Advanced Placement United States History
Summer Reading Assignment
School Year 2005-2006
I am delighted that you have enrolled in AP United States History for the 2004-2005 school year. The course is challenging but rewarding; and I look forward to working with you.
Instructor: Dr. Larry E. Gates, Jr.
Contact Information:
· legates@sccoast.net. (home)
· lgates@gh.gcsd.k12.sc.us. (school).
· AOL Instant Messenger: Dctr Gates
· 843-365-8823 (home)
· 843-546-8516 Ext. 2125 (School)
Summer Assignment: There are TWO assignments you should complete during summer vacation:
A. Each student should read Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong by Prof. James Loewen. Copies of the book may be obtained from students who took the course last year, or purchased from several booksellers, including but not limited to Barnes and Noble, or Amazon.com. I
To what extent have American History Textbooks accurately portrayed American History?
Your essay should cite specific examples of accurate and inaccurate portrayals and discuss why Prof. Loewen believes such inaccuracies (if any) exist.
B. Each student is to write an essay on the following topic:
In what ways would the Manifest Destiny of the United States have been different if it had been settled and colonized on the West Coast rather than the East?
BACKGROUND: In 1845, John L. O’Sullivan wrote an editorial for the United States Magazine and Democratic Review in which he supported the annexation of Texas. In that editorial, he stated that it was the "manifest destiny" of the United States to overspread the continent, and occupy it from sea to sea. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner postulated in his famous 1905 thesis, "Up to our own day, American History has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development."
Your assignment is to disregard your predilections about the inevitability of the events which constitute American history and theorize on what might otherwise have been.
General Instructions: Each essay:
1. Should contain a well developed thesis statement which answers the question presented. Please note: It is a thesis statement, not a thesis sentence. It should appear in your opening paragraph, and may comprise the entire paragraph if you wish. Please be as specific as possible. You must scrupulously avoid broadly worded vague statements, such as "the history of the U.S. would have been different in many ways." I know that already. Also avoid grandiose flowery statements such as "throughout history, mankind has cast its eyes on the great unknown." It is doubtful that you can adequately support such a statement unless you intend to rewrite the Oxford Dictionary.
2. Must be written in third person, past tense. You are writing about events that occurred in the past at which you were not present.
3. Must be supported with abundant factual references either from your reading of the Loewen Book or your prior knowledge of U.S. History. Obviously, a great deal of essay "B" will be comprised of speculation, however this is exactly what I want you to do. My purpose is to have you abandon some of your most cherished—and incorrect—assumptions about American history.
4. Comprise a maximum of two and one half (2 ½) pages typewritten double spaced, or the equivalent length neatly handwritten in black or blue ink. I want you to answer the question fully, but not give me an information dump. Five to seven paragraphs of three to four sentences each should be sufficient. Obviously, you can’t include everything that you know about the topic in that limited space, so you should judiciously determine which matters are important to your argument, and which are not. I understand that some of you will have difficulty confining yourself to the page limitation. If that is the case, you are free to write as much as you like; however, I will stop reading midway through the third page. Please don’t dare me, or appeal to my sense of fairness. The former won’t work, and the latter doesn’t exist.
5. Will be scored in accordance with the attached rubric. Please read it carefully. Since this is your first attempt at a sophisticated historical essay, I will be merciful in my grading. Your luck in that regard will run out long before Christmas break.
I realize this assignment may appear daunting at first. Let not your heart be troubled. However, if you wish, I will be happy to proofread and offer comments on either or both of your essays provided you submit the draft to me no later than Saturday, July 30, 2005. I will return the essay with comments within ten days. You may email them to me (please attach the essay, do not cut and paste it) to my home or school address; or telephone me and I will arrange a convenient delivery method. Essays submitted after that date will not be proofread under any circumstances.
Due Date: Essay A will be due at twelve noon on Monday, July 21, 2008. Essay B will be due at the tardy bell on the first day of school.. Computer generated essays MUST be preserved on a transferrable disc or flash drive and electronic copies transmitted upon request. No excuses or reasons why, please.
Please use your time judiciously, and do not wait until the last minute. Essays not submitted timely will be penalized ten points per day for each day they are late through the third day, after which they will not be accepted. The only excuses I will accept are those which would constitute an excused absence from school. If your printer fails, save your work to a floppy disc and you may print the essay at school. Allow yourself enough time such that should your computer crash just when you have written the last word, you will have sufficient time to handwrite it. If you fail to submit either essay, I will assume that you are not interested in enrolling in APUSH.
Academic Honesty: Each student must make every effort to insure that work submitted for credit is his/her own. It must not be borrowed, stolen, copied or downloaded from any source whatsoever. APUSH is taught on an honor system in accordance with the policy of most major colleges and universities. Pursuant to that policy, each student will periodically be asked to sign a statement affirming on his/her honor that he/she is not guilty of any act of academic dishonesty, and is unaware of any other student who is guilty of the same. Any violations will be reported in writing to the National Honor Society and a copy of the letter placed in the student’s scholarship file.
Questions: I understand that this assignment is somewhat novel for you, and therefore I strongly encourage you to contact me with any questions or concerns. There is only one "dumb" question: the one that isn’t asked! I welcome your inquiries, and will only become irritated if I discover after the fact that you had questions and did not ask them.
Once again, I look forward to working with you, and hope that you enjoy your summer vacation—after you finish your reading, of course!.