American History II

American History Course II

Essential Standard: Apply the four interconnected dimensions of historical thinking to the American History Essential Standards in order to understand the creation and development of the United States over time.

Essential Standard: Analyze key political, economic and social turning points in American History using historical thinking.

Essential Standard: Understand the factors that led to exploration, settlement, movement, and expansion and their impact on United States development over time.

Essential Standard: Analyze how conflict and compromise have shaped politics, economics and culture in the United States.

Essential Standard: Understand how tensions between freedom, equality and power have shaped the political, economic and social development of the United States.

Essential Standards: Understand how and why the role of the United States in the world has changed over time.

Essential Standard: Understand the impact of war on American politics, economics, society and culture.

Essential Standard: Analyze the relationship between progress, crisis and the “American Dream” within the United States.

Use Chronological thinking to:1. Identify the structure of a historical narrative or story: (its beginning, middle and end) 2. Interpret data presented in timelines and create timelines.

Use Historical Comprehension to:1. Reconstruct the literal meaning of a historical passage. 2. Differentiate between historical facts and historical interpretations. 3. Analyze data in historical maps. 4. Analyze visual, literary and musical sources.

Use Historical Analysis and Interpretation to:1. Identify issues and problems of the past. 2. Consider multiple perspectives of various peoples of the past. 3. Analyze cause-and-effect relationships and multiple causation. 4. Evaluate competing historical narratives and debates among historians. 5. Evaluate the influence of the past on contemporary issues. 

Use Historical Research to:1. Formulate historical questions. 2. Obtain historical data from a variety of sources. 3. Support interpretations with historical evidence. 4. Construct analytical essays using historical evidence to support arguments.

Analyze key political, economic, and social turning points since the end of Reconstruction in terms of causes and effects (e.g., conflicts, legislation, elections, innovations, leadership, movements, Supreme Court decisions, etc.).

Evaluate key turning points since the end of Reconstruction in terms of their lasting impact (e.g., conflicts, legislation, elections, innovations, leadership, movements, Supreme Court decisions, etc.).

Analyze how economic, political, social, military and religious factors influenced United States imperialism (e.g., passing of the western frontier, new markets, Spanish American War, Open Door Policy, Monroe Doctrine, Roosevelt Corollary, canal routes, etc.).

Explain how environmental, cultural and economic factors influenced the patterns of migration and settlement within the United States since the end of Reconstruction (e.g., gold rush, destruction of the buffalo, reservations, ethnic neighborhoods, etc.).

Explain the roles of various racial and ethnic groups in settlement and expansion since Reconstruction and the consequences for those groups (e.g., American Indians, African Americans, Chinese, Irish, Hispanics and Latino Americans, Asian Americans, etc.).

Analyze voluntary and involuntary immigration trends since Reconstruction in terms of causes, regions of origin and destination, cultural contributions, and public and governmental response (e.g., new immigrants, ports of entry, ethnic neighborhoods, settlement houses, immigration restrictions, etc.).

Analyze the political issues and conflicts that impacted the United States since Reconstruction and the compromises that resulted (e.g., Populism, Progressivism, working conditions and labor unrest, New Deal, Wilmington Race Riots, Eugenics, Civil Rights Movement, Anti-War protests, Watergate, etc.).

Analyze the economic issues and conflicts that impacted the United States since Reconstruction and the compromises that resulted (e.g., currency policy, industrialization, urbanization, laissez-faire, labor unrest, New Deal, Great Society, supply-side economics, etc.).

Analyze the social and religious conflicts, movements and reforms that impacted the United States since Reconstruction in terms of participants, strategies, opposition, and results (e.g., Prohibition, Social Darwinism, Eugenics, civil rights, anti-war protest, etc.). AH2.H.4.4 Analyze the cultural conflicts that impacted the United States since Reconstruction and 

Analyze the cultural conflicts that impacted the United States since Reconstruction and the compromises that resulted (e.g., nativism, Back to Africa movement, modernism, fundamentalism, black power movement, women’s movement, counterculture, Wilmington Race Riots, etc.).

Summarize how the philosophical, ideological and/or religious views on freedom and equality contributed to the development of American political and economic systems since Reconstruction (e.g., “separate but equal”, Social Darwinism, social gospel, civil service system, suffrage, Harlem Renaissance, the Warren Court, Great Society programs, American Indian Movement, etc.).

Explain how judicial, legislative and executive actions have affected the distribution of power between levels of government since Reconstruction (e.g., New Deal, Great Society, Civil Rights, etc.). 

Explain how national economic and political interests helped set the direction of United States foreign policy since Reconstruction (e.g., new markets, isolationism, neutrality, containment, homeland security, etc.).

Explain the reasons for United States involvement in global wars and the influence each involvement had on international affairs (e.g., Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, Iraqi War, etc.).

Explain the impact of wars on American politics since Reconstruction (e.g., spheres of influence, isolationist practices, containment policies, first and second Red Scare movements, patriotism, terrorist policies, etc.).

Explain the impact of wars on the American economy since Reconstruction (e.g., mobilizing for war, war industries, rationing, women in the workforce, lend-lease policy, WWII farming gains, GI Bill, etc.).

Explain the impact of wars on American society and culture since Reconstruction (e.g., relocation of Japanese Americans, American propaganda, first and second Red Scare movement, McCarthyism, baby boom, Civil Rights Movement, protest movements, ethnic, patriotism, etc.).

Analyze the relationship between innovation, economic development, progress and various perceptions of the “American Dream” since Reconstruction (e.g., Gilded Age, assembly line, transcontinental railroad, highway system, credit, etc.).

Explain how opportunity and mobility impacted various groups within American society since Reconstruction (e.g., Americanization movement, settlement house movement, Dust Bowl, the Great Migration, suburbia, etc.).

Evaluate the extent to which a variety of groups and individuals have had opportunity to attain their perception of the “American Dream” since Reconstruction (e.g., immigrants, Flappers, Rosie the Riveter, GIs, blue collar worker, white collar worker, etc.).

Analyze multiple perceptions of the “American Dream” in times of prosperity and crisis since Reconstruction (e.g., Great Depression, Dust Bowl, New Deal, oil crisis, savings and loan crisis, dot.com bubble, mortgage foreclosure crisis, etc.).