Unit 9: 1980-present – The American Pageant, chapters 41-42

Content: Summary of Reagan’s domestic and foreign policies; Bush Sr. and the end of the Cold War; Persian Gulf; Clinton as a New Democrat; technology and economic bubbles and recessions, race relations, and the role of women; changing demographics and the return to poverty; rise of the prison complex and the war on drugs; 9/11 and the domestic and foreign policies that followed; and Obama.

Key Concepts:

9.1:  A new conservatism grew to prominence in U.S. culture and politics, defending traditional social values and rejecting liberal views about the role of government.

9.2:  The end of the Cold War and new challenges to U.S. leadership in the world forced the nation to redefine its foreign policy and global role.

9.3:  Moving into the 21st century, the nation continued to experience challenges stemming from social, economic and demographic changes.                      

Activities:

History Log – notes and short responses on reading assignments
Primary Source Analysis:

1980s Car advertisements
Ronald Reagan Air Traffic Controllers’ Strike
Bill Clinton’s First Inaugural Speech
George W Bush Republican Nomination Acceptance Speech
Ronald Reagan Evil Empire Speech
Ronald Reagan Support of the Contras
George W Bush September 20 Address to Congress
Creation of Homeland Security Department
Bill Clinton Address on Health Care Reform
Barack Obama Address on Health Care
Political cartoons (pro and con) on the Patriot Act

View Points: The Patriot Act vs. Amendment IV of the Constitution

Iconic Moments: The entire class composes a list of iconic moments or events associated with US History in the period 1980 to the Present. Students can begin with moments or events that occurred within their own lifetimes, but also include moments/events that cover the chronological span, 1980-Present. The purpose of this exercise is to deepen the students’ awareness of specific content within Period 9. Then the students will categorize the moments using the seven themes of AP US History.

Six Degrees of Separation: From The Reagan Revolution to the Election of Barack Obama.

Unit Test – multiple-choice questions, short answer questions, FRQ and DBQ.


 
During this unit students will discuss possible answers to the following essential questions:

Identity: How did demographic and economic changes in American society affect popular debates over American national identity?

Work, Exchange, and Technology:  How did the shift to a global economy affect American economic life?  How did scientific and technological developments in these years change how Americans lived and worked?

Peopling: How did increased migration raise questions about American identity and the nation demographically, culturally, and politically?

Politics and Power: How successful were conservatives in achieving their goals?  TO what extent did liberalism remain influential politically and culturally?

America in the World:  How did the end of the Cold War affect American foreign policy?  How did the terrorist attacks of 9/11 impact America’s role in the world?

Environment and Geography: How did debates over climate change and energy policy affect broader social and political movements?

Ideas, Beliefs, and Cultures: How did technological and scientific innovations such as elections, biology, medicine, and communications affect society, popular culture, and public discourse?  How did a more demographically diverse population shape popular culture?  

Review

Okay - last go over some review for tomorrow's test:

Let's also look at shmoop - read and take practice quizzes: GO HERE

Also - Gilder Lehrman, go HERE

Finally, read my handouts.  TOMORROW and WEDNESDAY Unit 8 test.  Thursday - Unit 9.  Friday - PRACTICE AP TEST.

Chapter 40

Today we will look at Kent State and begin chapter 40.

Kent State go HERE and HERE

HW: chapter 40 and outline

Tomorrow - you will need to answer the following:


Identity: How did the African-American Civil Rights movement affect the development of other movements based on asserting the rights of different groups in American society?  How did American involvement in the Cold War affect debates over American national identity?

Work, Exchange, and Technology: How did the rise of American manufacturing and global economic dominance in the years after World War II affect standards of living among and opportunities for different social groups?

Peopling: How did the growth of migration to and within the United States influence demographic change and social attitudes in the nation?

Politics and Power: How did the changing fortunes of liberalism and conservatism in these years affect broader aspects of social and political power?

America in the World: Why did Americans endorse a new engagement in international affairs during the Cold War?  How did this belief change over time in response to particular events?

Environment and Geography: Why did public concern about the state of the natural environment grow during this period, and what major changes in public policy did this create?

Ideas, Beliefs, and Cultures: How did changes in popular cultural reflect or cause changes in social attitudes?  How did the reaction to these changes affect political and public debates?

