US History II

Thanks to all who submitted SkillBuilder #1 today either in paper or via email. If you sent it by email you will get it back by email, by Tuesday of next week. Make sure you got an email confirmation that I received it, otherwise – I didn’t get your paper. Papers submitted in hard copy during class will likely be returned on Monday. Remember you have another one due on Friday, February 1 and for those who don’t yet have the reader I will expand the alternative/online source options over the weekend.

You might want to fill in the rest of the note page that we began in class today as you complete and review the readings from Chapter 15 (if you missed class, here’s the notes page).

The voting is in! The most popular chapters were 16, 23, 24 and 28. On Monday I’ll distribute an updated syllabus page with all the details about what to read and where our deeper focus will lie in each of the course’s four units. During Unit 1, we’ll be using Chapters 16 and 17 most. For Monday please read Henretta ACH Ch 16 p. 474-484. Those pages are posted as a PDF on Blackboard if you are still awaiting a 5th edition of the textbook.

Take the Quiz Online! Also, I’ve put up a short quiz on Blackboard that should be available now until Monday at noon. You can take it up to three times (15 minutes per attempt) and I’d recommend that you try it more than once so you get a feel for how the online quizzes and re-takes work on Blackboard. Your score will show up in My Grades (so I can check the automatic score reporting functions) but will not count towards your grade.

PS – Got 11 minutes? Listen to this podcast from NPR’s Planet Money on how (and when) we got the dollar bill. It may surprise you. In your reading for Monday, Henretta mentions on p. 478 that the Republicans, now firmly back in power in Congress and the White House after the end of Reconstruction, developed a national banking system – but there’s much more to the story. The clip’s too long to play in class but it’s worth a listen.

(a Civil War-era 2 dollar note from a New York Bank)

Thanks to everyone who participated in our investigation groups in class today! Here’s what to do before we next meet on Wednesday, 1/23.

1) Read the syllabus. You got a paper version in class, or click in the left sidebar for a full-color PDF or online flipbook version.

2) Read Chapter 15 pages 446 to 466 in Henretta, America: A Concise History 5th edition. Your books should look like this:

If you have the 4th edition of the Henretta text instead, then read pages 437-456. If your book is still shrink-wrapped, you might want to leave it that way for easier return to the bookstore. I have contacted them to let them know their mistake and to ask how we can resolve it, and I will let you know their answer as soon as I find out what the options are.

If you do not have the textbook yet, I’ve made a PDF of the first reading assignment and put it on Blackboard, so check there.

3) Take this poll to see what topics we’ll look at in greater detail this semester.

4) If you have the Documents book, you can begin on your first SkillBuilder assignment which is due Friday, Jan 25. This assignment is explained in the syllabus on p. 4 or under the “SkillBuilders” tab above.

This website serves as the hub for Tona Hangen’s two sections of US History II US Since 1877 (HI 112) in the Spring 2013 semester at Worcester State University. Section 01 meets MWF at 8:30 am and Section 11 (and Honors H1) meets MWF at 9:30 am, both in Sullivan Room 104.

The textbooks for this course are:

James A. Henretta, America: A Concise History VOLUME 2, 5th edition (Bedford St. Martins 2012) ISBN 978-0-312-64329-4

Kevin J. Fernlund, Documents for America’s History VOLUME 2, 7th edition (Bedford St. Martins 2013) ISBN 978-0-312-64863-3

From this website, you can download the syllabus or access it online, stay up to date with course news and any changes, see the guidelines for the course papers and projects, and follow links to my recommended history and writing resources on the web.

This site is a blog, meaning it updates frequently and you should either bookmark it or subscribe to it using an RSS feed reader (such as Google Reader). Please check it often or make sure that you subscribe to its updates to stay on top of our coursework. I leave up the previous semesters’ information as an archive for my past students. You can safely ignore any post not tagged “Spr13.”

If you have questions about the course before we meet in person on Friday, January 18th, please feel free to email me, at thangen (at) worcester.edu

Well, the water main break has made a really long weekend – no class today, Wed 11/14.

