Welcome to U.S. History - Grade 8!

In this class we study our nation asreaders, cartographers, biographers and artists.

Communications

Please contact me (Barbara Courain) by:

Phone: (805) 742-3300

(Please leave a message for me.)

Email: courain.barbara@lusd.org

Our course description and organization

Syllabus

Content:

We study the social, economic, political, and technological changes that have occurred in the United States from its colonial beginnings to the Progressive Movement. This class encourages students to develop critical thinking skills through diverse activities in order to analyze our country’s history and how it relates to current events in the world today.

Our course description and organization

California Standards

8.1 Students understand the major events preceding the founding of the nation and relate their significance to the development of American constitutional democracy.

8.2 Students analyze the political principles underlying the U.S. Constitution and compare the enumerated and implied powers of the federal government.

Our course description and organization

California Standards

8.3 Students understand the foundation of the American political system and the ways in which citizens participate in it.

8.4 Students analyze the aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation.

Our course description and organization

California Standards

8.5 Students analyze the U.S. foreign policy in the early Republic.

8.6 Students analyze the divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s and the challenges they faced, with emphasis on the Northeast (e.g., technological developments, the struggle of Black Americans, urbanization and immigration).

Our course description and organization

California Standards

8.7 Students analyze the divergent paths of the American people in the South from 1800 to the mid-1800s and the challenges they faced.

8.8 Students analyze the divergent paths of the American people in the West from 1800 to the mid-1800s and the challenges they faced.

Our course description and organization

California Standards

8.9 Students analyze the early and steady attempts to abolish slavery and to realize the ideals of the Declaration of Independence

8.10 Students analyze the multiple causes, key events and complex consequences of the Civil War.

Our course description and organization

California Standards

8.11 Students analyze the character and lasting consequences of the Reconstruction.

8.12 Students analyze the transformation of the American economy and the changing social and political conditions in the United States in response to the Industrial Revolution.

Our course description and organization

Resources:

• Textbook: United States History, Independence to 1914

• Variety of supplementary materials, including primary sources

• Reliable internet sources, including Youtube documentary clips

Our class guidelines

• Be Prompt

• Be Prepared

• Be Positive

• Be Polite and Respectful

• Be Productive

--Maintain good attendance

--Take good notes

--Ask questions – this promotes discussion

--Complete assignments

--Study for quizzes and tests

When we get off track

• Verbal warning

• Refocus in the classroom or another teacher’s classroom

• Detention and parent contact

• Referral with parent contact

• Counselor assistance and parent conference with team members

Assignments and assessment

• Daily in class activities: our interactive notebook and class participation

• Chapter-unit tests

• Larger projects, such as a

--CD cover on the Constitution

--Research paper on Native Americans

--Biographical speech (from any historical

period covered in the course)

Our Interactive Notebooks

Gather Information Use Information

Notes from reading & class Diagrams

Questions to guide reading Pictures and cutouts

Lists Creative writing

Outlines Flowcharts

Definitions Timelines

Homework directions Drawings

Use for test review Maps

Examples of Right Page Assignments

• Webs

• Diagrams

• Poems

• Reflections

• Comics

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Illustrated Outlines

Sensory Figures

Acrostic Poem: each line starts with the letter of a word or idea learned.

Venn Diagram

Bumper Sticker

Civic Responsibility

Ask what you can do for your country!