Paramus Catholic High School Christopher Talarico

2020-2021 School Year E-mail: ctalarico@paramus-catholic.or

Course Syllabus School Phone Number: (201) 445-4466 ext.237

U.S History II
COURSE GUIDELINES AND EXPECTATIONS

Course Description

This survey course examines domestic political events as well as foreign affairs from the Gilded Age to
contemporary times. Emphasis is placed on developing an understanding of the political, social,
economic, religious, and international events that helped to shape American society. Special attention is
given to understanding how the United States has developed into a major economic power in the twenty-
first century. Incorporated into this course are specialized readings, documents, and maps that will
enhance the students' appreciation of American society. In addition, students are encouraged to keep
informed about current events that will be discussed in class. Students enrolled in this course will write
persuasive, argumentative, critical thinking, and analytical essays. Students will engage in research
projects throughout the year.

Expectations:
Required Materials for class:
1. Writing tools.
2. A hard copy notebook
3. A folder for handouts.
4. Ipad for required source material
5. E-Textbook:
American History, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018

The required materials must be brought to class every day.

In the classroom:

1. Preparation: All students must come to class with their homework, classroom materials,
and a positive attitude, and readiness to participate.
2. Respect: All students will respect another by not interrupting, side talking or chit chatting,
making unnecessary noises during class time. 3.
3. Communication: All students must communicate to me if you are sick, having difficulties,
or not getting the material.
Classroom Rules

1. Often throughout the year, if not every day, we will be engaged in discussion rather than
lectures. I expect all students to be respectful of one another, even if viewpoints or opinions are
expressed that some students do not share. Our learning environment will be an opportunity
for the free expression of intellectual thought but only one person will speak at a time in the
class, while the rest of us listen. The more perspectives and opinions you hear the better
understanding you have of the world around you.
2. Be sure to have used the restroom before walking into class.
3. Cell phones are not permitted in class at any time unless otherwise specified by me.
4. Everyone must complete all assignments and submit them on time. I will only grant extensions
when there are extenuating circumstances. If you need an extension of time, be sure to see me
at least two school days before the assignment is due.
5. If you are absent from class, you are to make up missed exams, tests, or quizzes the next school
day without exception.

Grading
Student grades will be based on the number of points accumulated over the number of
available on announced quizzes, multiple-choice tests, essays, homework, and presentations,
and notes etc. (keeping a written notebook is a requirement of the class).

Tests -- 100 pts.

Quizzes -- 50 pts.

Papers -- 100 pts.

Projects -- 100 pts.
Homework -- on-time: 20 pts.
1 day late: 10 pts.
2 days late: 5 pt
3+ days late: 0 pts.

Participation/Preparation -- 100 pts.

Notebook—50 pts
Assessments

Specific requirements will be given out for any specials assessments (presentation, term paper, or
special project etc.) by the teacher. Each special assessment will be given a rubric along with a due
date and detailed instruction on how the assessment is to be turned in.

Academic Honesty and Plagiarism

I will strictly enforce Paramus Catholic High School’s policy related to plagiarism and will take
seriously any violation of it. We will discuss plagiarism during the first week of school and you should
read the section concerning plagiarism in your student handbook.
ID/Discussion List: Module 11 Westward Expansion
Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and
relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.

1. Assimilation 12. Extortion

2. Dawes Act 13. The Grange
3. Wounded Knee 14. Populism
4. Great Plains 15. Farmers Alliance
5. Land Reservation 16. Inflation
6. Hydraulic Mining 17. Deflation
7. Hard-rock Mining 18. Regulation
8. Long-Drive 19. Peonage
9. Homestead Act 20. Debt-lien
10. Exoduster 21. Sitting Bull
11. Mortgage

1. Identify and explain the restrictions imposed by the U.S Federal Government on Native
Americans and the subsequent consequences of these restrictions.
2. Describe and analyze the policy of “assimilation” and the reasons why there was still
conflicts between Native Americans and settlers.
3. Describe the lifestyle of the Plains Indians, including the role of the bison.
4. Identify the ways in which farmers tried to cooperatively solve problems they faced out
west.
5. Analyze how early settlers were able to survive on the plains and turn the plains into
profitable farmland.
6. List and explain the factors responsible for the beginning and end of the great trail drives.
7. Describe and analyze how westward expansion affected positively and negatively the social
status of African Americans and women.
ID/Discussion List: Module 12 Industrialization
Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and
relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.

