US History II

This website serves as the hub for Tona Hangen’s section of US History II US Since 1877 (HI 112) in the Fall 2014 semester at Worcester State University. Continue reading →

Links for Friday’s workshop on sourcing the documents in Chapter 29 –

What is Historical Thinking? (NHEC)
http://historicalthinkingmatters.org/scopestrial/0/inquiry/main/resources/41/

Mon 5/5 Discussion Day – come prepared to share what you learned in the History Now Project, which is due in class (no electronic submissions)

The last exam (Chapters 27-29) will take place on May 12th from 8:30 – 11:30 am in our regular classroom. It will be the equivalent of the other three exams. It is not designed to fill the full three hours, but you should expect it to take longer to complete than our other exams. As before, you may bring one 8.5×11” sheet of notes.

Download the 112 Ex4 StudyGuide.Spr14 (PDF)

Today’s workshop concerns the Iran-Contra Affair (scandal, controversy, crime, pick your title).

Our task:
Figure out what happened
Use evidence to revise an existing narrative
Reflect on the process of writing/revising history

In groups, you’ll be working with 4 different accounts of this event in Google docs, and with the textbook’s collection of documents. Study your documents; discuss and decide what’s important and what’s not; and edit the account I’ve provided for you WITH A PARTICULAR AUDIENCE IN MIND. In your Google doc, avoid changing the text in red, that’s the original; scroll down for the same text in black, which is the one you should change.

Our 4 versions:
Digital History online textbook
Boyer, The Enduring Vision (an AP HS textbook)
Wikipedia as of yesterday
Hewitt / Lawson (our textbook)

Our last course unit deals with recent American history; during this unit you will write one last SkillBuilder and you will have a chance to “make history” yourself in the History Now final project. The 4th exam takes place during final period but it is not a cumulative final. Since your lowest exam grade is dropped, you can opt out of the last exam if you are satisfied with your previous three grades. Remember to complete the third online Constitutional module by April 25th – allow extra time for this one, as it is more reading and writing intensive than the other two.

Mon 4/14 Conservative Ascendancy. Reading: Ch 27
Photos from today’s whiteboard – (click each to enlarge to full size)

Legacies of the 1960s

Continuing the 1960s Legacy

Efforts to Roll ’60s Back

Wed 4/16 Workshop Day on Chapter 27 – bring textbook

Fri 4/18 Discussion Day: The US Constitution in Political and Social Movements. SkillBuilder #6 is due.
Links: Vote (Mass.gov), League of Women Voters, Rock The Vote

Mon 4/21 No Class – Patriot’s Day

Wed 4/23 Ending the Cold War. Reading: Ch 28
Link: 20 Years Since Breakup of the Soviet Union (The Atlantic, 2011)

Fri 4/25 Workshop: Who Won the Cold War? – bring textbook to class. Complete the Constitutional Module #3 by this date (remember it has two components: the online quiz and the learning journal response)

Mon 4/28 History Now Workshop – you will receive your packet on this day and begin working on the project. You will find laptops to be helpful on this day.

Wed 4/30 Challenges of a New Century. Reading: Ch 29

Fri 5/2 Workshop Day on Ch 29 – bring textbook. Exam #4 study guide will be given.

Mon 5/5 Discussion Day – come prepared to share what you learned in the History Now Project, which is due in class (no electronic submissions)

The last exam (Chapters 27-29) will take place on May 12th from 8:30 – 11:30 am in our regular classroom. It will be the equivalent of the other three exams. It is not designed to fill the full three hours, but you should expect it to take longer to complete than our other exams. As before, you may bring one 8.5×11” sheet of notes.

Wed 4/2 Troubled Innocence. Reading: Chapter 25. Primary Source paper is due

Links for class:
Duck and Cover (1951)
See the USA in Your Chevrolet (1953)
Two Ford Freedom (1956)
Rebel Without A Cause (1955)
Blackboard Jungle (1955)
Camel News Caravan nightly newscast from 1952
Crisis in Levittown (1957)
In the Suburbs (1957)

Fri 4/4 Liberal Consensus. Reading: Chapter 26, up to p. 836. Exam Study Guide will be given out.

