US History II

Welcome to History 112! In this course you will learn United States history from 1877 to the present. The course also serves as an introduction to the scholarly discipline of history–how historians think, work, and approach the past.

How this site works: I use this website each semester for my sections of 112 and I have left the old posts up from previous semesters as reference for my former students. You can safely ignore any post tagged “Spr11” or “Fall 2010.” Yours will be tagged “Fall11” (tags are at the bottom of each new post).

This main Home page is for class news, announcements, instructions and communication. Please check it between classes for any new additions. The easiest way to do this is to subscribe to its RSS feed (use the orange icon in the upper left corner) using email, Google Reader, or another RSS feed service of your choice.

Under the header, you will find links to other pages within the site which contain the course learning outcomes, syllabus, course calendar and ideas for further reading. Once the term begins I will also post detailed guidelines for the quizzes, papers and weekly assignments.

Some specifics about this course you need to know: This is probably going to be unlike any other history course you have taken. By design, it is meant to be hands-on and student-centered. Expect to be busy and participating in every class: asking questions, working in groups, analyzing sources, using learning tools, and occasionally taking notes – but never texting, surfing the web, falling asleep or zoning out.

You’ll write frequently – something is due nearly every week – and so if writing is not a strength of yours, get to know the Writing Center (Sullivan 306, x8112) or come for help during office hours. The textbook (Davidson, Experience History, Volume 2. 7th ed, McGraw-Hill, 2011 – ISBN 9780077368326) is your main learning companion: buy/rent it, read it, get to know it backwards and forwards, but don’t expect that I will repeat or lecture on its contents during class. I am happy to discuss reading and studying strategies during my office hours if you find you need help in that area.

Early on in the course, we will identify five topics you’d like to know better, one for each time period. Each of those will become the focus of a unit for our class sessions. Whatever course content we don’t work with in class will be tested using online quizzes in Blackboard. You can take the quizzes multiple times on your own time in each unit; they will each be open for about a week. In this design, your interests drive what we do in class, and you decide what we will cover in more detail and what we will minimize or leave out. Every history class is selective in what it covers- the difference here is that YOU get to do the selecting.

I look forward to meeting you! Have a wonderful summer, and I will see you in September.