1. Bessemer Process 14. Laissez-faire

2. Thomas Edison 15. Trusts vs Monopoly vs. Pool vs.
3. Transcontinental Railroad Corporation (Chart)
4. Interstate Commerce 16. Sherman Anti-Trust Act
Act/Commission 17. Vertical Integration vs. Horizontal
5. Cornelius Vanderbilt (and William Integration
Henry Vanderbilt and Cornelius II) 18. Social Darwinism/Gospel of Wealth
6. Jay Gould 19. Arbitration
7. JP Morgan 20. Collective Bargaining
8. John D Rockefeller 21. American Federation of Labor (AFL)
9. Andrew Carnegie 22. Eugene Debs
10. Credit Mobilier 23. Labor Union
11. Munn vs. Illinois 24. Haymarket Strike vs. Homestead
12. Wabash vs. Illinois Strike vs Pullman Strike (Chart)
13. Capitalism/Supply and Demand 25. Mary Harris (Mother) Jones
26. “Radicalism”

1. Read Lesson 1 of Module 12 and in your opinion, what is the most important invention
created during this time of intense industrialization that has had the most meaningful
impact on the lives of Americans? Consider in your answer the following categories;
impact on quality of life, how much easier work/life tasks are, potential impact on the
creation of other inventions used to improve work and home life.
2. Identify and analyze the role of the railroads in unifying the country.
3. Chart the positive and negatives of how the railroads impact on the U.S economy.
4. Do you agree with the principles of Social Darwinism? Why or why not?
5. Identify the reasons as to why labor unions were created and their subsequent growth.
6. Analyze why American citizens and the U.S government had such violent reactions to
industry and labor strikes.
7. In your opinion is there any industry in today’s America that needs to be reformed or
regulated in the same way that American’s felt the railroads needed to be regulated in the
late 19th century?
ID/Discussion List: Module 13 Immigration and Urbanization

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and
relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
1. Ellis Island 13. Mass/Public Transit
2. Angel Island 14. Jane Addams
3. Nativism 15. Political Machine
4. Chinese Exclusion Act 16. Graft
5. “Melting Pot” 17. Patronage
6. Urbanization 18. Civil Service/Civil Service Reform
7. Tenement 19. Skyscrapers
8. Americanization 20. Pragmatism
9. Social Mobility 21. Sensationalism
10. Social Stratification 22. William Randolph Hurst vs. Joseph
11. Settlement House Pulitzer
12. Settlement House

1. Detail and analyze the journey immigrants endured and their experiences at U.S
immigration stations/ports of entry.
2. Examine the causes and effects of “anti-immigration” sentiments.
3. Analyze and detail how city governments, dealt with housing, transportation, sanitation,
and safety issues.
4. Identify and analyze the social movements intended to help urban immigrants.
5. Identify the role and political machines and their “political bosses”.
6. Compare the architectural works of Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, Richard Morris
Hunt and Frederick Law Olmstead. How did these men transform urban and suburban
life?
ID/Discussion List: Module 14 The Progressive Era
Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and
relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
1. Progressivism (Progressive Movement) 24. Frances Willard
2. Prohibition 25. Susan B. Anthony
3. Muckracker 26. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
4. Scientific Management 27. NAWSA
5. Initiative 28. WCTU
6. Referendum 29. Suffrage
7. Recall 30. Theodore Roosevelt
8. Ida Tarbell 31. Square Deal
9. Ida B Wells 32. Bully Pulpit
10. W.E.B Dubois 33. Conservationism vs. Environmentalism
11. Booker T Washington (Chart)
12. Florence Kelly 34. Trust Busting
13. Tuskegee Institute 35. Pure Food and Drug Act
14. NAACP 36. Meat Inspection Act
15. Parochial School 37. William Howard Taft
16. Public Education 38. Bull Moose Party
17. Research University 39. 1912 Election
18. Jim Crow 40. Woodrow Wilson
19. Plessy vs. Ferguson 41. New Freedom vs. New Nationalism
20. Segregation 42. FTC
21. Debt Peonage 43. Federal Reserve
22. Convict Labor 44. Carrie Chapman Catt
23. Racism 45. 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th Amendments (Chart

1. Chart the historical underpinnings of legalized segregation and the Africa-American

struggle against racism in the United States.
2. Compare, contrast, and analyze race relations in the North and South.
3. Chart the four pillars of progressivism. Which of these four pillars is most important and
why?
ID/Discussion List: Module 15 U.S Imperialism
Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and
relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.

