3. To have students understand how history is written and how history both resembles and differs from other Liberal Arts disciplines.

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1 Sample Syllabus History 103:: United States History to 1865 Instructor: Prof. Mary A. Y. Gallagher Office Hours: Monday and Thursday 5:45-6:15 PM and by appointment Phone: Class Time and Room: Monday 6:30-9:20 PM PH 156 History Office PH 352M Books to be purchased: Melvin Yazawa, ed., Documents for America s History, Volume I: To 1877, Seventh Edition (Bedford/St. Martin s: Boston and New York, 2011) ISBN: Abbreviated: DAH. Additional Sources on Blackboard Intellectual Goals of the Course: Our goal is to have students gain an understanding of the following: 1. To have students understand the nature of history, how historical information is gathered from a variety sources, how information is assessed, and how interpretations are formulated and constructed from different points of view. 2. To have students be able to analyze original documents in terms of their content, their audience, the author s political or philosophical perspective, and the historical context in which the document was written. 3. To have students understand how history is written and how history both resembles and differs from other Liberal Arts disciplines. 4. To have students evaluate critically and analytically the evidence and arguments for differing interpretations and to be able to present written work in which they present evidence, develop their own interpretations, and show how the evidence supports their conclusions. 5. To introduce students to the main developments in American society from the beginning of colonization through The course will focus on the interactions between indigenous, European and African peoples in the areas which subsequently became the United States, the demographic growth and political and economic development of the colonies Europeans established, their decision to declare independence from Great Britain, the new form of government they created, changes in the definition of citizenship, the emergence of women from the domestic to the public sphere, the expansion of national territory, and the political, racial, cultural, ideological, economic, and social evolution of the new nation.

2 These understandings fully meet to explicit Learning Objectives of both CUNY Pathways requirements and Queens College s Perspectives (PLAS) concept. Students will: 1. Become familiar with the main developments of United States History from colonization through 1865, which you will study through primary source documents. 2. Learn to discuss, analyze, and interpret them as historians do. 3. Be exposed to conflicting viewpoints on some of the major issues of the period. 4. Be able to use evidence to develop your own written historical interpretation of an event. Grade distribution: Document/Visual Record analyses 35% Film essay (explained separately) 15% Classroom participation 15% Final exam 35% Note that only 35% of your grade is derived from your performance on examinations 100% Document/Visual Record Analyses: This course approaches the study of history through analysis of the primary sources found in Melvin Yazawa, Documents for America s History, Volume I: To 1877 (Abbreviated: DAH). Choose one of the three or four documents listed under Analyses and any one other document from the assigned chapter. (Total two documents per assignment.) Detailed directions for doing the document analyses are provided below. Prepare your analyses by responding to all of the items on the worksheets. Either type your analyses on 8" x 11" paper or write them legibly on loose-leaf paper (no torn or fringed edges or messy cross outs). Whether you type or write the assignment it should look professional. If it does not, I will not accept it. You are required to do 10 pairs of documents. Your grade on these analyses will count for 35% of your final grade. All assignments are due by the last day of class. In fairness to students who submit on time, I will not give any credit for assignments submitted after the last class. The purpose of this assignment is: 1) to develop your analytical skills; 3) to give you practice in writing about historical documents; 3) to prepare you to participate in class discussion and for the final exam; and 4) to let me know what you do and don t understand about what you ve read. The effort you put into this aspect of the course will determine your grade in all other categories.

3 Film Essay: You will be assigned to view either The Crucible or The Last of the Mohicans and write an essay that compares and contrasts it with the primary sources you ve studied. Instructions for this assignment are posted separately. Classroom participation: You earn this portion of your grade by your participation in the conversations we will have in class about the primary sources assigned for each meeting. One of the things college is designed to do is to enable you to have informed opinions and be able to discuss them. I will encourage but not compel you to participate in class discussion but you will not do well in this portion of your grade if you do not. Respect for others opinions is an absolute requirement. Final Exam: There will be no mid-term. The final exam will cover all materials studied in the course of the semester. It will include short essay-identifications and essay questions. The in-class essay question will test your ability to analyze a primary source you have not previously studied. The take-home essay will require you to write a comprehensive essay about one of the major topics we have considered during the semester. In all cases, the exam will require you to support your answers by referring to documentary and visual records we have studied in class. Grading will consider content, integration of source material, effectiveness of argument and interpretation. ASSIGNMENTS: Read all documents in each chapter of DAH and the documents on Blackboard. Do a written analysis of two documents for each chapter, one of which you must choose from those listed after Analyses or from the documents on Blackboard. You must hand in 20 document essays (10 sets). Week # 1 Chapter 1: Worlds Collide: DAH: #1-1, 1-2, 1-10 Download and bring copies with you to the first class from Blackboard. Christopher Columbus Recounts His First Encounters with Native People, (1493) John Smith: A True Relation of Virginia (1608) Pocahontas and John Smith (1624) John Heckewelder Records a Native Oral Tradition (1818) Analysis: in-class, non-graded Week #2 Chapter 2: Settlement of North America: : DAH:, Blackboard: John Winthrop: Modell of Christian Charity Analyses: DAH: # 1-6, 2-5, 2-7, 2-10 (Choose one of these or Modell of Christian Charity and any other document in either chapter) Week #3 Chapter 3: British Empire in America: : DAH: Analyses: DAH: #3-3, 3-5, 3-8, 3-9

