It's the end of our first week out of school, so we need to give you some updates information:

AP Exams:

• College board has decided that they will be opening up TWO exam dates and that you will be taking exams ONLINE, AT HOME.  The format of the exam will be radically altered as well.  It looks like they are developing a 45 minute, open response only, exam which will be accessible on phones as well as by computer.  As we get more details from College Board, we will pass them along to you.
• We do not know what the open response will look like yet, so our plan next week is to begin preparing you for what it is MOST LIKELY to include in terms of skills and content.  

AVAILABLE RIGHT NOW:

• We have opened up all of the AP Classroom practice materials for all time periods for all classes.  You can access these resources through your APClassroom account for this class.  Additionally, check out the review resources we have on the APUSH EXAM REVIEW page of this site.  There are lots of great, free review resources.  Lastly, be keeping up with textbook reading and notes.  This is a great way to keep up with basic content.

NEXT WEEK:

• Mr Richardson and I will post a Google Meets link code here on this blog each day for a session we will run at 10:00am each day examining one or more documents.  If you want to join the meets, click the link code at or right before 10:00am.  When you join, you DO NOT have to have your camera on and, also, please mute your microphone.  If you need or want to ask a question as we go, you can unmute for that.
• Additionally, we will each run an "Office Hours" session at 3:00-4:00 on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday next week where you can drop in to ask questions.  The same format will apply there:  no camera necessary, on mute unless asking a question.
• Finally,  We will be posting some screencasts to discuss writing DBQ essays as well as covering some content you wouldn't otherwise get from the textbook next week.  EVERYTHING will be posted here on the Blog so that you won't have to go looking in multiple locations on the site for information.  Be sure that you are checking back here on a regular basis as things will likely look MUCH different if we are out longer than next week.

Hang in there!  Make healthy choices!  

​-H

WCPSS has decided to CLOSE SCHOOL for two weeks.  They are doing this by moving our Teacher Workdays to fill out next week and Spring Break to fill the week following.  This means the next two weeks are a true break for you.  You will need to make sure you have submitted your online responses for the scored discussion we did last week by Tuesday at 10:00 pm.  For those of you that were absent last Thursday or Friday, I will post the class activities you missed tonight on this blog.  Stay tuned to this blog for more updates as information comes available.  Expect to take your exam that was set for Monday whenever we return to class.  We will wait for College Board to make any determinations regarding the AP exams.  If you have questions, email either me or Mr. Richardson.  Stay safe!

​-H

The Civil War was our topic of conversation today as we began with an open forum for questions you may have had remaining following your chapter readings.  We next analyzed a Presidential campaign poster from the election of 1860 and compared it to the official platform of the Republican Party from that election to determine the stand taken by Lincoln and the Republicans on the significant political issues of the day.  We then proceeded to analyze and interpret some of the secession ordinances passed by Southern states following Lincoln's election.  We determined from this collection of sources that the root cause of the Civil War was slavery.  We next read and discussed a selection of public and private correspondences by Lincoln to add historical complexity to our understanding of his positions and his leadership.  We ended class with a discussion over individual motivations for participating in the conflict keyed off of the viewing of a clip from Ken Burns' The Civil War series.

Don't forget that Chapter 16 is due tomorrow!  Exam 2 will be Monday, the binder list can be found below.

​-H

Today we started out with a Quiz over Chapter 14 (you will have one more quiz on this quarter's grades).  Afterwards, we spent the period examining the systems of enslavement that existed in the Antebellum United States.  We first completed a DocBlock over a selection by Frederick Douglass.  We next examined some data to help develop a more nuanced understanding of the complex nature of enslavement (New Perspectives on Slavery).  We ended the class by analyzing and discussing three different slave narratives written by formerly enslaved people after their escape from bondage to bring a human element back to the data we had previously interpreted.

Chapter 15 is due tomorrow and Chapter 16 on Friday.  We have moved the LEQ 1c writing day from this Friday to next Tuesday in class.

​-H

Today we held our first scored discussion, this one over the Mexican-American War and Manifest Destiny using a selection by Howard Zinn.  students that were absent will find the directions for making up this assignment on the discussion board.  All other students are responsible for posting on the discussion board as well.  All online comments are due by 10:00 pm, Tuesday, March 17.  We recommend that you make your initial post today or tomorrow, then revisit the board later, scan the initial comments that have been left there, then choose comments that most resonate with you for your required replies.  You can find the discussion board by clicking the "Discussion Boards" tile on the main page of this site.

Don't forget that chapter 14 is due tomorrow!!!  

