924
  • Research on a major figure from the 1920s. Students will conduct research on a major artist or cultural figure from the 1920s, to be presented to the class.
  • Discussion: Compare prohibition to the War on Drugs (using primary sources from both time periods)
  • Analysis: Causes of the Great Depression, from different historical viewpoints
  • DBQ: Evaluate the effectiveness and impact of the New Deal
  • Reading: criticism of the New Deal from the right (Hoover) and the left (the Communist Party)
  • Timeline: Buildup to WWII
  • Debate: Should the U.S. get involved in WWII—use speeches from Lindbergh and Roosevelt for support
  • Students will analyze WWII political cartoons, and then create cartoons of their own
  • Activity: Students will research and then recreate the Yalta conference, working in three groups representing the three great powers.
  • Debate: Should the U.S. have used atomic weapons against Japan? Use primary sources to support your argument.

UNIT EIGHT: Postwar America: Spread of Democracy at Home and Abroad (5 weeks)

Readings: The American People, Chapters 26-30

 

Themes:

  1. The impact of U.S. involvement in the Cold War on foreign and domestic policy
  2. The expansion civil rights in the postwar era
  3. The rise of the liberal state and the conservative reaction
  4. Contemporary issues in American society

 

Content:

 

  •        Containment Policy
  •        The Korean War
  •        McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare
  •        Truman’s domestic policy: The Fair Deal
  •        The Civil Rights Movement: Brown v. Board of Education, Montgomery bus boycott, leadership of Martin Luther King
  •        1950s: Consumer culture, the new suburbs, consensus vs. conformity
  •        John Kennedy’s  New Frontier
  •        Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society
  •        Civil Rights in the 1960s
  •        Black Power movement
  •        The Vietnam War
  •        Election of 1968
  •        Nixon’s foreign policy
  •        Watergate
  •        Ford and Carter presidencies
  •        Reagan and the New Right
  •        The 1990s
  •        Current issues: threat of terrorism, etc.

 Major Assignments and Activities:

  • Chapter outlines and quizzes
  • Timeline: The Cold War
  • Essay: Explain the appeal of McCarthyism
  • Reading: Origins of the Cold War
  • Video: The Century; The 1950s
  • Essay: “What was good for General Motors was good for America, and vice versa.” Evaluate the quote and compare to today.
  • Document reading: Levittown
  • Activity: advice for a 1950s wife
  • Case analysis: Brown vs. the Board of Education
  • Discussion: role of religion in the civil rights movement (using speeches and writings by King and others as primary sources)
  • Activity: analyzing the black power movement using primary sources
  • Essay: Was Lyndon Johnson a great president?
  • Timeline of the Vietnam War
  • Reading: The Things They Carried
  • Video: All the President’s Men
  • Activity: Reaganomics, then and today—use sources to determine if supply-side economics works as advertised
  • Essay: Does Reagan deserve credit for “winning the Cold War”?
  • Discussion: How well did the U.S. handle its role as the world’s lone superpower in the 1990s?
  • Document analysis: the Clinton impeachment
  • Timeline: the 1990s
  • Discussion: Could the U.S. have been better prepared for the attacks of 9/11?
  • DBQ: The Patriot Act and the War on Terror

UNIT NINE: Review for the Advanced Placement Test (2 weeks)

  • Create review outlines
  • Take practice tests
  • Review practice DBQ and free response essays

        

Global Studies 10

Course Expectations

 

Instructor: Mr. Krampitz

 

Class Rules

 

1.    Respect yourself and others

 

2.    When the bell rings students will be in their seats

 

3.    Use appropriate language

 

4.    Follow directions

 

5.    Raise your hand to talk

 

6.    Listen

 

7.    I expect your best effort

 

 

Class Materials (required daily)

 

1.    Separate three-ring binder for Global Studies

 

2.    Pen or pencil

 

3.    Textbook (we won’t use the book every day, but you need to bring it every day)

 

Grading

 

1.    The student’s grade is based on homework, classwork, quizzes, tests and essays.

 

2.    Homework counts for 10% of the final grade.

 

3.    Topic quizzes, unit tests, essays, in-class work and projects: 90% of the grade.

 

4.    Each semester exam is 20% of the semester grade.


Homework Expectations

 

Homework is given on a daily basis and focuses on data collection. The emphasis is reading comprehension, vocabulary development, and basic analytical skills. Students are expected to develop and practice good study habits by means of preparing on a nightly basis for class by either completing homework or reviewing class materials.

 

 

 

Course Outline

 

 

I.         The Middle East (Text: Globe edition of The Middle East)

                                              i.     Geography

                                            ii.     Home of the three religions

                                          iii.     Development and conflict in Islamic society

1.    Traditional vs. Modern society

2.    Fundamentalism: Iran and Afghanistan

3.    Arab-Israeli conflict

4.    Conflict in Iraq

 

II.       Europe (Text: Globe edition of Europe)

                                              i.     Geography

                                            ii.     Medieval society’s transformation to modern society

                                          iii.     The development of democracy in Britain and France

                                          iv.     The industrial revolution

                                            v.     Nationalism and the world wars

 

If you ever have any questions or concerns, please come and see me, or you can email me anytime at krampitzj@region10ct.org.