American
History 1301
Syllabus –
Fall 2012
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Instructor: C.J. Bibus,
Ed.D.
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U.S.
History to 1877
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Wharton County Junior
College
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Course
Website: http://facultyweb.wcjc.edu/cbibus/i_1301_main.htm
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Office Phone:
281.239.1577–Checked once a day as early as possible.
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Email:
bibusc@wcjc.edu–Checked once a day as
early as possible.
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Office: Fort Bend Tech
Center 240-G (MWF)
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Location
at Sugar Land: SUGUH 234, faculty area (TTR)
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Office Hours at FBTC:
9:30-11:00 (MWF), 12:50-1:50 (M), 12:50-2:50 (W).
Office Hours at SUGUH: 8:55-9:25
(TTR); 12:05-1:05 (T); 12:05-12:35 (TR) - Or by appointment.
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Course
Overview and Goals
Prerequisite: THEA reading and writing
requirements met.
Course Description: Survey
beginning with the European background for the discovery of America and
continuing to the close of Reconstruction in 1877. Social, economic, cultural,
military, political, and diplomatic developments are emphasized. The diversity
of the American culture is stressed and the wide varieties of contributions
from all Americans are included.
Course Objectives:
1)
to develop critical thinking skills which would include the knowledge,
comprehension, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of the significant events of
United States
history
2)
to enable the student to understand the primary elements of cultural
heritage and the cultural diversity of the United States
3)
to foster in the student an understanding of the uses of historical
knowledge, to show how the past helps to explain the present, and to assist the
student in developing an historical perspective in and for one’s personal life
4)
to provide students with a base of historical knowledge and the tools to
further their studies in other disciplines and as transfer students to other
colleges
Academic and Personal Integrity: Consequences of plagiarism
and cheating during examinations include referral to administrators without any
opportunity for making redress, a failing grade for the course, disciplinary probation,
or suspension (dismissal). Plagiarism and cheating include use of unauthorized
books or notes, securing help in a test, or copying tests or assignments; they
will result in a failing grade for the assignment. If any portion of a writing
assignment is copied from the Internet or another source, the result will be an
F (0) on the assignment.
Attendance Policy: Attendance will be taken
daily at the beginning of the class. I will consider active attendance throughout the course favorably when computing
final grades that are borderline. Active attendance means 1) using online
quizzes to determine what you need to read, 2) reading carefully and determining
what you need help on before class,
and 3) using that preparation before
class to participate positively in problem solving in class.
Classroom Civility: Disruptive behavior that is
a consistent problem will result in the student’s dismissal from this course.
The term “classroom disruption” means behavior a reasonable person would view
as substantially or repeatedly interfering with the conduct, instruction, and
education of a class. Examples include resorting to physical threats or
personal insults, coming to class under the influence of alcohol or a
controlled substance other than prescriptions, or abusing students or
instructors with offensive remarks. They also include repeatedly leaving and
entering the classroom without authorization, making loud or distracting
noises, persisting in speaking without being recognized, using cellular phones
and/or similar devices during class. (If needed, an empty desk near the door
will be available for them.)
Due Dates and Your
Responsibilities: It
is your responsibility to talk to me if you do not know what to do or need
help. The earlier we talk, the better your chances. With due dates for Unit Exams (essay or objective
parts) and the History Changes Essay, there are no extensions unless it is
appropriate to make an extension available to all of you. You have these responsibilities:
1.
If your planning at
the beginning of the term shows you cannot do these assignments on time, such
as having previously scheduled a trip, tell me immediately and suggest an earlier date for you do the assignment.
2.
If something
happens that you cannot plan for, such as suddenly becoming very ill (doctor’s
note required) or having a death in the family, call and email me immediately
and provide a valid, written excuse. With
a valid, written excuse, these rules apply.
- If you miss any objective exam, your make-up exam is all essay and is taken
on the date of the Final Exam.