Here is how we will revise the schedule and grading for Unit 4:

1. I am cancelling the in-class exam on Monday 11/19. That day will be a regular class, on popular culture during the Vietnam War. Here’s one minute from 10 years of network news coverage of the war, with CBS’s Walter Cronkite:

2. In place of that exam, I am making a longer online (i.e. open-book) multiple-choice test. It will be 30 questions long, each worth 2 points, for a total of 60 points replacing the 57 points of the online + written portions. The online test will open on Friday, November 16th after class and remain open until just before midnight, Wednesday the 21st. You can take it up to 3 times.

3. Please read chapters 10.3 (“America and the World During the Kennedy Years”), and all of 11 and 12. The test will cover the following concepts and terms from those chapters:

Cuban Missile Crisis
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Great Society (including Medicare, Medicaid)
Second-wave feminism including NOW, Ms, ERA, and Title IX
Vietnam War terms: Gulf of Tonkin, Rolling Thunder, Tet Offensive, My Lai Massacre, War Powers Act
Election of 1968
New Left
Kent State shooting
Pentagon Papers
Watergate
detente
the 1970s “crisis of confidence”
Iranian revolution and hostage crisis

Our lens for this unit is Media and Popular Culture, especially television and rock&roll music.

Mon 11/5 – Television, Media and Music. Reading: excerpt from David Halberstam, The Fifties (PDF)

Check out some TV of the era:

Milton Berle, an early 1949 show

News film on the Kefauver hearings on organized crime (1951)

The Jack Benny Show (guest star Fred Allen) in 1953

Camel News Caravan nightly newscast from 1952

Wed 11/7 – Postwar America. Reading: Ch 9.2 Postwar America + 9.3 Red Scares

Two film trailers:  THEM! (1954) and Rebel Without A Cause (1955)

Fri 11/9 – Workshop Day on Juvies and Youth Culture. We will work in class with a PDF packet of documents which I will provide (although it can be downloaded here if you want to look ahead at it). SkillBuilder #5 is due, please use the links provided in the 1954-1980 tab above.

Links: Blackboard Jungle (1955), The Wild One (1953), Teenage Doll (1957)

Mon 11/12 – No School, Veterans Day

Wed 11/14 – Updated: No School, campus closed

Fri 11/16 – Updated: Songs of the Long Sixties. Reading: Ch 10.3 America and the World During the Kennedy Years. Online test (30 questions) opens up after class and will remain open until Wed 21st just before midnight. See post above for details and coverage.

Mon 11/19 – Media and Popular Culture in the Vietnam Era. Reading: Ch 11.2 The Great Society and the Vietnam War

No class on Wed 11/21 – enjoy your Thanksgiving! Online test closes just before midnight 11/21.

1) Read the syllabus

2) Decide how you will access the AHUS textbook this semester

3) Read AHUS Table of Contents and Ch 1. Understand the multiple meanings for the word “RECONSTRUCTION”

4) Write your first SkillBuilder. The first assignment is a little simpler than the subsequent ones will be. Choose ONE primary source from one of the following sites, and DESCRIBE it in a short 2-page paper (exactly 2 pages – no more, no less). EXPLAIN how it is a useful piece of evidence about the era of Reconstruction (1865-1877). CITE the source using your best approximation of a correct Chicago Style footnote (see your copy of Hacker, A Writer’s Reference or use the sidebar link to Hacker’s guide to citing historical sources). TITLE your paper with something clever or relevant (not “SkillBuilder #1”). SUBMIT it as a printed paper on Friday or EMAIL it to me BEFORE CLASS BEGINS.

• Library of Congress Primary Documents, Civil War and Reconstruction 1860-1877 *Choose a document from 1865 or after*
• Freedmen & Southern Society Project *Scroll to the bottom of the page for post-1865 documents*
• African American Odyssey, Reconstruction and its Aftermath

5) Prepare to vote on the unit lenses & bring your ballot to class with each lens USED ONLY ONCE. If you need a new ballot, download the PDF here.

This website serves as the hub for Tona Hangen’s sections of US History II (HI 112), the US Since 1877. In Fall 2012 I will teach one section, on MWF at 8:30 am. The course number is HI 112-07 or HI 112-H1 if you’re taking it for honors credit.

