US History

Goals:

1. Students will be able to name and describe the forces that shape people, their culture, and their society.

2. Students will be able to detail the major events, people, movements, and changes of American history from its founding up to the Reconstruction era.

3. Students will be able to name the forces that cause societal change, link their causes and effects, and describe their impact on the issues of today’s country.

4. Students will be able to describe the functioning of the American government in light of its formation in the founding documents.

5. Students will be able to state the importance and detail the growth of the Catholic Church in the United States.

8.1 Students understand the major events preceding the founding of the nation and relate their significance to the development of American constitutional democracy.

8.2 Students analyze the political principles underlying the U.S. Constitution and compare the enumerated and implied powers of the federal government.

8.3 Students understand the foundation of the American political system and the ways in which citizens participate in it.

8.4 Students analyze the aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation.

8.5 Students analyze U.S. foreign policy in the early Republic.

8.6 Students analyze the divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s and the challenges they faced, with emphasis on the Northeast.

8.7 Students analyze the divergent paths of the American people in the South from 1800 to the mid-1800s and the challenges they faced.

8.8 Students analyze the divergent paths of the American people in the West from 1800 to the mid-1800s and the challenges they faced.

8.9 Students analyze the early and steady attempts to abolish slavery and to realize the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.

8.10 Students analyze the multiple causes, key events, and complex consequences of the Civil War.

8.11 Students analyze the character and lasting consequences of Reconstruction.

8.12 Students analyze the transformation of the American economy and the changing social and political conditions in the United States in response to the Industrial Revolution.