Six Degrees of Separation: From Containment to “Tear Down This Wall”

Primary Sources

The Beat Generation - go HERE

For Jimmy Carter's speech go HERE

TEAR DOWN THIS WALL - go HERE

HOMEWORK - outline the above and soapstone one.

Chapter 39

Today we'll look at Crash Course #40 and then begin Chapter 39.

Homework: Finish chapter 39 and outline it.

Tomorrow we have to go over some primary sources.  Thursday - chapter 40 and Friday do some review.

Primary Sources

Today we need to look at

Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka
The Tonkin Gulf Resolution
Tim Driscoll, "There Really is a War"
The Other America

but first let's look at some Cold War Films

Friday

Today we need to finish 38.  It needs to be outlined this weekend.

Next week we need to cover 39 and 40.  And the rest of the primary sources.

Thursday

Today - we need to read chapter 38.  And discuss the primary sources you read yesterday.

GO HERE for NATO

Cold War

We need to discuss the overview of the Cold War - what it was, why it happened, what happened within it, and how it ended.  We also need to look at a series of primary sources/key developments today:

1) The Truman Doctrine (go HERE)
2) The Marshall Plan (go HERE)
3) NATO (go HERE)
4) Eisenhower's Farewell Address (and Washington's Farewell Address)
Eisenhower's Address go HERE; Washington's Address go HERE
5) A statement from "The Association of Manhattan District Scientists" concerning the arms race (GO HERE )

6) Truman on McCarthy - Go HERE

HOMEWORK - write a short essay (1-page) in which you compare Eisenhower's Farewell Address with Washington's Farewell Address.  Think about the warnings that each gives.  How are they similar?  Different?


If you have time watch the following:

OVERVIEW for REVIEW

The course is broken up into nine historical periods investigating seven themes in each, and developing nine historical thinking skills.

Periodization:

Period 1 (1491-1607)
Period 2 (1607-1754)
Period 3 (1754-1800)
Period 4 (1800-1848)
Period 5 (1844-1877)
Period 6 (1865-1900)
Period 7 (1890-1945)
Period 8 (1945-1989)
Period 9 (1980-Present)

THEMES:

Identity: This theme focuses on the formation of both American national identity and group identities in U.S. History.  Students should be able to explain how various identities, cultures, and values have been preserved or changed in different contexts of U.S. History, with special attention given to the formation of gender, class, racial, and ethnic identities.   Students should also be able to explain how these sub identities have interacted with each other and with larger conceptions of American national identity.

Work, Exchange, and Technology:  This theme focuses on the development of American economies based on agriculture, commerce, and manufacturing.  Students should be able to explain ways that different economic and labor systems, technological innovations, and government policies have shaped American society.  Students should be able to explore the lives of working people and the relationships among social classes, racial and ethnic groups, and men and women, including the availability of land and labor, national and international economic developments, and the role of government support and regulation.

Peopling: This theme focuses on why and how the various people who moved to, from, and within the United States adapted to their new social and physical environments.  Students should be able to explain migration across borders and long distances, including the slave trade and internal migration and how both newcomers and indigenous inhabitants transformed North America.  The theme also illustrates how people responded when “borders crossed them.”  Students should be able to discuss the ideas, beliefs, technologies, religions, and gender roles that migrants/immigrants and annexed people brought with them and the impact these factors had on both these peoples and on U.S. society.

Politics and Power: This theme examines the ongoing debates over the role of the state in society and its potential as an active agent for change.  This includes mechanisms for creating, implementing, or limiting participation in the political process and the resulting social effects, as well as the changing relationship among branches of the federal government and among national, state, and local governments.  Students should be able to trace efforts to define or gain access to individual rights and citizenship and explain the evolutions of tensions between liberty and authority in different periods of U.S. history.

America in the World: In this theme, students focus on the global context in which the United States originated and developed as well as the influence of the United States on world affairs.  Students should be able to discuss how various world actors (such as people, states, organizations, and companies) have competed for the territory and resources of the North American continent, influencing the development of both American and world societies and economics.  Students should also be able to explain how American foreign policies and military actions have affected the rest of the world.

Environment and Geography – Physical and Human: This theme examines the role of environment, geography, and climate in both constraining and shaping human actions.  Students should be able to analyze the interaction between the environment and Americans in their efforts to survive and thrive.  Students should also be able to explain the efforts to interpret, preserve, manage, or exploit natural and man-made environments, as well as the historical contexts within which interactions with the environment have taken place.

