VII. Spring Semester 1997 Instructor's Statement & Syllabus 

Jennifer Coleman, my teaching assistant for this class, came to me with much less teaching experience than Martin Wilson. However, she made up for her lack of experience with large quantities of enthusiasm, energy, and effort. I gave her my instructor's diary from the previous semester to orient her to the course, and she reported finding it helpful. During the term she prepared discussion questions each week for the two discussion groups and taught one group every Thursday. She gave a lecture on the Civil War and helped me grade the mid terms, book reports, and final examination. We met at least once each week and often twice to discuss our instructional strategies and objectives for the Thursday discussion groups. 

In assembling documentation for this class, I chose not to write another instructor's diary because the course content in the spring was similar to that accounted for in the diary that I prepared in the fall. Instead, I focused on assessment, using the comments that we wrote on student exams and papers as well as the students' own final examination questions as evidence of what and how well the students were learning. The reader might want to compare these materials with their counterparts from the fall. The final examination questions that the students wrote in both semesters are especially revealing. In both classes, the students questions show a very good understanding of what the teachers considered to be important. They include many references to the three themes of the class -- migration, diversity, and freedom -- as well as a special interest in the historical experience of minorities and women. Put another way, most students realized what they were supposed to be learning even if some did a better job than others actually writing their final exams. 

In both the spring and fall renditions of this class students were expected to write a weekly journal based on the assigned reading. Students find this task onerous, and many complained about it in their course evaluations. More than a few had difficulty keeping up and were forced to submit several journal entries at once or take a deduction in their final grade because they failed to submit the requisite number. The journal is designed to make students do the reading and think about what it means. It is also supposed to help them improve their writing. I have found that students don't seem to be able to translate their journal entries each week into classroom participation. Insights put on paper often don't get introduced into classroom discussion. Perhaps this argues for having the students share their journals with one another as part of classroom participation. 

VIII. Syllabus, Spring 1997

History 67 
The United States, 1600 to 1877 

William Cutler 
E-mail: wcutler@vm.temple.edu 
Phone: 215-204-7755 
Office Hours: Thursday, 2:00-4:00 p.m. 

Jennifer Coleman 
E-mail: psu1994@vm.temple.edu 
Office Hours: Tuesday & Thursday, 10:00-11:30 a.m. 

Mission and Method

Students in this course will participate actively in their education. They will engage the instructor and each other in classroom discussion and write regularly about what they are studying. 

Requirements

Students will be expected to complete the assigned chapter or chapters in the textbook by Tuesday of each week. Students should come to class on Tuesday ready to answer questions about the assigned material in the text. Handouts and chapters from the introductory reader must be prepared by Thursday, and students should come to class on Thursday prepared to discuss the text, the assignments in the reader, and any handouts for the week. 

2) Short Paper: Each student will read at least one other book chosen from a short list of relevant selections. S/he will write a brief paper (4-6 pages) about it. The paper should summarize the main theme(s) in the book and comment on their importance to our understanding of American history and contemporary affairs. In writing this paper you should ask yourself: 

a) why did the author write this book; 

b) what generalizations did the author hope his readers would remember after the details had been forgotten; 

c) how successful was the author in convincing you that these generalizations are worth remembering. Be sure to comment here on the reasons the author gave for making his/her generalizations and the ways s/he used historical evidence to support his/her reasons and generalizations. A preliminary draft may be submitted on or before April 3, 1997. The final draft will be due on April 17, 1997. 

3) Journal: Every student will keep a weekly journal on the class. Entries in the journal are to take one of two forms: 

Form One: Students may choose to write in response to one or more of the questions about course themes and content that appear in the Schedule of Classes below. These questions are geared to the material in the textbook, America Past and Present, that will be covered in class that week. 

Form Two: Students may choose to write a summary and critique of a chapter assigned in the introductory reader or, when applicable, the handout for the week. In writing such an entry students should answer two or more of the following questions: (1) What is the reading about (2) What is the author's thesis or main point? (3) What kinds of materials does the author use to make his/her point? (4) How does the reading speak to us today? Journal entries of this kind may serve as practice for the short paper due in April. 

Each journal entry should be about 200-250 words in length (the equivalent of one double-spaced, typewritten page). Journal entries will be due each week on Thursday,and the first journal entry will be due on Thursday, January 23, 1997. Your final grade on your journal will be computed from the twelve highest grades you receive on your weekly submissions. You may not do all your journal entries in the same form. At least five of your entries must be in one form or the other. In other words, you may not do more than nine journal entries in any one form. 

Students are encouraged to connect journal entries to contemporary events. Try to reflect on the relevance of the past for the present in a concluding paragraph. 

4) Examinations: There will two examinations, a mid-term on March 25, 1997 and a final examination on a date to be announced. 

GRADING

REQUIRED BOOKS

Leonard Dinnerstein & Kenneth T. Jackson, American Vistas: 1607-1877. Seventh edition. 

SELECTED READING FOR SHORT PAPERS

James Axtell, The Invasion from Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America. (1986) 

Bernard Bailyn, The Origins of American Politics. (1968) 

John W. Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. (1972) 

Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissembaum, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft. (1974) 

James C. Curtis, Andrew Jackson and the Search for Vindication. (1976) 

John Demos. A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony. (1970) 

Thomas Dublin, Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1860. (1979) 

John M. Farragher, Daniel Boone, The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer. (1992) 

David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere's Ride. (1994) 

Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War. (1970) 

Winthrop Jordan, The White Man's Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the United States. (1974) 

James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. (1988) 

Stephen B. Oates, The Forces of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion. (1975) 

David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861. (1976) 

David Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic. (1971) 

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. (1982) 

SCHEDULE OF CLASSES

WEEK ONE

Special Topic: Is the Past a "Foreign Country"? 

