History 17A Online: Early United States History

I am so excited to be teaching this course in Fall 2025!

Fall 2025 Courses

CRN: 72044 Sec. 961 SYLLABUS This course is online with a required in-person midterm and a required in-person final.

CRN: 71230 Sec. 962 SYLLABUS This course is online with a required in-person midterm and a required in-person final.

Please pay attention to the course you have signed up for. One section of my History 17A will be taught 100% online with no in-person exams. Two sections of my History 17A course will be taught online with an in-person final. There are no required face to face meetings EXCEPT for the in-person final. All students are required to attend their scheduled in-person final. Please see the published class schedule to confirm all important dates. All regular semester work can be done asynchronously online (any time of day that works for you). The course is not self-paced however, there will be due dates for assignments each week and students should not fall behind. But whatever time fits your needs, 2 am, 3 pm, noon - make it work with your life! More information about the in-person final is available in the syllabus.

Welcome!

The United States was formed during a time of great explorations and expansions of world trade, scientific discovery, and heightened philosophical debate on the nature of humans, all taking place in a crucible of cultural clashes. It was from the beginning and continues today to be a place of many peoples, ideas, languages, and ways of being. This class begins with the cultures of the Americas, continues through colonization efforts by European settlers, the forced migration of millions from Africa, the influence of the Enlightenment, waves of immigration by peoples the world over, and the beginnings of industrialization. The Civil War of the 1860s was the result of economic, political, and social pressures that greatly expanded the influence of the national government and culminated in the freeing of all peoples held in slavery in the US, at a cost of over six hundred twenty thousand lives and an additional over six hundred thousand casualties. It is an imperfect story of struggle and triumph, great moral failures, and high ideals.

How to Enroll

Enrolling Before Class Begins

If you would like to take this course, and there are still available seats, register for this class online. If the class is full but there are seats available on the waitlist, put your name on the waitlist. Waitlisted students will receive first priority to add the class as seats become available. If the waitlist is full, students need to find an alternate section of the course.

Enrolling After the First Day of Class

If you would like to take this course and the course has already started, you need to request an authorization online. After you request an authorization online, I will receive a notification of your request and either approve it or deny it depending on the number of students already enrolled. If I approve your request, you will receive an email in your CCSF student email. This email will provide instructions for how to add the class online. You will then be enrolled. All students who add the course after the first day of class will be expected to immediately catch up on all coursework already assigned.

Attendance, Participation, and Getting Dropped from the Course Policy

This course is a three (3) unit lecture course. According to federal requirements, three (3) unit lecture courses require fifty-two (52) total hours of lecture and one hundred four (104) hours of homework to earn credit for the course. That is a total of one hundred fifty-six (156) hours expected to complete this course. In the Social Sciences Department, any student who misses more than six (6) hours of “lecture” may be dropped by the instructor. In an online course attendance and participation are the same thing. Both are required. In this course, participation is measured by turning in assignments. These are the participation rules:

Module One must be completed within 72 hours of the start of class.

This course is very popular and fills before the first day of class. There is a waitlist of students who also need the course for graduation. All students must complete all three Module One assignments within seventy-two (72) hours or they can be dropped as a “No Show” and their spot will be given to another student. Students added to the course after the first day have seventy-two (72) hours from gaining access to Canvas to complete all assignments in the first module.

Weekly assignments count as participation.

Each individual quiz, required written assignment, required discussion, or midterm counts as one (1) hour of class attendance. If you miss a combined total of six (6) or more quizzes, required assignments, or exams they will be counted as absences and you may be dropped for nonparticipation. Assignments labeled “extra credit” are not counted in this calculation, unless they are plagiarized.

Plagiarized assignments, whether required or extra credit, count as an absence.

If you plagiarize an assignment or cheat on a quiz or exam, whether required or extra credit, it will be scored as a zero, a report will be filed with Student Services, and it will count as an absence (since you did not do the work yourself).

Yes, all your assignments will be checked for plagiarism.

My apologies. The vast majority of students in my classes are doing their own work. I only have to say this so that the policy can be used to enforce the Student Code of Conduct for the very few students who do cheat: If your written response has a greater than ten percent (10%) similarity report, it will be considered plagiarized. You can view your plagiarism report by submitting your assignment, then going to Assignments. Next to the assignment there is a flag. Click on the flag to see your similarity report. If you are caught using an online essay generator for an assignment, it will be counted as plagiarized. If you copy your peer’s written responses and then edit them into your own response, it will be counted as plagiarized. If you are caught not taking the quizzes or exams on your own, it will be counted as plagiarized. The best thing to do in this course is to not use outside resources (the internet, other classmates, other friends and family) to complete your assignments. Do your own thinking. Follow the assignment instructions.

Any student with six (6) or more absences may be dropped from the course for non-participation.

Important Dates

Please check all important course dates in the official online class schedule. These dates include the first day of class, the last day to drop with a refund, the last day to drop with a W, the date of the final. It is your responsibility to know these dates.

Required Text and Materials

All required reading materials for this course are provided free online in Canvas, this includes our textbook: The United States from Rice University.

It is highly recommended that you purchases a Composition Notebook to create your History Notebook for this course.

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