This course is designed for high school students.
Students will be issued course packets containing readings. Short articles for in-class reading will be distributed during class sessions.
Students will be expected to complete a reading assignment before every class. In class discussion is required and forms a crucial component of the course. Assignments are geared towards an SAT format. All reading assignments are designed to be completed quickly with accompanying questions. Throughout the course, there will be three short in-class quizzes regarding an unknown text and multiple-choice questions. Additionally, students will be required to complete seven (7) 5-paragraph assessments using examples from their reading assignments.
As with all Top Scholars courses, grades and evaluations are disclosed only to individual students and parents, and are never posted publicly or discussed in class.
This course contains 12 classes, each 2.5 hours in length. Film screenings will be scheduled at separate times.
Class 1 - Introduction: Imagining America
Class 2 - Lead-up to Revolution
Class 3 - The American Revolution
Class 4 - "We the People:" The United States Government
Class 5 - Louisiana Purchase and the Industrial Revolution
Class 6 - Brother against Brother: The Civil War
Class 7 - Beginning of a World Power (Post Civil War to World War I)
Class 8 - The Roaring '20s, Great Depresson, and World War II
Class 9 - The Cookie Cutter Life or Nuclear Annihilation?
Class 10 - From Civil Rights to Apocalypse Now
Class 11 - The American Hegemony (From Bush to 9/11)
Class 12 - A Declining Empire: From Osama to Obama