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Final Assessment Assignment for Wisconsin Collaborative
John Pellowski, high school teacher
Revision of America: Pathways to the Present, Prentice Hall, 2003. 29
Chapters.
Black River Falls High School has Block Scheduling. A U.S. History
course would run
18 weeks and 15 Units. I included resources received from the "Teaching
American
History" grant.
Unit 1: Contact and Clash of Cultures.
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Rationale: To acquire a comprehension of diverse cultures and shared
humanity (HoM
#4). To provide an economic context for exploration and to show that
Native cultures
were not passive, but had great influence on the Old World and the New
World societies
that emerged.
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Resources: Indian Givers, The Columbian Exchange, Zinn's chapter on
Columbus.
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Essay Question: 'To what extent was the contact between the Old World
and New
World a Discovery, a Conquest, or an Exchange?"
Unit 2: New Battlegrounds for Old World Powers.
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Rationale: To understand the relationship between geography and history
as a context
for events (HoM #12). To include local history and especially local
Native American
history (Bras has an 18% Native population).
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Resources: Indian Nations of Wisconsin, Loew; Wisconsin Indians, Lurie,.
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Essay Question:
'To what extent was the French and Indian War the real 1stWorld War?"
Unit 3: Forming the New Nation.
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Rationale: To understand the significance of the past to their own
lives, both private and
public, and to their society (HoM #1).To examine the uniqueness of the
American
government and society and to set the background for its continuing
flaws in racism and
economic injustice.
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Resources: The Story of American Freedom, Foner. Radicalism of the
American Revolution. Wood. Liberty's Daughters, Norton; Red. White, &
Black, Nash.
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Essay Question: "To what extent was the American Revolution a radical
change and
not a conservative defense of the status quo?"
Unit 4: The Early National Period.
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Rationale: To appreciate the often tentative nature of judgments about
the past, and
thereby avoid the temptation to seize upon particular 'lessons' of
history as a cure for
present ills (HoM #9).
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Resources: Democracy in America, Voices on the River.
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Essay Question: "Describe the new nation that was forming in the first
half of the 19th
century by political, economic, and social themes."
Unit 5: America at War with itself and rebuilding itself.
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Rationale: To understand the significance of the past to their own
lives, both private
and public, and to their society (HoM #1)
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Resources: Sacred Ground: Americans and Their Battlefields.
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Essay Question: "How does America choose to remember the Civil War and
how did it
use these images to rebuild the nation?"
Unit 6: The Expansion of American Industry, 1850-1900.
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Rationale: To recognize the importance of individuals who have made a
difference in
history, and the significance of personal character for both good and
ill (HoM #10).
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Resources: State of the Union.
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Essay Question: 'Were they (Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Morgan)
Robber
Barons or Captains of Industry?"
Unit 7: Immigration, Urbanization, & Expansion, 1860-1900.
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Rationale: To prepare to live with uncertainties and exasperating, even
perilous,
unfinished business, realizing that not all problems have solutions (HoM
# &). To place
the growth of the United States into a modern society in a social,
economic, and political
framework.
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Resources: Harvest of Empire, Voices on the River
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Essay Question: "How has the American people utilized the physical
resources
available to build America economically?"
Unit 8: The Progressive Reform Era, 1890-1920.
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Rationale: To appreciate the often tentative nature of judgments about
the past, and
thereby avoid the temptation to seize upon particular 'lessons' of
history as a cure for
present ills (HoM #9).
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Resources: film: Modem Times. Progressivism.
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Essay Question: "To what extent have the advent of the Modem Era
improved the lives
of Americans, and to what extent did it harm the quality of life?"
Unit 9: World War I & Postwar Social Change, 1914-1929.
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Rationale: To understand how things happen and how things change, how
human
intentions matter, but also how their consequences are shaped by the
means of
carrying them out, in a tangle of purpose and process (HoM #5).
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Resources: Born for Liberty, State of the Union
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Essay Question: "To what extent did World War I and the 1920s set the
tone for the 2dh
Century?"
Unit 10: Depression, Leads to the New Deal, 1929-1939.
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Rationale: To appreciate the force of the non-rational, the irrational,
and the accidental,
in history and human affairs (HoM #11).
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Resources: Technology as Freedom, State of the Union
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Essay Question: "To what extent did the economic system of Capitalism
fail during the
Depression, and to what extent did it succeed in solving its problems?"
Unit 11: World War II: Americans at War, 1941-1945.
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Rationale: To distinguish between the important and the inconsequential,
to develop
the 'discriminating memory' needed for a discerning judgment in public
and personal life
(HoM #2).
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Resources: A Consumers' Republic, The American Memory site, The
Twentieth
Century, History Wars.
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Essay Question: "The generation that won World War 2 has often been
called 'The Greatest Generation', evaluate their accomplishments."
Unit 12: The Cold War, 1945-1989.
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Rationale: To perceive past events and issues as people experienced them
at the time,
to develop historical empathy as opposed to present mindedness (HoM
#3). To examine
the social, economic, and political impact on the United States of the
cold war era.
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Resources: The Way We Never Were, Perspectives on Modern America. Many
are the
Crimes, A Consumers' Republic,
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Essay Question: ''To what extent did the United States win World War 2
and yet lose
the peace that followed?"
Unit 13: Activism and Liberal Changes.
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Rationale: To grasp the complexity of historical causation, respect
particularity, and avoid excessively abstract generalizations (HoM # 8). To explain the
struggle for civil
and social rights in the 20thCentury and the development of an activist
government.
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Resources: American Skin, Casting Her Own Shadow, The Sixties, Women's
America.
Perspectives on Modern America
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Essay Question: ''To what extent has America achieved the statement in
paragraph two
of the Declaration of Independence:" ...that all men are created
equal..."?
Unit 14: Reaction and a return to Conservatism.
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Rationale: To comprehend the interplay of change and continuity, and
avoid assuming
that either is somehow more natural, or more to be expected that the
other (HoM #6).
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Resources: A Consumers' Republic, The Twentieth Century.
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Essay Question: ''To what extent was there a change in America in the
late 2dh
century, and to what extent was it a continuation of the status quo?"
Unit 15: Entering a New Era, 1989 to the Present.
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Rationale: To read widely and critically in order to recognize the
difference between
fact and conjecture, between evidence and assertion, and thereby from
useful questions
(HoM #13). To examine the U.S. role as a world power and today, as the
only super
power.
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Resources: Perspectives on Modern America
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Essay Question: "To what extent is the United States the leader of an
American
Empire?"
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