4 Week #4 Chapter 4: Growth/Crisis in Colonial Society, : DAH: Blackboard: Peter Kalm: Description of Philadelphia Analyses: DAH: #4-1, 4-4, 4-7, 4-11 Week #5 Chapter 5: Toward Independence..., : DAH: Blackboard: Jared Ingersol: Report on the Debates in Parliament Analyses: DAH: #5-5, 5-8, 5-10, 5-13 Week #6 Chapter 6: Making War/Republican Governments: DAH: Blackboard: William Smith Jr.: Rule for My Own Conduct Elbridge Gerry: Warning about Leveling George Clinton: Attack on the Proposed Federal Constitution Analyses: DAH: #6-1, 6-7, 6-15, 6-16, 6-17 Week #7 Chapter 7: Politics/Society, : DAH: Analyses: DAH: # 7-1, 7-4, 7-7, 7-10 Week #8 Chapter 8: Creating a Republican Culture : DAH: Blackboard: John Jay to Elias Boudinot Daniel Raymond: The Blight of Slavery Analyses: DAH: #8-2, 8-6, 8-7, 8-12 Week #9 Chapter 9: Economic Transformation, : DAH: Blackboard: Thomas Jefferson on Manufacturing Analyses: DAH: #9-2, 9-5, 9-8, 9-9 Week #10 Chapter 10: Democratic Revolution: DAH: Blackboard: Andrew Jackson s Bank Veto Message Analyses: DAH: #10-1, 10-2, 10-3, 10-7, 10-9 Week #11 Chapter 11: Religion and Reform: DAH: Analyses: DAH: #11-2, 11-4, 11-7, Week #12: Apr. 30 (Mon) Film Assignment Due Chapter 12: The South Expands: DAH: Analyses: DAH: #12-1, 12-3, 12-5, 12-9

5 Week #13 Chapter 13: Crisis of the Union, DAH: Blackboard: Thomas Larkin: The Importance of California Carlos Bustamante: The American Invasion of Mexico The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 Analyses: DAH: #13-1, 13-4, 13-5, Week #14 Chapter 14: Two Societies at War, DAH: Blackboard: Charles Memminger: South Carolina Secedes from the Union Analyses: #14-2, 14-7, Week #15: Final Exam HOW TO ANALYZE A WRITTEN DOCUMENT Your source book (DAH) provides you with a series of primary source documents written at or close to the time events occurred preceded by an introduction written by a present-day historian. Use the introduction only to obtain the following information: the type of document or visual record, the date when it was written, its author (or authors), or artist, and the audience for whom it was created. The document or visual record itself may provide additional information about the four items listed below. 1. The type of document you are reading : Is it, for instance, an official document, a private letter, a law, a history or report of an event, a fictional story, a sermon, etc.? 2. Date(s) of Document: When was the document written or the visual record created. Explain how this is significant to interpretation of the document (e.g. written immediately after the fact, 50 years later, etc.) In most instances the editors give this information explicitly. If they do not, look to the document for evidence. Do not confuse the date that the document was written with the date of publication. It may have been published long after it was actually written. Some times the publication date is significant, but, for our purposes, usually it is not. 3. Author(s) of the document or creator of the visual record. Explain who the author or authors are: a participant in the event, an eye-witness, a European writing about Indians or African Americans, a person who was responsible to a higher authority, a political partisan, etc.. Note that the editor of a published volume is not the author of the documents it contains. 4. The audience for whom the document was written or the visual record created? Is the author writing about a past event to influence present policy? To explain failure or to gain personal recognition or political support?

