Parent Information
This is the parent information page for the GHHS APUSH classes.
Parents can find the daily class activities on the Daily Blog and the Course Syllabus by returning to the main page and clicking the tile for "Syllabus."
What most parents want to know is what will my child be learning, what will they be doing in this class, and what sort of homework burden will their child face. To help answer the first of these questions, we have provided a couple of reading selections linked at the bottom of this page.
The first, "The Problem with History Classes" from the Atlantic Magazine, gives a good, layman's overview of what the research literature tells us.. Students learn history best when they do history, meaning, when they are given the materials of history and asked to extract meaning, reconstruct events and developments, and draw connections across time. Tho help illustrate what this meant, we have provided the second reading, "The Strange Death of Silas Deane" from the college text After the Fact by James West Davis and Mark Lytle. This selection is actually part of your students' summer assignment and it serves to challenge popular notions (unfortunately reinforced in many classroom experiences) of what history actually is.
In short, in APUSH, your students will be developing the skills that historians use to reconstruct and interpret the past based on the faulty, incomplete record which remains. They will be developing these skills by wrestling with specific topics, events, and issues across the span of American history, from prior to Contact and Colonization through to today.
As to the question of what students will in doing in class to develop these skills and interact with the materials of American History, the answer is somewhat in the question. Students will not be sitting and listening to long lectures, taking copious notes, and asked to recite back the version of American history we as the faculty have decided to craft and share with them. Instead, students will be posed with historical questions and given the primary and secondary sources to analyze and interpret in the process of developing their own arguments about the past. They will be reading and discussing in small groups, they will be creating and utilizing analytical heuristics to aid in their interpretations, they will be analyzing and drawing conclusions from raw historical data, and they will be reading, discussing, and debating various and often conflicting interpretations of the past posited by expert historians from the past and today.
In order to make this deeper, more challenging, and more meaningful work in the classroom possible, students will need a base level understanding of the events, chronology, and mainstream interpretation of American History upon which to build and to critique. To accomplish this, the primary homework for this class is to read and take good, analytical (meaning, not solely fact transfer) notes over readings from the class textbook. The textbook is available on this website in PDF form. Unfortunately, we do not have physical copies of the textbook to issue to students. The due dates for each chapter are posted on the class calendar at the beginning of the semester. They may have to shift a day or two depending on loss of instructional days to cancellation, but otherwise will remain as scheduled. You will note that we have a short amount of class time to interact with all of this material, so at times there are three or more chapters due in a week. It is imperative for their success in this class, however, it is imperative that they read these chapters. Additionally, students will at times be asked to listen to a podcast or interact with another academic reading to prepare for the day's activities in class. This is particularly true regarding our scored discussion days which require students to have read one or two academic articles and to have written a pre-discussion analysis and discussion preparation paper. This can lead to a significant amount of homework, but it is manageable as long as students plan ahead using the class calendar.
It is our hope and our goal that students will find the course challenging, engaging, enlightening, and fulfilling. It is a difficult course, but we are confident in the possibilities and capabilities of all of our students and we will provide assistance as necessary during the semester to ensure their success. If you ever find yourself with questions or concerns regarding this class, please don't hesitate to contact us!
James Shanda Hutchison Colin Richardson
[email protected] [email protected]
Parents can find the daily class activities on the Daily Blog and the Course Syllabus by returning to the main page and clicking the tile for "Syllabus."
What most parents want to know is what will my child be learning, what will they be doing in this class, and what sort of homework burden will their child face. To help answer the first of these questions, we have provided a couple of reading selections linked at the bottom of this page.
The first, "The Problem with History Classes" from the Atlantic Magazine, gives a good, layman's overview of what the research literature tells us.. Students learn history best when they do history, meaning, when they are given the materials of history and asked to extract meaning, reconstruct events and developments, and draw connections across time. Tho help illustrate what this meant, we have provided the second reading, "The Strange Death of Silas Deane" from the college text After the Fact by James West Davis and Mark Lytle. This selection is actually part of your students' summer assignment and it serves to challenge popular notions (unfortunately reinforced in many classroom experiences) of what history actually is.
In short, in APUSH, your students will be developing the skills that historians use to reconstruct and interpret the past based on the faulty, incomplete record which remains. They will be developing these skills by wrestling with specific topics, events, and issues across the span of American history, from prior to Contact and Colonization through to today.
As to the question of what students will in doing in class to develop these skills and interact with the materials of American History, the answer is somewhat in the question. Students will not be sitting and listening to long lectures, taking copious notes, and asked to recite back the version of American history we as the faculty have decided to craft and share with them. Instead, students will be posed with historical questions and given the primary and secondary sources to analyze and interpret in the process of developing their own arguments about the past. They will be reading and discussing in small groups, they will be creating and utilizing analytical heuristics to aid in their interpretations, they will be analyzing and drawing conclusions from raw historical data, and they will be reading, discussing, and debating various and often conflicting interpretations of the past posited by expert historians from the past and today.
In order to make this deeper, more challenging, and more meaningful work in the classroom possible, students will need a base level understanding of the events, chronology, and mainstream interpretation of American History upon which to build and to critique. To accomplish this, the primary homework for this class is to read and take good, analytical (meaning, not solely fact transfer) notes over readings from the class textbook. The textbook is available on this website in PDF form. Unfortunately, we do not have physical copies of the textbook to issue to students. The due dates for each chapter are posted on the class calendar at the beginning of the semester. They may have to shift a day or two depending on loss of instructional days to cancellation, but otherwise will remain as scheduled. You will note that we have a short amount of class time to interact with all of this material, so at times there are three or more chapters due in a week. It is imperative for their success in this class, however, it is imperative that they read these chapters. Additionally, students will at times be asked to listen to a podcast or interact with another academic reading to prepare for the day's activities in class. This is particularly true regarding our scored discussion days which require students to have read one or two academic articles and to have written a pre-discussion analysis and discussion preparation paper. This can lead to a significant amount of homework, but it is manageable as long as students plan ahead using the class calendar.
It is our hope and our goal that students will find the course challenging, engaging, enlightening, and fulfilling. It is a difficult course, but we are confident in the possibilities and capabilities of all of our students and we will provide assistance as necessary during the semester to ensure their success. If you ever find yourself with questions or concerns regarding this class, please don't hesitate to contact us!
James Shanda Hutchison Colin Richardson
[email protected] [email protected]