US History II

Based on the class’s voting last Friday, the syllabus for the rest of the course is now set and will be handed out in class. It has also been added to the electronic versions of the syllabus posted on Blackboard and in the left-hand sidebar of this site. You may also download the new syllabus table as a 2-page PDF document.

This week will be one of the semester’s busiest. Your reading includes parts of 2 chapters for our in-class discussions and work, and 2 others for the online quiz. In addition, your second Skill Builder is due on Friday the 16th. See the new “Skill Builders” tab (above) for more information on that assignment.

The online quiz #1 is now open, until midnight on Friday the 16th. You can take it multiple times. Each time you take it, you will have 20 questions to answer, but each re-take may have different questions since there are more than 20 all together. Total points possible are 22 points. You have 15 minutes for each attempt. At the close of the quiz availability period, Blackboard will automatically record your highest-scoring attempt. The questions are drawn from Chapters 20 and 21 of your textbook. You may use your textbook as a resource for the quiz, but you will still need to study it well before taking the quiz.

The week at a glance:

Mon 9/12 – discussion of the textbook & its resources; introduction to our unit on the American West.

Wed 9/14 – Read Chapter 19 before class. Come prepared to discuss what the US was like in the 1870s: technologically, economically, politically, and culturally.

Fri 9/16 – Skill Builder 2 is due. Recommended topics: either the Dueling Documents on p. 452, or the Historian’s Toolbox on p. 465. Before class, please read Chapter 18, pp. 471-472 (which is a slight correction from the syllabus) and pp. 480-490. Be able to define the term “frontier” and explain what it means in context of the American West in the late 19th century.