Learning from our first essays:

Here are the expectations for your revision:

1. Reread your essay effort
2. Consider the comments
3. Consider your brainstorming
4. Rate your essay – Here’s the rubric

Then, reflect.  In an expository format, rethink your approach and your effort.  Consider what you did well – ALL students did several things well – and things that you would change.  The three main topics for consideration should be:

• the thesis you used to respond to the question
• the evidence you used (and the evidence you didn’t use)
• the analysis included

Lastly, be sure to consider how you might approach the next essay –

1. What will you do before the test to better prepare yourself?
2. What will you do during the test to better determine your thesis?
3. What will you be sure to remember as you plan the scope of your essay.

All responses should be word-processed, NO MORE THAN one page double-spaced, and use specific references to the student essays written in-class.  Use of specific examples from the student essay is required.  Specific additions should be considered by the student authors.

The quality of your self-reflection will determine how many points you may earn up to five max.  Points will be added to the test category.  All responses are due on Monday, October 19th at the beginning of class.

Unit 3 Reading List – Reform

The Unit test will be on 10/22.  It will involve two parts: a multiple choice portion Thursday and a Socratic Seminar on Friday.

The assigned pages below are bolded in Pink. Optional assignments are in black.  In each assigned reading, take notes on the central ideas and pertinent pieces of historical evidence. If the reading is a packet, or Zinn reading, print out the packet (or document) and critically read it. Pay particular attention to primary quotes that could be used in an essay.

1. Religion and Reform Packet – Optional T&S 503-512 Transcendentalism
2. Optional T&S 516-523 Reform
3. Packet TBD Optional Chapter 14 T&S:526-538 Manifest Destiny & California
4. Zinn Reading on the Mexican American War [hw 10/16] Optional Chapter 14 T&S:538-553 Texas
5. Optional Chapter 14 T&S:553-561 The Mexican-American War
6. Chapter 15 T&S:571-592 Slavery and the Old South [hw 10/8] efficient reading
7. Optional T&S:592-599  Abolition
8. Zinn Reading on Slavery [hw 10/13]
9. The American Odyssey packet [hw 10/19]

Chapter 16 T&S: 603-616 [moved to unit 4]

Chapter 16 T&S: 616-630 [in unit 4]

Chapter 16 T&S: 630-645 [in unit 4]

Assume the unit 3 test is on October 23rd

In addition, there are these primary sources:

• William Lloyd Garrison
• Harriet Beacher Stowe – excerpt from Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• Frederick Douglass –
• Abraham Lincoln –
• John C. Calhoun

If you’re building your History Journal…

Feel free to put the date on everything… and to submit all the recent work in your second history folder.  Remember that you should also assemble the journal prior to class.  Here’s the cover sheet so you can print it and assemble it tonight.

Preparing for the Unit test

As mentioned, there will be 60-70 questions on the Multiple Choice test.  There will be 25 or so questions based on the U.S. Constitution – the Articles and the first ten Amendments.  In addition, there will be 40+ questions pertaining to the historical period from the Articles of Confederation to 1840.  In addition to the basic content questions, there will be at least four questions that pertain to a selection of text or texts.  In these questions, there will be a brief excerpt to read and then questions that ask about:

• the source
• the central argument
• the historical context of the source
• the implications of the text

As we prepare, tonight’s homework is to complete the timeline by including historical events/evidence on the timeline.  There is another option as mentioned in class.  After putting the evidence on the timeline, you should work your way beyond number one below:

1. Identify Relevant Events (Thanks Ishira!)
2. Group the events by themes
   1. Federalists vs. Republicans
   2. Constitutional Development
   3. Sectionalism or Nationalism
   4. Foreign Relations with Britain and France
   5. The Industrial Revolution in the U.S.
3. Place the events on the timeline
   1. Add Analysis for the evidence included (commentary should answer “So What?”)
   2. Write Theses for each theme identified in #2
4. Create Sample Questions
   1. What will be assessed?
   2. What is important to your theses?
      1. How should this era/historical event be known?