syllabus – Out of the Tower

Sample Lesson Plan 2: AP AMERICAN HISTORY

June 5, 2017December 14, 2015 by Rebecca DeWolf

BEGINNINGS (1491-1607)

1.2. Factors of Exploration and the Contours of Contact

(Lecture Base)

Objectives:

Describe the characteristics of European society on the eve of contact
Describe the characteristics of early West African empires and identify their religious and social structures
Define the term “Columbian Exchange” and explain its impact on the emerging Atlantic World

Draft Syllabus—Social Forces that Shaped America (Summer 2012)

June 5, 2014June 5, 2014 by Rebecca DeWolf

I. COURSE DESCRIPTION

Esteemed political scientist Benedict Anderson wrote that a nation is more than a political entity with geographic boundaries; it is an imagined community. As Anderson explains, it is “imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.”[1] For Anderson, a nation is a state of mind. Following Anderson’s definition, this course looks at the social forces that have shaped the imagined community that is America.