- If you miss the History Changes Essay or an essay exam, you receive an
extension, set by me, with no penalty.
Course Website and This Course
This course provides online resources from my faculty website. These resources
can save you time and match how you prefer to learn. You
can view, print, or save these resources to your computer or a flash drive. If
you need help in learning how to do this, please ask, including if you want the
benefit of online resources even though you have limited Internet access or
limited computer access. If you have neither, see me for alternatives for
assignment instructions and for the one resource you cannot get from
class. Tip:
I do not recommend printing anything except resources that can help you take
notes efficiently in class.
3.
Basic Organization of the Course and How You Can Know All
Possible Questions Before Exams
The course consists of
three Units or major time periods that reveal shifts in our history:
§
Unit 1: From New World to New Empires - the 16th Century to 1763
§
Unit 2: From Making a Revolution to Making a Nation -1763 to 1830s
§
Unit 3: Transforming the Nation - 1830s to 1877
Your Course Website
provides content for the three Units.
Each Unit is organized in the same way:
1.
Each Unit begins with a
list of all possible essay questions you might be asked in the essay
part of the exam that ends the Unit.
2.
Each Unit has three subdivisions, about
one-third of the content, to make learning more manageable.
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Each of the subdivisions within a Unit is
organized in the same way. Each has:
§
A link listing all of the approximately 40
questions in a Reading Quiz
§
Aids, including for self-testing, to help you
save time and to make it easier to take notes in class
When we complete the content, you take a paper
quiz of 10 questions chosen from the 40. Practical realities of paper quizzes in class mean
that quizzes happen one time only with no
make-up permitted.
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3.
Each ends with a section, Bringing It All
Together, to help you bring together content from the beginning to the end of
the Unit so you can see where the major shifts are occurring. To help your
understanding, use these aids as you
work through the Unit.
There are no surprises in
the two parts of the exams:
§
For the essay part of the exam, you know all
possible essay questions from the list that began the Unit (# 1 above).
§
For the objective part of the exam, you know all
possible objective questions (about 120) from the combination of the three
Reading Quizzes (# 2 above).
Although there are no
surprises to students in the two parts of the exam, each student sees a
different essay and objective exam:
§
From that list of all essay questions (# 1 above),
there are a minimum of four paper versions of the essay exam, each with a few
choices for the two essays
§
From the 120 objective questions (# 2 above),
there are four paper versions of the exam each with 40 questions
Points for the
Final Letter Grade, Points for Course Assignments, and Planning for Your
Success
The grading system adds
points to determine your grade. You can—and should—determine your current total
as you earn points and save any returned papers until the end of the course. If
you need help in estimating your average during the course, just ask. Your
Total at the end of the course determines your letter grade. An A is 900+
points; a B, 800+ points; a C, 700+ points; a D, 600+ points, and an F, 594 or
fewer points. If your final average is .5 or higher, the grade is rounded up.
For example, if you have:
§
An average of 89.5% (895
points earned ÷ 1000 points possible), you have an A
§
An average of 89.4% (894 points earned ÷
1000 points possible), you have a B
Consider in your planning for
success the small extra credits provided in the course to encourage habits that
result your doing better work and therefore your earning a higher grade. You
identify the extra credits that you plan to do at the beginning of the course.
The table shows the
percentage of the total grade for types of assignments, their points, and a
description.
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Percent
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Points
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Description of Each Course Assignment
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20%
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200
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40 points: Preparation (reading before class, taking notes in class) - 16 points for Unit 1, 12
for Unit 2, 12 for Unit 3.
10 points: History Changes Essay.
150 points, 2 essays at 25
points at the end of Units 1, 2, and 3 (each 50 points).
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10%
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100
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10 objective Quizzes done in
class at 10 points each– There are 9 quizzes (3 for each of 3 Units) to help
you determine what you need to read
and a 10th quiz to help you refresh your memory for the Final
Exam.