Ideas, Beliefs, and Culture: This theme explores the roles that ideas, beliefs, social mores, and creative expression have played in shaping the United States.  Students should be able to explain the development of aesthetic, moral, religious, scientific, and philosophical principles and consider how these principles have affected individual and group actions.  Students should also be able to analyze the interactions between beliefs and communities, economic values, political movements, including attempts to change American society to align it with specific ideas.

Historical Thinking Skills:

Historical Causation
Patterns of Continuity and Change over Time
Periodization
Comparison
Contextualization
Historical Argumentation
Appropriate Use of Relevant Historical Evidence
Interpretation
Synthesis

UNIT 8

Unit 8: 1945-1989 – The American Pageant, chapters 36-40; Don’t Know Much About History pages 418-463

Content: After World War II, the United States grappled with prosperity and unfamiliar international responsibilities, while struggling to live up to its ideals.  Includes: Atomic age and the Cold War; the Korean War; suburban development and the affluent society; the other America; Vietnam; the Beat Generation; the social movements of the long 1960s; Great Society programs; economic and political decline in the 1970s; the rise of conservatism.

Key Concepts:

8.1: The United States responded to an uncertain and unstable postwar world by asserting and attempting to defend a position of global leadership, with far-reaching domestic and international consequences.

8.2: Liberalism, based on anticommunism abroad and a firm belief in the efficacy of governmental and especially, federal power to achieve social goals at home, reached it apex in the mid-1960s and generated a variety of political and cultural responses.

8.3: Postwar economic, demographic and technological changes had far-reaching impacts on American society, politics, and the environment.

Activities:

History Log – notes and short responses on assigned readings.

Primary Source Analysis: The Marshall Plan, Truman Doctrine, Massive Retaliation, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Nuclear Testing Films from the 50s, Eisenhower’s Farewell Address, The Other America, Letter from Birmingham Jail, chart illustrating the statistics of the draft during the Vietnam War and the casualty rate of the same, Tonkin Gulf Resolutions, Tim Driscoll “There Really Is A War” Letter from Vietnam, Jimmy Carter Inaugural Address, Reagan’s Tear Down This Wall speech. 

Viewpoints: Truman from Truman Doctrine vs. Reagan from Tear Down This Wall Speech.

Coffee House – after reading and discussing Beat poetry (Ginsberg, Corso, Synder), students will write their own “beat” poetry on an issue of the 50s.

Origins of the Cold War debate: Some scholars argue that the Cold War started with the Russian Revolution.  Examine primary and secondary sources and make a case for the Cold War starting in 1945 or 1917.

Shootings at Kent State: Students will close read “The Shooting at Kent State” by Tom Grace and listen to the pod cast “What Really Happened at Kent State” (http://missedinhistory.com/podcasts/what-really-happened-at-kent-state/ ).  The student will write two editorials: the 1st editorial will address why the government had the right to allow the National Guard to fire on the students; the second will address why the firing was wrong.

Students will also listen to various songs from the sixties and discuss the role of popular music in affecting attitudes toward the Vietnam War.

Six Degrees of Separation: From Containment to “Tear Down This Wall”.

Unit Test – Multiple Choice Questions, Short Answer Reponses, DBQ, Long Essay.

During this unit students will discuss possible answers to the following essential questions:

Identity: How did the African-American Civil Rights movement affect the development of other movements based on asserting the rights of different groups in American society?  How did American involvement in the Cold War affect debates over American national identity?

Work, Exchange, and Technology: How did the rise of American manufacturing and global economic dominance in the years after World War II affect standards of living among and opportunities for different social groups?

Peopling: How did the growth of migration to and within the United States influence demographic change and social attitudes in the nation?

Politics and Power: How did the changing fortunes of liberalism and conservatism in these years affect broader aspects of social and political power?

America in the World: Why did Americans endorse a new engagement in international affairs during the Cold War?  How did this belief change over time in response to particular events?

Environment and Geography: Why did public concern about the state of the natural environment grow during this period, and what major changes in public policy did this create?

Ideas, Beliefs, and Cultures: How did changes in popular cultural reflect or cause changes in social attitudes?  How did the reaction to these changes affect political and public debates? 

GO HERE 

WWII part 2

Today - we need to read chapter 35.

Homework - finish chapter 35 and study for tomorrow's test.