Questions: 

• Is history all about dates and facts? Why? Why not?
• What is the difference between history and memory?
• What "good" is history? What function does it perform in the present?

WEEK TWO

Special Topics: 

• What's all this Fuss about Columbus?
• Vexed and Troubled Englishmen

• What were differences among the English, French and Spanish in their approaches to the New World?
• What does it mean to say that Europeans "conquered" the land and peoples of North America?
• Why and in what status did Europeans emigrate to North America?
• What were the sources and limits of freedom in Massachusetts Bay colony? In Pennsylvania? In Virginia?

WEEK THREE

Special Topics: 

• The Family in New England & the Chesapeake
• Witchcraft, New England Style

• What were the roles of women and the family in colonial America? Did they differ by region?
• How and why did African slavery get started in North America? What did slavery mean for African culture?
• What was the nature and significance of British economic policy in the New World?

WEEK FOUR

Special Topics: 

• Unity and Disunity: The Great Awakening
• Emigration: The Exodus of 1770-1775

• Describe the patterns of immigration to the American colonies in the eighteenth century and assess their significance for the different regions.
• What was the importance of the Great Awakening to freedom in American culture?
• What were the differences between the political cultures of Britain and America in the eighteenth century?
• How and why were these differences important?

WEEK FIVE

Special Topics: 

• Boston and Philadelphia: Seedbeds of the Revolution?
• Who Was This Man Called Thomas Hutchinson?

• When and on what grounds did the Americans make a case for their independence from Britain?
• Did the Americans consider themselves to be revolutionaries? Why? If not, why not?
• Did the British lose the war for American independence or did the Americans win it? Explain.

WEEK SIX

Special Topics: 

• Mixed Government and Utopian Republicanism
• The People "Out-of-doors"

• What were the fundamental challenges to creating successful state governments in the new republic? A federal government?
• What was the place of women and blacks in the new republic?
• What were the incentives for, and obstacles to a constitutional convention? What role did "the people" play in the ratification of the U.S. Constitution?

WEEK SEVEN

Reading: Divine, ch. 7 & 8: 3/4 
Dinnerstein & Jackson, no assignment 

Special Topics: 

• Origins of Political Parties
• Was the American Revolution Radical?

• How did Jefferson's and Hamilton's views on human nature and beliefs about individual freedom differ and what was the significance of these differences for government policy in the 1790s?
• What role did England and France play in American domestic politics and foreign policy in the 1790s? In the early 1800s?
• Why did Americans need a national hero in the early years of the new republic? How did George Washington fill that need?
• What was the role of technology in the new republic? Did it have implications for American freedom?

WEEK EIGHT

Special Topics: 

• The Transportation Revolution
• The New Industrial Worker: Mill Girls at Lowell

• Define the phrase "market economy" and explain its significance for immigrants, Native Americans, women, and blacks in the early nineteenth century.
• How important was the federal government in the lives of most Americans by 1820? Explain.
• How mobile were Americans in the early nineteenth century? Was migration voluntary or involuntary? Explain.

WEEK NINE

3/27      Jacksonian Democracy 
Reading: Divine, ch. 10: 3/27 
Dinnerstein & Jackson, no assignment Special Topics: Political Economy in the Age of Jackson 

• The Elections of 1824 and 1828
• Questions: In what ways was the United States a land of equal opportunity by the 1830s? In what ways was it not? Explain.
• Did President Andrew Jackson live up to his billing as a man of "the people"? Why? Why not?
• How different from each other were the political parties of the Jacksonian era? Did they give voters a real choice between contrasting philosophies of government?

WEEK TEN

Special Topics: 

• The Rise of the Modern Family
• Self-Control and Reform

• Why is the period between 1830 and 1860 known as an era of reform? Were the reforms intended to increase or decrease personal freedom?
• What were the roles of women and the family in the pre Civil War America? Compared to their colonial forebears, did American women have more autonomy or less by 1840?
• Would you say that Americans were an optimistic or pessimistic people in the first half of the nineteenth century? Explain?

WEEK ELEVEN

Special Topics: 

• The Mormons and Manifest Destiny
• Roots of American Racism

• Define the phrase "Manifest Destiny" and explain its significance to U.S. history in the 1840s.
• Describe and explain the relationship between immigration and industrialization in the United States in the twenty years before the Civil War.
• How important was slavery to the American economy in the first half of the nineteenth century? To the economy of the South?
• How well did African Americans cope with being slaves in the American south? Did free blacks suffer as well as slaves? Explain.

WEEK TWELVE

Special Topics: 

• The Compromises of 1820 & 1850
• The Dred Scott Decision

• What were the consequences of the Mexican War for westward expansion and the politics of slavery in the United States?
• Define the phrase "popular sovereignty" and explain its role in the sectional crisis of the 1850s.
• Why did the sectional crisis in America come to a head in the 1850s? What role did the Republican Party play?

WEEK THIRTEEN

Special Topics: The Republican Party and the South 

Questions: 

• What advantages and disadvantages did the North and the South bring with them into the Civil War?
• Why did Lincoln wait until January 1, 1863 to issue the Emancipation Proclamation? What was the contribution of the Proclamation to the coming of the Thirteenth Amendment?
• What was the impact of the Civil War on the role of the federal government in American life?

WEEK FOURTEEN

Special Topics: 

• Themes of Reconstruction
• The Fourteenth Amendment

• Did the South lose the Civil War but "win" Reconstruction?
• Was Reconstruction about economic opportunity or civil and political rights?
• Was the Civil War a constitutional crisis that was resolved by Reconstruction?

Special Assignment: Write a question for the final examination. The class will review submissions for their suitability as determined such criteria as: clarity, scope, relevance, and creativity. 

VIII. Appendixies