Our textbook this term is David J. Trowbridge, A History of the United States, Vol II (Flat World Knowledge, 2012). The book is FREE (to read online) or you can purchase one of several different pricing options for mobile, downloadable or print versions. It will not be available for rent or sale in the bookstore; instead you should access the book online or purchase your preferred format directly from the publisher. Click on the title or the left sidebar link to learn more.

From this site, you can download the syllabus or access it online, stay up to date with course news and any changes, see the guidelines for the course papers and projects, and follow links to my recommended history and writing resources on the web. You can also add the course’s Google calendar to your own; just click on the “About & Course Calendar” tab above.

This site is a blog, meaning it updates frequently and you should bookmark it or subscribe to it using an RSS feed reader (such as Google Reader). Please check it often or make sure that you subscribe to its updates to stay on top of our coursework. I leave up the previous semesters’ information as an archive for my past students. You can safely ignore any post not tagged “Fall 12.”

If you have questions about the course before we meet in person on Wednesday, September 5th, please feel free to email me, at thangen (at) worcester.edu

Reminder, if you’re reading this on Friday – you have until just before midnight tonight to take the last online quiz (on Ch 31). Go to Blackboard under “Quizzes.”

Our last exam will cover both Units 5 and 6 (Vietnam and 9/11). It will be Wednesday, May 9th at 8:30 am in our regular classroom. Study EH Ch 30 and 32. To the exam, you may bring one single 8.5×11″ sheet of paper with anything you desire on it (front and back).

Here is a study guide for the exam (download as PDF). And here’s the map we looked at in Friday’s class –

Unit 3 will be all about the Depression and the New Deal – EH Chapter 25.

There will be an online quiz open from Monday, 2/27 to Friday 3/2 on Chapter 26. Don’t forget to take it! I had a couple of people who’ve let these slip a little. Please make sure to take the quiz online in Blackboard.

Mon 2/27 our class will combine the culture and economics of the Depression. Reading is EH Ch 25, pp. 687-697. The syllabus had “reading TBA” for Wednesday but we’ll drop that reading because…

There will be no class on Wednesday, Feb 29th. I am taking another class to visit a US Citizenship Naturalization ceremony in Worcester and we have to leave early to get there, so I won’t be in class.

Friday, March 2 will also be a special day: instead of our usual class, we will attend a lecture by a guest professor of Political Science, Alexandra Filindra, at 10:30 am in the Student Center Blue Lounge. She will be speaking about the eugenics movement, a timely topic since we just finished the unit on that. Attendance will be taken, same as if it were a regular class day, and I will collect the SkillBuilder #3 papers due that day at the event.

Because of the lecture, we will push our “Primary Source Workshop” day to Monday the 5th; we’ll meet in our classroom as usual. If you want to get started on that paper before the workshop day, please do so; the guidelines are posted under the “PS Paper” tab above, and the books are all on 2-hour course reserve at the circulation desk in the library.

This website serves as the hub for Tona Hangen’s sections of US History II (HI 112), the US Since 1877. In Spring 2012 I will teach one section, on MWF at 10:30 am. The course number is HI 112-11 or HI 112-H1 if you’re taking it for honors credit.

Our textbook is James Davidson, et al., Experience History: Interpreting America’s Past, ISBN 978-0077368326. There is one copy of the book on reserve at the library circulation desk, so in case you can’t get your copy before the course starts, you can check it out on 2-hour reserve.

From this site, you can download the syllabus or access it online, stay up to date with course news and any changes, see the guidelines for the course papers and projects, and follow links to my recommended history and writing resources on the web. You can also add the course’s Google calendar to your own; just click on the “About & Course Calendar” tab above.

This site is a blog, meaning it updates frequently and you should bookmark it or subscribe to it using an RSS feed reader (such as Google Reader). Please check it often or make sure that you subscribe to its updates to stay on top of our coursework. I leave up the previous semesters’ information as an archive for my past students. You can safely ignore any post that’s tagged at the bottom with “Fall11” or “Spring11” or “Fall2010,” since your posts will be tagged “Spr12.”

If you have questions about the course before we meet in person on Wednesday, January 18th, please feel free to email me, at thangen (at) worcester.edu