• Students will be able to understand and analyze:

  • The Founders

  •  The Declaration of Independence

  • The Constitutional Convention

  •  Contents of the Constitution

  • Federalist 10 & The Bill of Rights

  • Checks and Balances; Electoral College

  • Landmark Supreme Court Cases

  •  Political Parties and Ideologies.

• To what extent does the U.S. Constitution in its original form live up to America’s founding values?

• How do checks and balances influence the tension between government authority and individual liberty?

• How did early political parties and foundational documents set the stage for modern ideological debates in America?

Students will be able to understand, explain, and analyze:

•  Early American Review; Declarations of Secession

• Indigenous Boarding Schools

•  Origins of Race in the U.S.

• The Cotton Gin

• Industrialization, and the Spread of Slavery

• The Erie Canal

• Slavery in New England

• Seneca Falls Convention

• How did the simultaneous rise of industrialization (like the Erie Canal) and the expansion of the plantation economy deepen regional fractures?

• In what ways was the institution of slavery foundational to both the North and the South prior to the Civil War?

• How did early marginalized groups use reform movements, such as the Seneca Falls Convention, to challenge systemic inequality?

Students will be able to understand, explain, and analyze:

• The Road to the Civil War

•  Lincoln's Shifting Perspectives on Slavery

•  Lincoln's First Inaugural Address

• The Emancipation Proclamation & Gettysburg Address

• Responsibility for Emancipation

• Plans for Reconstruction

•  Backlash and Resistance to Reconstruction.

• How do long-standing systemic conflicts push a nation past the point of political compromise into total war?

• How did the pragmatic realities of wartime leadership transform the Civil War from a struggle over territory into a moral crusade for human rights?

• Who deserves the primary responsibility for the abolition of American slavery: institutional executive power, or the grassroots agency of enslaved people and abolitionists?

• When a society undergoes a radical political and social revolution, what determines whether justice succeeds, and why does progress so often trigger violent backlash?

Students will be able to understand, explain, and analyze:

• Reconstructing Citizenship

• Immigration Timelines; Push-and-Pull Factors (e.g., Irish Immigration)

•  Historical and Modern Attitudes Toward Immigration

•  Asian Americans Then and Now

•  The Chinese Exclusion Act

•  Researching Migrant Groups.

• How has the definition of American citizenship expanded or contracted over time to include or exclude different migrant groups?

• How have anti-immigrant sentiment and government policies (like the Chinese Exclusion Act) historically shaped the immigrant experience?

• In what ways do the historical patterns of immigration mirror current modern migration challenges and debates?

Students will be able to understand, explain, and analyze:

• Robber Barons vs. Captains of Industry

•  Early Labor Strikes

•  Women and Labor Unions

• Gilded Age and Progressivism for Black Americans

• Higher Education Advancements (Tell Them We Are Rising)

•  Women's Suffrage

•  Antitrust Policies; Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and Food Safety

•  Progressive Presidents (Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson)

•  The Struggle Against Discrimination.

• Did the rapid industrialization of the Gilded Age bring more progress or more harm to American society?

• When and how should the federal government step in to regulate big business, protect consumers, and manage the economy?

• To what extent did the Progressive Era successfully address systemic racial and gender inequality, and where did it fall short?

Students will be able to understand, explain, and analyze:

• U.S. Involvement in WWI

•  Wartime Propaganda and Sedition

• Wilson's Fourteen Points

• Cultural Shifts in the 1920s

• The Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance

•  Rise of Hate Crimes and Dehumanizing Language

• The Stock Market Crash of 1929

• The Great Depression

•  FDR's Inaugural Address, Fireside Chats, and the New Deal.

• How does international conflict impact civil liberties, dissent, and free speech on the homefront?

• How did the cultural prosperity and artistic expression of the 1920s mask deep-seated social friction and economic vulnerability?

• What role should the federal government play in protecting its citizens' economic well-being during a national crisis?

Students will be able to understand, explain, and analyze:

•  The United States Joins WWII

•  FDR's Four Freedoms

•  Japanese Internment

•  The Cold War and the Red Scare

• Press Freedom and Whistleblowing (The Post); The Watergate Scandal.

• How did the United States reconcile its global fight for democracy and the "Four Freedoms" with institutional injustices at home, such as Japanese Internment?

• How can domestic fear and national security concerns during geopolitical standoffs (like the Red Scare) erode democratic institutions?

• What is the responsibility of a free press and the citizenry when dealing with government overreach or political corruption (like Watergate)?

Students will be able to understand, explain, and analyze:

• The Four Stages of Social Movements

•  Desegregation and Voting Rights Activism

•  Shifts in the Civil Rights Movement & The Detroit Riots

• Bureaucratization of the Civil Rights Movement

•  Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail; Contemporary Civic Action (Generation Citizen).

• What are the most effective strategies for citizens to challenge systemic injustice, and how do movements evolve from grassroots protests into institutionalized reform?

• How do the goals, perspectives, and tactics within a single social movement diverge or conflict during times of rapid change?

• How can individual citizens use their knowledge of past social movements to drive meaningful civic action today?