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U.S. History

Basic & On Demand

Enrollment for Basic and On Demand courses is open on a rolling basis.

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Plus

Teachers can use the complete Plus course curriculum for flexible instruction.

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Course Summary

Explore American history from the foundation of the nation through the Civil War, American industrialization, and other important movements and time periods up through the early twentieth century. Across these events, students analyze technological innovation, political reform, global interactions, community formation, cultural change, familial structures, environmental concerns, immigration, and civic engagement. In this course, students gain valuable skills including how to contextualize time, space, and place; analyze historical evidence; explore different parameters of historical cause and effect; identify patterns of continuity and change over time; and practice communicating their knowledge in written and oral formats.

In this course, engage in critical and evaluative thinking, data analysis, collaborative discussion, free-response essay writing, and interpretation of original documents.

Curriculum

This is a 2-semester course. We do not recommend taking both semesters simultaneously.

Unit 1: America Before and After the Civil War
  • Origins of American Democracy
  • The American Constitution
  • The Young United States
  • The Louisiana Purchase Era
  • The War of 1812
  • Domestic Politics
  • Growing Sectional Tensions
  • The American Civil War Begins
  • Union Versus Confederacy
  • The New South
Unit 2: The American Nation
  • Immigration and Industrialization
  • Urban America
  • Integration, Urban Politics, and the Gilded Age
  • Big Business
  • American Innovations
  • Social Darwinism, the Social Gospel, and Populism
  • The Progressive Era
Unit 3: American Beliefs and Values
  • American Religious Episodes
  • Faith in Action
  • Multicultural West Coast
  • Religious Pluralism
Unit 4: America on the Global Stage
  • The Open Door Policy and the Boxer Rebellion
  • The Spanish-American War
  • The Panama Canal and the Roosevelt Corollary
  • American Dollar Diplomacy
  • American Moral Diplomacy
  • A Great War Begins
  • America Enters the Great War
  • Peace and Power in 1919
Unit 5: American Prosperity and Popular Culture
  • Entering the 1920s
  • American Consumerism
  • Racism and the First Red Scare
  • Crime and Corruption
  • Sisterhood and Suffrage
  • American Culture in the 1920s
  • Media and the Motion Picture
Unit 6: Crash Recovery
  • The Economic Edge
  • The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl
  • A New Deal for America
  • Opposing Forces
  • The Second New Deal
  • The Roosevelt Revival
Unit 7: America and World War II
  • World War Once More
  • War and Peace
Unit 8: America the Superpower
  • Origins of the Cold War
  • Post-World War II American Society
Unit 9: Turbulent Times
  • Entering the 1960's
  • Decade of Turmoil
Unit 10: Progress and Challenges
  • Rising for Rights
  • National Hardships
Unit 11: American Millennium
  • As the World Turned
  • Twentieth Century Twilight
  • USA 2.0