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20%
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200
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Unit 1’s Exam Objective
(200 points, 40 questions at 5 points each)
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20%
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200
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Unit 2’s Exam Objective
(200 points, 40 questions at 5 points each)
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20%
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200
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Unit 3’s Exam Objective
(200 points, 40 questions at 5 points each)
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10%
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100
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Final Exam, objective – The
History Department’s exam covers the entire course. If not taken, an F for the Course.
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Reading Quizzes Within Unit
1, 2, and 3: Use these quizzes before you read to identify key content
to notice when you read. You can use the saved or printed link as a
place to record such things as where you found the answer in the textbook.
Objective Part of the Exams
That End Unit 1, 2, and 3: The content in this exam is
in the Basic Organization of the Course.
Final Examination That Ends the Course: The Final Exam was written by the History Department. It is multiple choice and covers
the entire course. Students who do not take the Final Exam receive an F
for the course (not just the
exam itself).
The course provides a paper quiz, Quiz J (for 10
points), to help you refresh your memory of approximately 100 questions from
Quizzes A through I. You can see a link to all of the questions in Quiz J.
Overview of Types
of Written Assignments and the Evidence Checklist/Rubric
History Changes Essay: A lab for a chemistry or biology class is equivalent to what writing about history is for history. Chemistry or biology
instructors may do an introductory lab so students know what to do in a lab and
how grading works. For this history course, the History Changes Essay is the
introductory lab so everyone must do it. After the date in the Course Schedule,
when you click on the History Changes Essay at the Course Website, you see all
possible questions, a table comparing the content (also provided as a handout),
the specific parts of the textbook for that content, and resources to help you.
You take the
History Changes Essay in class, and you may use your textbook during the class.
You each receive a half-sheet of paper with one question from the list of possible questions. You must
answer the question that you receive. You write briefly (and not on the
back) according to the Evidence Checklist/Rubric and the Goal for Written
Assignments (both on the next page).
Essay Part of the Exams That
End Unit 1, 2, and 3 (Each at 50 Points): The content in an essay exam is covered in the Basic Organization of
the Course. Alternatively,
for your third written assignment, you may choose to write a more challenging
writing assignment, a comparison. If you want more information
on this alternative, contact me.
Grading and the Evidence Checklist/Rubric:
The word checklist means a list of
things necessary for success (such as a pilot’s checklist for takeoff) and you
either do them and succeed or you do not and failure occurs. The word rubric usually means a way to give
feedback that is useful but quick for both instructors and students.
The
term checklist/rubric indicates this is both a checklist for success
with evidence and a way to give feedback. The items in the checklist,
abbreviated as CL 1 through CL 5, are common standards in academics and for
jobs that depend on evidence, but they are written very informally and
specifically to what you need to do in this course.
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CL 1
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For your source of facts, you use only the textbook chosen by the
History Department and the sources provided at our
Course Website. Do not use
Internet websites, another textbook, or any other source—including your own
memory.
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CL 2
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You may write facts in your own words or you may use
exact words from the textbook as long as you use quotation marks according to
the specific rules in The Bedford
Handbook. For example, you cannot copy an author’s phrases without
quotation marks or just replace a few words in an author’s sentence. This is
what The Bedford Handbook calls
“half-copy” plagiarism (page 692).
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CL 3
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If you use another’s words, you must be sure either
not to change them or—if you change them—to follow the specific rules in The Bedford Handbook to reveal any
changes you made to those words.
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CL 4
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You must use the source to verify what you write. If
you cannot verify the fact, do not write it and do not assume that the source
agrees with you. If you are certain something is true and you cannot find it
clearly in our sources, ask me for help.
You also must select facts to reveal the facts accurately. Examples:
- If a question is about something specific (such as
a time, type of person, or region), verify that the source is about that
specific thing.
- If the source covers facts about two or more sides
or positions, do not include only one side as though the other did not occur.