Mon 4/7 Workshop Day – bring textbook. Reading: Documents from Chapter 25-26

Wed 4/9 Discussion Day on Postwar America. Reading: Rest of Ch 26 and Review Ch 23-26

Study Guide Google Doc for Exam 3’s Terms

Fri 4/11 Exam #3 (Chapters 23-26). As before, you may bring a prepared double-sided 8.5×11″ sheet of paper

Assignment for Today: Each group will address one of these questions below, using the documents in our textbook. By the end of class each group should leave a comment here, responding to your assigned question.

Question 1: Using the evidence in Documents 23.1 – 23.5, which of these is the more correct statement and why?
World War II transformed racial and gender relations in the US.
World War II reinforced traditional racial and gender relations in the US.

Question 2: How should the end of the war be remembered? Whose point of view needs to be acknowledged, respected and included? Try writing a brief account of the end of the war that follows your own advice. Use Documents 23.6 – 11

Question 3 (laptop based): What physical resources, and what moral reasoning, did official American messages employ to build support for the conflict? How did war promotional materials construct World War II as a just, or even a “good” war? What kinds of commitments were being asked of the American people? Use any of these media documents:

WW2 Radio and Film Propaganda Examples (requires Windows Media Player)
Internet Archive: Films Made by the Office of War Information
Internet Archive: Audio recordings w/ keyword “World War II: Homefront”
“It’s Everybody’s War” (20th Century Fox)
Produce for Victory: Posters on the American Home Front

Question 4: After 1945, the new postwar historical context included both the reality of atomic weapons, and a deep ideological standoff between “the West” and the USSR. How did this context affect understanding of foreign affairs and the US’s role in them? Use Documents 24.1 – 5

Question 5: In the 1940s and early 1950s, many Americans feared internal threats as well as those in international relations. Using Documents 24.6 – 10, answer these questions: In what different ways would HUAC and the witnesses appearing before it have defined “un-American”? What gave HUAC and the broader cultural movement now termed “McCarthyism” so much power at the time?

In our third unit, US history collides with world history in a big way, and we seek to explain how the US became involved in the Second World War and the subsequent Cold War. We also explore the transition from the New Deal “welfare state” through the wartime homefront years to a multi-decade era of prosperity and political consensus. But were the postwar “good times” for everyone?

Mon 3/24 World War II. Reading: Chapter 24. We will also discuss the Primary Source paper project; see new tab above for the details and guidelines. Constitutional Module #3 will go live on Blackboard (due by April 25).

Wed 3/26 Peer Review Writing Workshop. No reading, but bring a *printed* draft of your Primary Source paper to class.

Fri 3/28 The Cold War Begins. Reading: Chapter 24.

Mon 3/31 Workshop Day – bring textbook. Reading: Documents from Chapters 23-24

Wed 4/2 Troubled Innocence. Reading: Chapter 25. Primary Source paper is due

Fri 4/4 Liberal Consensus. Reading: Chapter 26, up to p. 836.

Mon 4/7 Workshop Day – bring textbook. Reading: Documents from Chapter 25-26

Wed 4/9 Discussion Day on Postwar America. Reading: Rest of Ch 26 and Review Ch 23-26

Fri 4/11 Exam #3 (Chapters 23-26). As before, you may bring a prepared double-sided 8.5×11″ sheet of paper

Rest of the unit, from now until Spring Break – (and I’m hoping spring starts coming soon!)

Mon 3/3 An Anxious Affluence. Reading: Chapter 21

Wed 3/5 Workshop Day – bring textbook. We will be working with the primary documents in Chapter 21. Exam Study Guide #2 will be handed out.

