HIST 1302 (HIST 1302)

History 1302: U.S. History Since 1877

Houston Community College, Southeast Campus

Spring, 2012

Instructor Information

 

Instructor Name: Portia D. Barker, M.A.

Contact Information: [email protected]

Office Hours: 1:00-1:30 Thursdays and by Appointment

 

Course Information

Course Location: AM 308

Course Contact Hours: 48 contact hours

Course Length: 12 weeks

Type of Instruction: Lecture and Discussion

Prerequisites: Must be placed in college level reading and college level writing

 

Please note: Students who take a course more than twice face significant tuition/fee increases at HCC and other Texas public universities. If you are considering withdrawing from a course because you are not passing (or for any other reason),confer with your instructor/counselor as early as possible about your study habits, reading and writing homework, test-taking skills, attendance, course participation, and opportunities for tutoring or other assistance that might be available.

Course Description: The American Nation from English colonization to the close of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Core curriculum course.

 

Course Prerequisites: Must be placed into college level reading and college level writing.

 

Course Goal: Students should, by the close of the semester, be able to evaluate historical developments in an essay, critically analyze historical documents, and effectively trace the political, social, cultural, and economic changes in from 1877 to the present.

 

Course Student Learning Outcomes (SLO):

1. Students will evaluate historical developments in an essay.

2. Students will read primary source documents.

3. Students will analyze historical evidence by writing an analytical essay.

4. Students will identify proper academic, history databases.

 

SCANS Skills:

Texas Colleges must demonstrate that the Basic Intellectual Core Competencies are incorporated into all Core courses.

This course addresses the competencies in the following ways:

• Reading: The Textbook, alternative web sites, and the readers will provide the basis for Section Exams, Chapter Essays, and the Final Exam.
• Writing: Students will write all responses to their selected Chapter Essays, and will conduct most communication with the instructor through the typewritten word. Students will write two historical research papers and answer essay questions.
• Listening: Students working in collaboration with other students on chapter assignments will have the opportunity to develop and practice their listening skills. Students will also practice critical listening from audio and video materials.
• Critical Thinking: Many of the Chapter Essays and essay questions on the Final Exam will contain questions and problems that will require higher-level, "critical" thinking skills to solve successfully.

 

Instructional Materials:

• Textbook: American Passages: A History of the United States by Ayers, Gould, et al. (Advantage, combined) 4th edition
• Reader: http://www.pearsoncustom.com/tx/hcc_hist1302 (access to the reader can be purchased thru the bookstore or directly through the publisher)
• Monograph: The Way We Never Were// Coontz//Basic Books// ISBN 0465090974

 

HCC Policy Statements:

ADA: STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES - any student with a documented disability, (i.e. physical, learning, psychiatric, visual, hearing, etc) who needs to arrange reasonable accommodations must contact the disability services office at the respective college at the beginning of each semester. Faculty are authorized to provide only the accommodations requested by the disability services office. The counselor for Southeast College is Jette Lott and she can be reached at 713-718-7218.

 

Academic Honesty: Academic irregularities cannot be tolerated. Attempts to compromise the integrity of this course will result in a grade of zero for the assignment or dismissal from the class. Students must not collaborate on the exams in any way (including the use of materials from former students) and must not copy material from any source to use as their essay answers or discussion contributions. See the HCCS Student Handbook for details.

Cheating is not that hard to define and as college students, you should have a firm idea about what cheating is. Just to be clear, here are a few simple definitions:

 

• Cheating is: Copying from another student's exam. Cheating is: During a exam, using materials not authorized by the person giving the authority.
• Cheating is: Collaborating with another student during a exam without proper

• Cheating is: Knowingly using, buying, selling, stealing, transporting, or soliciting in whole or part the contents of an exam or paper.

• Cheating is: Bribing another person to obtain a copy of an exam.

• Cheating is: Plagiarism which means using someone's work or someone's ideas and representing them to be your own. That "someone" may be another student, a friend, a relative, a book author, an author of material on a web site, etc. Do not take material from anywhere without giving proper credit or reference. In other words, do not copy from an Internet source and paste it into your essay answer space.

• Cheating is: Collusion, which means the unauthorized collaboration with another person in preparing written work offered for credit when you represent that work to be your own.

 

** All papers will be submitted to TurnItIn.com which is a service HCCS subscribes to for identifying plagiarized material.

In this class,anyone caught cheating will be awarded an F for the course! ALLWRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS ARE TO BE DONE BY YOU, WRITTEN IN YOUR WORDS, NOT SOMEONE ELSE’S. If you ever have any questions about what is cheating, what is plagiarism or what is unauthorized collusion, please contact your instructor before you do anything or submit anything. It is much better to ask first than to get caught later.

 

Student Attendance: Attendance is essential for good understanding of the material. This instructor will cover information not found in the textbook. If you are unable to access the class for extended periods, please contact me immediately. Failure to come to class will result in missing information that you will need for the assignments. I will not drop a student! If a student fails to come to class and does not complete the assignments that student will earn an ”F”. If a student does not want an "F", it is his/her responsibility to drop this course.