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CL 5
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With
most writing work, if asked, you
must be able to state exactly where
(a specific page) in the source
that each fact came from—whether
you wrote the words or the author did. With the alternative third assignment,
you must cite according to the instructions.
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Grading and the Goal of Written Assignments:
One of the most powerful ways to learn something is to try to teach it. If you follow the standards in
the Evidence Checklist/Rubric and you try to understand what happened so you
can teach it as simply but as
accurately as you can, you will have something worth writing. If you then write
in a common sense way as though you were teaching your cousin history that he
or she needed to understand, you will succeed in these assignments.
Purpose of Extra
Credit and Extra Credits with Objective and Written Assignments
This
course uses grading, including small extra credits, to encourage habits that increase
your odds of learning history:
§
Keeping up increases odds for success. If you
score 9 or 10 on the paper Reading Quiz given in class, you earn 2 extra credit
points.
§
The History Changes Essay is the introductory
lab for writing in history, and grading uses the Evidence Checklist/Rubric. The
points are low (10 points), but you can earn 10 extra credit points (recorded
in History Changes Essay_ec in your grade record) by following the instructions
you receive with your graded History Changes Essay.
Required Textbook
Required Textbook: Edward Ayers,
Lewis Gould, David Oshinsky, and Jean Soderlund. American Passages: A
History of the United States. 2nd or 3rd or 4th
Edition, including those called a Compact Edition. If the book has 32 chapters,
it will work.
Caution: You cannot use the BRIEF, 4th edition which has 2 fewer chapters than the other editions, including the other 4th
editions. If you need details on how to recognize this book, just ask.
Course Schedule - Major Dates and Holidays, Where to Go at Your Course Website, and When
Content Is Visible
The
table shows the major dates and what you bring to class, what you do, the
section of the Course Website to use, and when content is visible. Units end in
a two-part exam—essays and objective. The Final Exam does not have an essay.
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Date
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What You Do on
These Major Dates
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Section of
Course Website
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Content Visible
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8/27
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Orientation – Syllabus, Course Website, and Your Course
Plan
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—
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—
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8/29S
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Departmental Pre-test
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—
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—
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Start Unit 1@ - In
the first days, you only see Reading Quiz A and its content.
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Click on Unit 1
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8/29
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9/01
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No class (Labor Day Holiday)
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—
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—
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9/17N
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Write History Changes Essay – in ink, open book, last 30
minutes
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Click on History Changes Essay
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9/10
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10/03S &N
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Take Unit 1’s Exam Objective and Essays
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—
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—
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Start Unit 2@
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Click Unit 2
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10/03
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11/05 11/07S
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Take Unit 2’s Exam Objective (11/07) and
Essays (11/09-last ˝ hour)
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—
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—
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11/09N
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Start Unit 3@
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Click
Unit 3
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11/02
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11/16
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Last day you can drop a course (Our Department does not drop
students.)
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—
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—
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11/22-23
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No class (Thanksgiving Holiday)
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—
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—
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12/07S &N
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Take Unit 3’s Exam Objective and Essays
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—
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—
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Start to refresh for the Departmental Final Exam
with Quiz J.
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Click Final Exam - Quiz J
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12/07
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12/10S
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12:30-2:30- Take Quiz J and the Final Exam (1 Scan-tron for both.)
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—
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—
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@ Lectures follow the order of visuals n the Unit.
Reading Quizzes occur in class on the day we finish the content covered by that
quiz.
S Bring 1 Scan-Tron and a #2
lead pencil N Bring notebook paper and an ink pen.
