This is a semester course that meets once a week for 1 hour. This class examines United States history, starting with colonial settlements until the Civil War and Reconstruction. 

The class is a lecture- and discussion-based course. Participation is required. The course will provide multiple perspectives, including the historical perspectives of women, and Native Americans, as well as exploring the experiences of racial and ethnic groups, including African American and migrant history. 

No prior knowledge is required. 

This course follows the California history and social science standards for eighth-grade US history. Students will study the ideas, issues, and events from the framing of the Constitution up to the Civil War. After reviewing the development of America’s democratic institutions, students will learn about the challenges facing the new nation, with an emphasis on the causes, course, and consequences of the Civil War. They make connections between the rise of industrialization and contemporary social and economic conditions. 

The curriculum will be as follows:

Week 1: 
The Great Awakening and revolutionary fervor.
The Declaration of Independence
The American Revolution 
Civic republicanism, classical liberal principles, and English parliamentary traditions.
The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution and the success of each in implementing the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.
Influences - the Magna Carta, Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the English Bill of Rights, and Mayflower Compact.
The Federalist Papers.

Week 2: 
Foundations of the American political system and citizen participation.
State constitutions between 1777 and 1781.
The common market and the interstate commerce, common coinage, and full faith and credit clause.
The electoral college.
Separation of Powers and checks and balances. 

Week 3: 
The emergence of political parties.
The law-making process.
Freedom of speech.
The functions and responsibilities of a free press.

Week 4: 
Louisiana Purchase.
Political divisions, and territorial expansion.
Famous speeches (e.g., Washington's Farewell Address, Jefferson's 1801 Inaugural Address, John Q. Adams's Fourth of July 1821 Address).
The rise of capitalism and the economic problems and conflicts that accompanied it 

Week 5:
Manifest Destiny.
The Lewis and Clarke expedition.
Oregan Trail.
Transcontinental Railroad. 

Week 6: 
U.S. foreign policy in the early Republic.
War of 1812 
The Monroe Doctrine
The Mexican-American War.

Week 7: 
American migration, immigration, industrialization, and technological developments.
Slavery and the abolitionist movement.
Development of the American education system 
The women's suffrage movement.
Transcendentalism and individualism.

Week 8:
The South from 1800 to the mid-1800s.
Origins and development of slavery; its effects on black Americans and on the region's political, social, religious, economic, and cultural development; and identify the strategies that were tried to both overturn and preserve it (e.g., through the writings and historical documents on Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey).
Examine the characteristics of white Southern society and how the physical environment influenced events and conditions prior to the Civil War.

Week 9:
Dredd Scott v. Sanford.
Missouri Compromise, Kansas Nebraska Act. 
Western expansion from 1800 to the mid-1860s .
Andrew Jackson.
Manifest Destiny, the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Cherokees' "Trail of Tears," and territorial acquisitions.
The role of pioneer women; Wyoming suffrage in 1869.
The great rivers and the struggle over water rights.
Mexican settlements and their locations, cultural traditions, attitudes toward slavery, land-grant system, and economies.
Texas War for Independence and the Mexican-American War.

Week 10: 
Early attempts to abolish slavery.
Northwest Ordinance.
Annexation of Texas and California's admission to the union as a free state under the Compromise of 1850.

Week 11:
Civil War.
Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun.
Boundaries between the North and the South, the geographical differences between the two regions, and the differences between agrarians and industrialists.

Week 12:
Constitutional issues posed by the doctrine of nullification and secession and the earliest origins of that doctrine.
Abraham Lincoln's presidency and writings and speeches and their relationships to the Declaration of Independence. 
Gettysburg Address (1863). 
Emancipation Proclamation (1863) and inaugural addresses (1861 and 1865).
Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, and Robert E. Lee. 
Advantages and obstacles, technological advances, and General Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

Week 13:
Reconstruction.
The movement of former slaves to the cities in the North and to the West. 
Buffalo Soldiers.
Freedmen's Bureau 

Week 14: 
Jim Crow laws.
Plessy v. Ferguson.
The rise of the Ku Klux Klan and describe the Klan's effects.
The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

Week 15:
The Industrial Revolution.
Agricultural and industrial development.
Federal Indian policy and the wars with American Indians and their relationship to agricultural development and industrialization.
Federal government initiatives (e.g. tariffs, banking, land grants, and subsidies).

Week 16:
Entrepreneurs, industrialists, and bankers in politics, commerce, and industry.
The effects of urbanization, renewed immigration, and industrialization.
Child labor, working conditions, and laissez-faire policies toward big business. 
The labor movement and collective bargaining. 
New sources and contributions of large-scale immigration.