Fri 3/7 Depression, Dissent, and New Deal. Reading: Chapter 22. SkillBuilder #5 due (you can use anything from Chapters 19-22 that you haven’t already written about)

Mon 3/10 Workshop Day – bring textbook. We will be working with the primary documents in Chapter 22, and with some of these songs and film clips:

“Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” (NPR)
“I’ve Got a Pocketful of Dreams” (Bing Crosby)
“Pennies from Heaven” (Billie Holliday)
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (Wizard of Oz, 1939)

“Remember My Forgotten Man” from the film Gold Diggers of 1933

Wed 3/12 Discussion Day – bring textbook. Review Chapters 19-22

View/edit our Unit 2 document synopsis study guide

Handout: Advice on Study Strategies

Fri 3/14 Exam #2 in class (Covers Ch 19-22).

Download the Study Guide

As before, you may bring one 8.5×11″ sheet of paper with anything on the front and/or back. Also – Complete Online Constitutional Module #2 by this day.

Spring Break March 15 – 23 – Enjoy the break!

Today, in groups, you’ll be working with documents from Chapter 20 about the national debate over imperialism / anti-imperialism. Each group will receive the same blank newspaper template as a Google doc. To work on your paper, click on your assigned group; Google automatically saves any changes you make to the document. More than one person can work on your document at the same time.

Update: the documents are now viewable, but no longer editable. Thanks for all the good work in class today!

By the end of class, your group needs to edit your newspaper like a team of true “yellow journalists” of the time, including the following:

• give your paper a made-up name
• replace “Headline 1” with an article (as much in the historical style as you can) reporting on an event described in Ch 20. Remember that news reporting in that time period was *not* necessarily neutral or objective!
• replace “Headline 2” with an article giving response/reaction on the event using “on the record” quotes from the original documents
• write a letter to the editor providing a realistic alternative / opposing opinion (you can use the letter on p. 650 as a model)
• insert a photograph or political cartoon FROM THE TIME to illustrate your newspaper’s editorial point of view

Some links you might find helpful:
The World of 1898 (Library of Congress)
America 1900 (PBS)
World War I Posters (Indianapolis Public Library)

To locate historic images, try a Google search for terms like these, then limit the search results to images, or add the word “cartoon” to the end of your search string

war of 1898
philippine-american war
us wilson veracruz
zimmerman telegram
lusitania
panama canal
hawaiian annexation
cuban independence

In the second unit of the course, we explore the U.S. at home and abroad in the early decades of the 20th century, with themes of modernization, imperialism, World War I, the Depression and New Deal, economic crisis, social change, popular culture and media, and the role of government. This unit, based on Chapters 19-22, contains three document workshop days and three SkillBuilders. You should also be working on the second online Constitutional module, which is available on Blackboard until March 14th.

Mon 2/24 Empire and Wars 1898-1918. Reading: Chapter 20

Wed 2/26 Workshop Day – bring textbook. We will be working with the primary documents in Chapter 20.

Fri 2/28 Discussion Day – bring textbook. Review Chapters 19-20. SkillBuilder #4 due (you can use anything from Chapters 19-20 that you haven’t already written about)

Mon 3/3 An Anxious Affluence. Reading: Chapter 21

Wed 3/5 Workshop Day – bring textbook. We will be working with the primary documents in Chapter 21. Exam Study Guide #2 will be handed out.

Fri 3/7 Depression, Dissent, and New Deal. Reading: Chapter 22. SkillBuilder #5 due (you can use anything from Chapters 19-22 that you haven’t already written about)

Mon 3/10 Workshop Day – bring textbook. We will be working with the primary documents in Chapter 22.

Wed 3/12 Discussion Day – bring textbook. Review Chapters 19-22

Fri 3/14 Exam #2 in class (Covers Ch 19-22). As before, you may bring one 8.5×11″ sheet of paper with anything on the front and/or back. Also – Complete Online Constitutional Module #2 by this day.

Spring Break March 15 – 23 – Enjoy the break!