U.S. History A is the first semester of Grade 11 United States History and Geography, built on California History-Social Science standards 11.1-11.5, the 9-12 Historical and Social Sciences Analysis Skills, and the CCSS literacy standards for history/social studies, grades 11-12.
Four units: Founding Ideals and a Nation Remade, Industry, Immigration and the City, Populists, Progressives and an Emerging World Power, and World War I and the Twenties. Students read the founding documents and the Reconstruction amendments, the laws and court cases of Chinese exclusion, the Populist and Progressive programs, the arguments for and against empire, and the literature of the Harlem Renaissance — and they follow California through each period, from the Chinese workers who built the Central Pacific to Hiram Johnson’s reforms and the Immigration Act of 1924.
Sources: public-domain primary sources from the National Archives, the Library of Congress and the U.S. Reports, and publications before 1930; OpenStax U.S. History (CC BY 4.0) as the reference text. Students are assessed on the quality of their historical reasoning, not on the conclusions they reach.
Curriculum
- 4 Sections
- 20 Lessons
- Lifetime
- Unit 1: Founding Ideals and a Nation Remade5
- 1.1Self-Evident Truths — The Founding and Its Promise50 mins
- 1.2Federal Power, State Power and a Widening Democracy, 1787-190050 mins
- 1.3Seminar — Faith, Reform and Religious Liberty50 mins
- 1.4Workshop — Washington, Du Bois and the Meaning of Progress50 mins
- 1.5Performance Task — The Promise of the Declaration by 1900150 mins
- Unit 2: Industry, Immigration and the City5
- 2.1Rails, Steel and Oil — Building an Industrial Nation50 mins
- 2.2Working Lives — Factories, Tenements and The Jungle50 mins
- 2.3Seminar — Newcomers, Exclusion and Americanization50 mins
- 2.4Workshop — Survival of the Fittest or the Social Gospel? Machines and Reformers50 mins
- 2.5Performance Task — Public-History Exhibit: The Industrial City and Its People200 mins
- Unit 3: Populists, Progressives and an Emerging World Power5
- 3.1The Farmers’ Revolt — Populism and the Money Question50 mins
- 3.2The Progressive Toolkit — Regulation, Amendments, Conservation and California’s Reforms50 mins
- 3.3Seminar — Did the United States Become an Empire?50 mins
- 3.4Workshop — Big Stick, Dollar and Moral Diplomacy50 mins
- 3.5Performance Task — Structured Academic Controversy: Annexing the Philippines200 mins
- Unit 4: World War I and the Twenties5
- 4.1Over There and Over Here — World War I and the Home Front50 mins
- 4.2Normalcy and the Machine Age — Harding, Coolidge, Hoover and the New Economy50 mins
- 4.3Seminar — Liberty under Pressure in the 1920s50 mins
- 4.4Workshop — New Women, New Voices: Suffrage and the Harlem Renaissance50 mins
- 4.5Performance Task — Historical Research Paper, 1914-1929250 mins
Instructor
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