American Humanities: Grades 9, 10, 11, 12

Culture

Understand how American culture defines what it means to be an American.

Understand the role of conformity and individualism in American culture.

Understand how poverty, affluence, and the "American Dream" have influenced American culture.

Understand how American culture has sought to balance individual rights with the common good.

Understand how conflict and consensus influences American culture.

Understand how human interaction with land and nature has impacted American culture.

Understand the relationship between industrialization, urbanization and American culture.

Understand the relationship between innovation and American culture.

Analyze expressions of identity within American literature, philosophy, and the arts.

Distinguish between Americans' acceptance or rejection of both religious faith and human reasoning through literary movements.

Compare ways that various ethnic and cultural communities in America have articulated the self.

Compare ways in which the human ideal has been expressed in American culture.

Evaluate the extent to which American affluence has affected individual identity.

Explain how conformity and individuality have influenced American literature, philosophy and the arts.

Evaluate the extent to which American support or criticism of conformity has influenced American literature, philosophy and the arts.

Evaluate the extent to which individualism and the belief in the human capacity to solve problems has influenced American literature, philosophy, and the arts.

Compare multiple perspectives of the "American Dream" using examples of American literature, philosophy, and the arts.

Distinguish the "American Dream" as an idealistic or pragmatic philosophy.

Evaluate "universal prosperity" as a Utopian ideal founded in the "American Dream."

Evaluate the extent to which poverty, affluence and the American dream have affected literature, philosophy, and the arts.

Deconstruct the concepts of freedom, equality, and justice in American literature, philosophy and the arts.

Explain how discrepancies in freedom, equality and justice influenced American literature, philosophy and the arts.

Analyze the relationship between conflict and consensus in American literature, philosophy, and the arts.

Explain the impact of American slavery on American culture.

Analyze the relationship between warfare and American culture.

Analyze American societal perceptions of women.

Explain how social movements on behalf of civil rights and reform have influenced American culture.

Evaluate the extent to which conflict and consensus have shaped American literature, philosophy, and the arts.

Explain how human interaction with land and nature impacted the development of literature, philosophy, and the arts.

Distinguish nature as a useful resource for humanity or an uncontrollable element.

Explain how movement on the American frontier influenced artistic expression and philosophical thought within the United States.

Analyze the relationship between regionalism and cultural development.

Explain how industrialization and urbanization impacted the development of American literature, philosophy, and arts.

Analyze the relationship between urban immigration, migration and American culture.

Evaluate the extent to which industrialization and urbanization have defined American culture.

Explain how innovations in technology, transportation and communication influenced American literature, philosophy, and the arts.

Analyze various genres of American music, in terms of origins, development, cultural effects and distribution through radio and television.

Analyze the development of popular culture in terms of psychology, advertising, and consumerism.

Evaluate mediums of popular culture, such as music, television, photographs, and movies, in terms of historical context and accuracy.