6 Obtain information for Nos. 5-6 ONLY from the document, NOT from the introduction. Here you are required to discuss what you think the author of the document/visual record thinks, not what the editor of the books tells you about it. 5.Thesis/Main Points: (What the document said): Example: #2-1 Las Casas s History of the Indies a.) Give the author s thesis--the point that he is trying to make. Las Casas s Thesis: The Spaniards claim that they enslaved Indians in order to convert them to Christianity was hypocritical, unjustifiable, against the will of God and the Church, and enormously sinful. b) Give three pieces of evidence or arguments he uses to prove his main point. Write a sentence or two that briefly explain why they are important, and provide a brief quote that makes the point you identify. Evidence: 1. The Spaniards treated the Indians like animals: They rode the backs of Indians if they were in a hurry. They beat and insulted them and called them dogs. 2. They lied to the King to get permission to enslave Indians from other islands by claiming this was the only way to convert them to Christianity. The King was wrong to grant this permission: God did not want Christianity at that cost;... The Apostles never expatriated anyone by force in order to convert them elsewhere. 3. Huge numbers of innocent Indians died from hardship, despair, overwork, and inhumane treatment, against which they were defenseless. This arrangement... brought to Hispaniola over a million souls over a period of ten years... and they all perished in the mines from overwork, anguish and exhaustion.. 6. Write a brief essay that Summarizes what you learned from reading the document and discusses why the points you make are historically significant: Sets the reading in a historical context (a hundred years before, ten years after, at the same time as, etc.): e.g. This reading describes how Europeans treated Indians who were not warlike in one of the first European settlements in the New World. Compares and contrasts this reading with other readings and visual records you ve studied and shows how it helps you trace how the issue develops.. e/.g. Document #2-2 shows that, when the English arrived at Jamestown, they encountered more warlike Indians who could not be easily dominated or enslaved. At first the Indians attacked them. But later they traded food to the English. Says what this document contributes to the development of the subject--in this example, colonization.

7 e.g. In the Caribbean, the Spanish found it easy to dominate the Indian population and to use Indian labor to make the colony prosper. In Virginia, the Indians were more warlike, but eventually helped the English to survive. Tells why you think the editor included this document in his book. e.g. This document introduces us to the first Spanish, English, colony in the New World. Indicates whether the author tells you things he did not explicitly intend to convey--his prejudices or cultural biases. e.g. This author thinks that Indians and Africans are inferior to Europeans. Challenges the author s credibility or interpretation of issues. Asks questions you would ask of this author if you were interviewing him/her. Are his ideas similar to those of other people of his time? Far ahead or For behind? What are his/her motives? If (s)he believes that Indians are savages, is (s)he interested in acquiring their land? Would most people of his own time and culture approve of what he says or does? How does contemporary culture regard the activities and practices described? Talks about what, in the document or visual record, most caught your attention, most interested you or describes your reaction to the reading or visual record. VISUAL RECORD ANALYSIS SHEET In place of items 1-4 in the written document analysis, substitute the following: 1. What type of visual record is this and by whom was it created? An illustration from an early book that relates the journal of an explorer done by an illustrator who was or was not on the voyage? A cartoon done by a pro-slavery southerner or an abolitionist? 2. Your observations about the work: Study the visual record for several minutes. Form an overall impression of it. Then divide the page into four quadrants and study each section to see what new details become visible. Force yourself to see what is there and to describe it. Details are important clues to what the artist is trying to convey. 3. Symbols: Most visual records have symbols that would be recognized by people of the time. You may have to work a bit harder to find them. Refer to your description and see which of the details you identified the artist may have intended as symbols. Is there a religious or political frame of reference? If a woman is depicted is she intended to represent motherhood? Virtue? The United States?

8 4. Audience and Impact: Who did the artist/patron expect would view the work? What do you think the artist is trying to say? How does he/she attempt to convey the message? What result did he/she/they intend to achieve --a sense of what or who is beautiful or ugly, good or wicked; a sense of social order or disorder; outrage at an abuse; pride in an accomplishment REMEMBER: An ANALYSIS IS NOT THE SAME THING AS AN SUMMARY. YOU MUST KNOW WHAT THE DOCUMENT SAYS, BUT THEN GO ON AND DISCOVER WHAT IT MEANS. Answering the following questions may help you analyze the document, figure out its meaning and significance: Why was I assigned to study it? What does it show about X? Is it the first instance of this type of behavior? Does it typify the colonists viewpoint about X? Is it different from the standard viewpoint? How would contemporary society judge the attitudes or events described?

Writing for the AP U.S. History Exam

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