Schedule for the 3
Units - Textbook Chapters, Resources, and Reading Quizzes
|
Unit
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Content
Visible
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Chapters to
Use
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Part of the
Unit to Use for the Resources and the Reading Quizzes
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Reading Quiz
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Unit Ends
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Unit 1
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8/29
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1, 2
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Foundations (Where We Began); Colonization: Spain, France,
England, and the Netherlands
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Quiz A
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10/03
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2, 3
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Comparing the English Colonies: Examining Events in the 3
Sections
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Quiz B
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3, 4
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Comparing the English Colonies: Traits; Examining Empire
and the Colonies
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Quiz C
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Unit 2
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10/03
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51
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Path to Revolution and War
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Quiz D
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11/05
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62
, 7
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A New Government of Small-r republicanism; The Federalist
Republic
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Quiz E
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8, 9, 103
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Essential Transformations:
What Changed from 1800 to 1840
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Quiz F
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Unit 3
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11/05
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104, 11,
12
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Reform and Change: Comparing
the Sections
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Quiz G
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8/07
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|
|
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13, 14
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Manifest Destiny and the
Impending Crisis
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Quiz H
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|
|
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15, 16
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Civil War and Reconstruction
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Quiz I
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1 With 5, also
read the Declaration of Independence.
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3 For this
issue, stop reading at the heading
“The Expanding Role of Religion” (in the 4th edition “Reform and Religion”).
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2 With 6, also read selections from the Constitution and all of the Bill
of Rights.
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4For this issue, start reading at the heading “The Expanding Role of Religion”
(in the 4th edition “Reform and Religion”).
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I reserve the right to
modify the syllabus and the schedule during the semester.
This is the same table that you use to record your course plan. I suggest
strongly that you copy your choices here so you know what you said you planned
to do, and you can also record your grades as you earn them. That way you can
keep track of your own grade. You can determine your own average by dividing
your current total where you see each broad
line.
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Possible Assignment or Extra Credit Available to You in This Course
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Possible Points for Assignment
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Possible
Extra Credit
|
X If You Plan to Do This
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Points You Actually Earned
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Divide Total by
|
|
Reading Quiz A – quiz
in class
|
10
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Made 9 or 10 on the quiz in class
|
0
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
History Changes Essay
– in class
|
10
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
History Changes Essay_ec
|
0
|
10
|
|
|
|
|
Reading Quiz B – quiz
in class
|
10
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Made 9 or 10 on the quiz in class
|
0
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
Reading Quiz C – quiz
in class
|
10
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Made 9 or 10 on the quiz in class
|
0
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
Unit 1’s Preparation
for class%
|
16
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Unit 1’s Objective
Exam
|
200
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Unit 1’s Essay Exam (2
essays, 25 each)
|
50
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Your Current Total
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
306
|
|
Reading Quiz D – quiz
in class
|
10
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Made 9 or 10 on the quiz in class
|
0
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
Reading Quiz E – quiz
in class
|
10
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Made 9 or 10 on the quiz in class
|
0
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
Reading Quiz F – quiz
in class
|
10
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Made 9 or 10 on the quiz in class
|
0
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
Unit 2’s Preparation
for class%
|
12
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Unit 2’s Objective
Exam
|
200
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Unit 2’s Essay Exam (2
essays, 25 each)
|
50
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Your Current Total
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
598
|
|
Reading Quiz G – quiz
in class
|
10
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Made 9 or 10 on the quiz in class
|
0
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
Reading Quiz H – quiz
in class
|
10
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Made 9 or 10 on the quiz in class
|
0
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
Reading Quiz I – quiz
in class
|
10
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Made 9 or 10 on the quiz in class
|
0
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
Unit 3’s Preparation
for class%
|
12
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Unit 3’s Objective
Exam
|
200
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Unit 3’s Essay Exam (2
essays, 25 each)
|
50
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Your Current Total
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
890
|
|
Quiz J as a refresher
for the Final Exam
|
10
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Final Exam – If not taken, an F for the entire COURSE (not just the exam)
|
100
|
0
|
X
|
|
|
|
Your Current Total
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
1000
|
% How I measure
Preparation: When I mark the seating chart (or change it if needed); when I
give 10-minute short essay questions in class.
