History

Honors American History

Tenth grade 1.00 high school credit Core curriculum

Description

American history courses often suffer from bias. Some whitewash negative events (especially recent ones) in an effort to instill patriotism. Others dwell so much on America's wrongs that they make students ashamed of their country.

We aim to present American history in a balanced way, fostering appreciation of America's unique contributions without any political agenda. The course materials are selected with this goal in mind.

We use as a framework the excellent and comprehensive course The History of the United States, from Great Courses. This course includes 84 lectures and should take a full academic year to complete at the rate of two lectures per week.

Alongside the lecture series, students study key primary sources including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and autobiographies representing colonial leaders, civil rights activists, Native Americans and modern immigrants. Classic works of literature and a graphic novel memoir of a civil rights leader are also included.

As does World History, this course includes several excellent movies that elucidate key periods in American history.

The course assigns a research paper at the end of the second semester, on a topic in American History of your choice.

Course components

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