Course Overview:

This American History Honors online course covers the discovery, development, and growth of the United States. Major topics include: the birth of America, founding of a nation, developments, the Civil War and Reconstruction, national expansion, progressivism, industrialization, the Great Depression, World War II, Civil Rights, American domestic and foreign policy, global issues, and current events. By means of reading, analyzing, and applying historical data, students come to appreciate the forces that shaped our history and character as an American people. Not only are the topics of American history discussed, but students also explore primary and secondary document investigations, biographies of key individuals, political cartoons, map studies, and period literature.

Semester 1:  

Semester A, American Foundation to the 1920s, covers the founding of North America by Europeans in the 1600s through America’s emergence as a world power at the beginning of the 20th century. A prevailing theme of the course is that America accomplished tasks that no other country had undertaken before. America broke away from Europe, established its own country with a Constitution that has given freedom to more people than any other country in the world, and settled a country by putting that Constitution into practice. Topics covered in Semester A include the birth of America, founding of a nation, developments, the Civil War and Reconstruction, national expansion, and progressivism.

Semester 2: 

Semester B, Jazz Age to WWII, begins in the 1920s Jazz Age and ends in the 21st century. Students will examine in detail the economic factors that led to the Great Depression and World War II, the West’s involvement in the Cold War, and the fall of the Soviet Union. America’s rise as a world power is also covered, as well as a study of the environment, modern presidential foreign and domestic policies, and the Middle East. Other major topics include industrialization, Civil Rights, global issues, and current events.