 

3-peaters: NOTICE: HCC Course Withdrawal Policy -

Beginning Fall 2007, the State of Texas imposes penalties on students who drop courses excessively. Students are limited to no more than SIX total course withdrawals throughout their educational career at a Texas public college or university.

To help you avoid having to drop/withdraw from any class, contact your DE professor regarding your academic performance. You may also want to contact your DE counselor to learn about helpful HCC resources (e.g. online tutoring, child care, financial aid, job placement, etc.). HCC has instituted an Early Alert process by which your professor may “alert” you and DE counselors that you might fail a class because of excessive absences and/or poor academic performance.

 

Students should check HCC’s Academic Calendar by Term for drop/withdrawal dates and deadlines.

 

If a student decides to drop or withdraw from a class upon careful review of other options, the student can drop online prior to the deadline through their HCC Student Service Center: https://hccsaweb.hccs.edu:8080/psp/csprd/?cmd=login&languageCd=ENG

Classes of other duration (mini-term, flex-entry, 8-weeks, etc.) may have different final withdrawal deadlines. Please contact the HCC Registrar’s Office at 713.718.8500 to determine mini-term class withdrawal deadlines.

 

Withdrawal Deadline: It is your responsibility to withdraw officially from a class and prevent an “F” from appearing on your transcript. When considering withdrawal from a course, remember that:

• No grade is given and your transcript reflects no record of the course if you withdraw before the Official Date of Record.
• A “W” (indicating withdrawal) appears on your transcript if you drop a course after the Official Date of Record and before the final deadline.
• The final deadline to drop the course is June 29, 2011 by 4:30pm

 

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS: Receiving a W in a course may affect the status of your student Visa. Once a W is given for the course, it will not be changed to an F because of the visa consideration. Since January 1, 2003, International Students are restricted in the number of distance education courses that they may take during each semester. ONLY ONE online/distance education class may be counted towards the enrollment requirement for International Students per semester. Please contact the

International Student Office at 713-718-8520 if you have any questions about your visa status and other transfer issues.

 

Student Course Reinstatement Policy: Students have a responsibility to arrange payment for their classes when they register, either through cash, credit card, financial aid, or the installment plan. Faculty members have a responsibility to check their class rolls regularly, especially during the early weeks of a term, and reconcile the official class roll to ensure that no one is attending class whose name does not appear on the rolls. Students who are dropped from their courses for non-payment of tuition and fees, who request reinstatement after the official date of record (OE date), can be reinstated by making payment in full and paying an additional $75 per course reinstatement fee. A student requesting reinstatement should present the registrar with a completed Enrollment Authorization Form with the signature of the instructor, the department chair, or the dean, who should verify that the student has been regularly attending class. Students who are reinstated are responsible for all course policies and procedures, including attendance requirements. A dean may waive the reinstatement fee upon determination that the student was dropped because of a college error. The dean should note the nature of the error in a memo to the registrar with the appropriate documentation.

 

Program/Discipline Requirements: A minimum of 50% of the student’s semester average must come from writing assignments.

HCC Grading Scale:

A 90-100%

B 80-89%

C 70-79%

D 60-69%

F 59% and below

 

Your assignment breakdown:

Test 1 (20%)

Test 2 (20%)

Final (25%)

Quizzes (10%)

Oral History Paper (10%)

Monograph Discussion and Mini Paper (10%)

Citizenship (5%)

 

Required Assignments and Grading Scale

 

Tests: 65% of total grade

• 20% Test I--- Will be held on March 8, 2012 and will cover Chapters 16-21 from the lectures, American Passages and the e-Reader.
• 20% Test II--- Will be held on April 10, 2012 and will cover Chapters 22-27 from the lectures, American Passages and the e-Reader.
• 25%  Final--- Will be held on May 8, 2012 and will cover information from the lectures, Chapters 27-32 from American Passages and the e-Reader as well as major themes discussed in the texts and in class throughout the semester. This means that the final is comprehensive will contain information covered from the beginning of the semester. Students should take note of prominent themes across the course of the semester and be prepared to discuss them in detail on the final. Students should refer to syllabus for specific themes and topics.

 

Major Paper: 10% of total grade

• 10% Oral History Paper-- This paper requires students to do an oral history interview with one person and write a 1200 word (minimum) paper on the historical events they describe. The students may chose any person they like to preform the interview on (so long as they are over the age of 18 and understand they are being interviewed for a class assignment). The person whom the student choses to interview will be asked a series of questions having to do with a particular historical event that they lived through. Examples include, cultural shifts and changes experienced by the interviewee (segregation in the South, transnational relocation, ex-patriot or new citizenship etc),  war experiences (including World War II, Korean war, Cold war, Vietnam war, Desert Storm, Iraq war, or Afghanistan war), social movements (including the civil rights movement, gay rights movement, chicano rights movement, unionized labor movements, women’s right movement etc), or significant era’s within American history (40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, technology boom or dot.com era etc). The purpose of this assignment is to familiarize students with the way we study history, build research skills, as well as improve critical thinking and writing skills. The oral history paper is due the week of March 26, 2012.

