AP U.S. History - DSA Summer Assignments
Transcription
AP U.S. History - DSA Summer Assignments
Welcome to Advanced Placement United States History… I truly hope you will enjoy our forced march through the last 400 years. (Bataan will have nothing on us.). There is a tremendous amount of material we have to cover – as a matter of fact, there is no way that we can go over it all in class. That means you, yes you, dear reader, will have to take some responsibility for your learning and actually read the book and take notes. You will have to become an independent learner. I realize this may come as a rude shock, but you have to come to think of this as college – not the usual high school routine you have come to know and loathe. In APUS, even smart people have to have a work ethic…just warning you. To help facilitate this transition, you have a summer project to complete. Since few students come into the class with much of a grasp of American history, and since you will have to learn some of this on your own, it will help if you have some sort of basic framework on which to hang all of this new information. A good way to acquire that framework is from reading a quick and dirty overview of the subject (Wiki, the book). That’s what the project is about. What I want you to do is to read a “Cliff Notes” of US history – like US History for Dummies, Don’t know much about History or something of that ilk. I want you to pick your “Top Ten” most significant events in US history - events that changed the course of American history. These events should have taken place between roughly 1550 and 1990. Once you have your list, write (type) a brief description of that event and describe how that event impacted subsequent events – and why it mattered. All together, it should work out to about 2 short paragraphs per event. As with all written work in this class, you should use a more formal register than is usual in your spoken language. You should avoid using first person. Don’t use contractions. Punctuation and capitalization rules are not optional. All out of class writing assignments must be typed. Remember, you are not texting a friend, but rather trying to demonstrate that you are the intelligent, thoughtful person you are. It will be due the first day of class in the fall. It will count as a test grade. It will give everyone an opportunity to begin the year on a positive note. It will also serve as an introduction to the content of the course. (Please understand that you will need all the fluff grades you can possibly get.) The first couple test grades will probably not be pretty and this assignment can help balance those initial shocks.) Scoring will be done on the following rubric: Did the student choose 10 appropriate events? Does the student give a concise explanation of the events? Does the student link each event to significant changes that follow? Yes Yes Yes no no no If you have any questions, my e-mail is [email protected]. I do not check e-mail daily over the summer, but I do check it on occasion. There are some copies of the books around here, but it might be worthwhile buying or borrowing a copy. You may find it could come in handy on a routine basis… Have fun, see you next fall – if there is funding and the schools can actually open on time. Ken Jones