​-H

For today’s essay, you will be writing and Intro paragraph and one body paragraph.  Please read the notes I left you in last night’s blog.  

You will do your brainstorming on the question sheet, but write all portions of the essay to be graded on the lined paper.

Remember that intro paragraphs provide 3-5 sentences of historical contextualization and then end with your one sentence thesis statement.

Reminders will be on the TV while you are writing.
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Good luck!

​-H

UPDATED:  I will unfortunately be out again tomorrow (fever, chills, nausea, etc.  Good times.). I wanted to give you all a few general notes before tomorrow's (today's?) LEQ writing.

1). READ THE QUESTION AND FIGURE OUT WHAT IT IS ASKING!!!!!  On the first LEQ, far, far too many of you made your main points groups of people.  The question didn't ask who experienced change, it asked how much and what kind of change.  That means your main points AND counterpoint should have been specific categories of change or continuity (like political participation, economic opportunities, personal freedoms, etc.).  Within the paragraphs then you would examine various groups of people in relation to those categories (example, personal freedoms would include evidence about the continuation of enslavement, women's roles being confined to the home in service of the family, Native Americans remaining separate nations and facing great loss of life and land, etc.)

2). Fewer of you had this problem, but... when I say you are writing one body paragraph, I don't mean the entire essay is one paragraph long.  Imagine you are writing a full essay with an intro paragraph and one body paragraph for each main point, possibly another for counterpoint and conclusion.  Instead of putting this entire essay on paper, you are giving me a "sample," one of the body paragraphs you would have written covering one of your main points.

3). Stay on topic and exclude details and historical anecdotes that don't serve to prove or explain your evidence for the main point of the paragraph.  too many of you were listing so many facts, you filled your paragraph with details that had nothing to do with the question or the main point.

4). Flesh out and develop your arguments, i.e. write more... MANY of these paragraphs were just bare bones!  You need to introduce a historical fact you want to use as evidence (1 sentence), then describe the important details related to that fact which help establish its historical significance (2 or more sentences), then finally explain clearly and explicitly HOW the evidence supports your thesis assertion (2 or more sentences, don't just say that it supports it, explain HOW).  Doing this with 2-3 pieces of evidence per body paragraph plus your topic sentence and wrap-up sentence means you've got 12 sentences or so minimum, not the five or six most of you wrote.  

5). Thesis statements are an "all or nothing" in the grading rubric.  If your main points are not of the correct type to answer the question (see #1 above) or you don't have a specific counterpoint, you will not get the thesis point.  This means the thesis is the MOST CRITICAL single sentence in your entire essay.  Take the time to double check yourself that you got it right and did everything you need to do there.

I hope this guidance will help you tomorrow/today!  I'm sorry I can't be there with you!  Remember, that writing last week was only 10% of the final grade on this assignment, so don't freak out if you messed up.  Just use it as a learning experience to know what you need to do this time!  


To see your feedback from LEQ1a from last Friday, use the LINK HERE.

-H

Today we reflected on the massive changes in American society in the early 1800's.  We launched our discussion with a debrief of your textbook notes on Transcendentalism and the Second Great Awakening.  That led us to an analysis of economic and social data (HERE) to help draw a clearer picture of the changes and how they affected individual groups of Americans.  We ended up the day with an analysis of four different documents related to the reform movements which grew out of the Transcendentalist and Second Great Awakening movements which developed partly in response to the changes of the Industrial and Market Revolutions.  This was our first Lit Circle HAPP covering more than one historical document.  We will continue regular DocBlock's as well, but will be slowly shifting the emphasis to this style of document analysis as we go.  The documents we covered today can be found under Period 4 Document Recitation Block files or here: (#1,  #2,  #3,  #4)

Chapter 12 notes are due tomorrow and you need to be working on your preparation for the scored discussion which will happen in class next Tuesday!

​-H

We wrapped up the major topics related to Andrew Jackson's presidency today by first finishing up our discussion over Indian Removal from yesterday, then analyzing the points of view on Jackson's role in expanding democracy expressed by four different historians.  For those of you absent today, you can find those historians under Period 4, Item #12 on this website.

Tonight, Mr. Hutchison's classes need to submit your rough draft introductory paragraphs to THIS FORM.  I will give general feedback tomorrow and your will then have a chance to revise if necessary.  I will give individual feedback to those students that are still struggling at that time before you have to write your next LEQ this Friday.

Also, you need to begin preparing for the first sacred discussion which will be next Tuesday.  You can find the materials and directions at the top of Period 5 on this website.

​-H