 

Please Note: All papers are must be typed. Students should use 12 point font and Times New Roman. The paper should be double spaced and have 1 inch margins. You must cite any references you make within your paper and provide a work cited page. Students are required to put their first and last name as well as their class time in the top right hand corner of the paper. Any deviation from these instructions will result in a loss of points on their paper grade.

 

Quizzes: 10% of total grade

• 10% Chapter Quizzes--- Students will take a 2 take-home quizzes during the course of the semester. Each quiz will cover information found in lectures and the text and will be due in class the day specified on the syllabus. I WILL NOT accept late quizzes! However, you will have the opportunity to turn in your take home quiz online if you are absent the day it is due.  The instructor reserves the right to ADD quizzes if class participation is low, readings are not completed, or material needs to be reiterated for comprehension.

 

Monograph Discussion: 10% of total grade

• 10% Mini-Paper and Discussion--- Students are required to read 1 monograph over the course of the semester and participate in the critical discussion on April 19, 2012. In addition to this, students are required to turn in a 500 word (minimum) critique of the monograph they read. Students may choose EITHER Plantation Mistress or Aren’t I a Woman? to read over the course of the semester. I will provide further instruction as we approach this assignment.

 

Citizenship and Participation: 5% of total grade

• 5% Citizenship and Participation--- Students are required to actively participate in class discussion, group activities, and note taking while in class. Citizenship is based on PARTICIPATION, not just showing up.  I will take attendance every class.  Excessive absences will result in a low citizenship and participation grade and will severely hinder a student’s chance at success in this class. I reserve the right to drop you from the class if you miss more than 5 classes. Please note, as stated in HCC’s policy, 3 tardies is equal to once absence. In addition to this, the following are NOT ALLOWED in class and will effect the student’s citizenship grade.

 

1. Cell phones that disrupt class (loud ringtones, texting, alarms, etc).
2. Repeatedly showing up late to class.
3. Eating or drinking full meals in class.
4. Tweeting, messaging, blogging, facebook posting, or any other digital social networking while in class.
5. A general disregard and disrespect for me, classmates, the school or its property.

 

Please Note: My goal as your instructor is to provide a learning environment that is conducive to that found in a university setting. This is not high school. Please do not refer to this class as “the 13th grade.” Please do not conduct yourself as a person who believes they are in the “13th grade.” Treat this class as an important and integral stepping stone to your future academic goals. Come to class ready to learn and prepared to actively participate in class activities. In turn, I will come to class ready to teach and willing to assist you in better understanding American History.

 

*I have a ZERO tolerance policy for unruly, disrespectful or offensive behavior, gestures and language. Each student needs to be respectful to each other and to me. Failure to do so will result in you being asked to leave class and will negatively effect your citizenship grade. In extreme cases I reserve the right

to drop you from the course.

Course Schedule

Date	Reading of the Day	Assignment
Tuesday, February 14		Classroom Introductions
Thursday, February 16		online resource from PBS.org
Tuesday, February 21	Chapter 16-- Reconstruction: Its Rise and Fall, 1865-1877
Thursday, February 23	Chapter 17-- An Economy Transformed: The Rise of Big Business, 1877-1887
Tuesday, February 28	Chapter 18-- Urban Growth and Farm Protest, 1887-1893	Take Home Quiz Chapter 17
Thursday, March 1	Chapter 19-- A Troubled Nation Expands Outward, 1893-1901
Tuesday, March 6	Chapters 20 and 21-- Progressivism: Agendas for Change, 1901-1914
Thursday, March 8		Test 1
Spring Break Week	No Class Scheduled	Spring Break Week
Tuesday, March 20	Chapter 22-- Over There and Over Here: The Impact of World War I, 1914-1920
Thursday, March 22	Chapter 23-- The Age of Jazz and Mass Culture, 1921-1927
Tuesday, March 27	Chapter 24-- The Great Depression, 1927-1933	Oral History Assignment Due this week!
Thursday, March 29	Chapter 25-- The New Deal, 1933-1939
Tuesday, April 3	Chapter 26-- The Second World War, 1939-1945	Take Home Quiz Chapter 24
Thursday, April 6	Chapter 27-- Postwar America, 1946-1952
Tuesday, April 10		Test 2
Thursday, April 12	Chapter 28-- The Eisenhower Years, 1953-1960
Tuesday, April 17	Chapter 29-- The Turbulent Years, 1960-1968
Thursday, April 19	Chapter 30-- Crisis of Confidence, 1969-1980.	Monograph Discussion and Paper Due
Tuesday, April 24	Chapter 31-- From Reagan to Clinton, 1981-2000
Thursday, April 26	Chapter 32-- A Conservative Nation in a Globalizing World, 2000-2010
Tuesday, May 1	Semester Review	Semester Review
Thursday, May 3	Make Up Day
Tuesday, May 8	Final Exam	11:00 AM