1. Alfred Thayer Mahan 11. Platt Amendment vs. Teller

2. Annexation of Hawaii Amendment (chart)
3. Yellow Journalism 12. John Hay
4. “Yellow Kid” 13. Protectorate
5. Rough Riders 14. Boxer Rebellion
6. Spanish American War 15. Open Door Policy
7. Buffalo Soldiers 16. Panama Canal
8. USS Maine 17. Roosevelt Corollary
9. Jose Marti 18. Dollar Diplomacy
10. Emilio Aguinaldo 19. Francisco “Pancho” Villa

1. Detail how the United States acquired the territories of Alaska and Hawaii? Were these
methods of acquisition moral?
2. Identify the arguments presented by Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan for an expanded
American navy, and explain the effects on U.S. policy.
3. Analyze and explain the economic and cultural factors that fueled the growth of
American imperialism?  
4. Detail the course of the Spanish-American war and its result.
5. Explain the purpose and causes for the “Open Door Policy” with China. 
6. Identify the reasons for the U.S-Filipino conflict.  
7. Summarize the conflicting views regarding U.S imperialism. 
8.  Detail how Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy promoted American power around
the world. 
9. Describe how Woodrow Wilson’s missionary diplomacy ensured American dominance
in Latin America.  
10. Discuss American-Mexican relations under the Wilson Presidency.
 ID/Discussion List: Module 16 World War I
Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and
relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
1. Militarism 15. Committee on Public
2. Nationalism Information
3. Allied vs Central Powers (chart) 16. War Industrial Board
4. Trench Warfare 17. Espionage and Sedition Acts
5. “No Man’s Land” 18. Great Migration
6. Alliance System 19. Armistice
7. Zimmerman Telegram 20. Treaty of Versailles
8. American Expeditionary Force 21. Self-Determination
9. Convoy System 22. Globalism vs. Isolationism
10. Conscientious Objector 23. Spanish Influenza
11. Selective Service 24. Reparations
12. Alvin York 25. War Guilt Clause
13. William Henry Johnson 26. League of Nations
14. Propaganda 27. Fourteen Points

1. Trace the causes and the immediate circumstances that led to the outbreak of
the “Great War”.
2. Describe the first two years of the war? What was it like living in a trench?
3. Briefly give American attitudes toward the war.
4. Analyze the reasons for why the United States entered the war.
5. Analyze the relationship between business and government during the war.
6. Discuss how American civil liberties were attacked during the war.
7. Trace the social changes that affected African Americans and women because
of the war. Overall where these changes good or bad?
8. Outline Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points Plan. Which of these in your mind is the
most important and why?
9. Describe the Treaty of Versailles and the international and domestic reactions to
it.
 ID/Discussion List: Module 17 The Roaring Twenties
Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and
relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.

1. “Return to Normalcy” 17. Bootlegger

2. Ohio Gang 18. Flapper
3. Warren Harding 19. Jazz
4. Urban Sprawl 20. Louis Armstrong
5. Consumerism 21. Bessie Smith
6. Installment Plan vs. Credit vs. 22. “Jelly Roll” Morton
Buying on Margin (chart) 23. Scopes Trial
7. Teapot Dome 24. Fundamentalism vs. Modernism
8. Xenophobia (Chart)
9. Nativism 25. Marcus Garvey
10. Communism 26. Harlem Renaissance
11. Anarchism 27. Paul Robeson
12. “Birth of a Nation” 28. Duke Ellington
13. Quota System 29. Langston Hughes
14. Sacco and Vanzetti 30. Zora Neale Hurston
15. Prohibition 31. James Weldon Johnson
16. Speakeasy

1. Detail the United States’ reaction to the perceived threat of communism. Why did America feel threatened
in the first place? Is there anything similar to these fears in today’s America? If so why is it similar?
2. Analyze the causes and effects of the quota system in the United States.
3. Describe the post-war conflicts between labor and management.
4. What did President Warren Harding mean by “a return to normalcy”? How did this effect progressive era
reforms?
5. What scandals plagued the Harding Administration?
6. Detail the impact of the automobile and other consumer goods on American life. Do you feel this impact in
your own life? Why or why not?
7. Did prosperity affect all groups of American’s in the same way? If no? How did it impact that group?
8. Explain how urbanization created new way of life that often clashed with the values of traditional rural
society.
9. Describe the controversy over the role of science and religion in American education and society in the
1920’s.
10. Identify how the image of the flapper embodied the changing values and attitudes of young women in the
1920’s.
11. Identify the causes and results of changing roles of women in the 1920’s.
12. Describe in detail the popular culture of the 1920’s. Explain why the youth-dominated decade came to be
called the Roaring Twenties.
13. Identify the causes and results of the migration of Africa-Americans to Northern cities in early 1900’s.
14. Describe the prolific African-American artistic activity of the 1920’s
ID/Discussion List: Module 18 The Great Depression

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and
relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
1. Deflation 9. Shanty Town
2. Price Support 10. Bread Line
3. Deflation 11. Dust Bowl
4. Inflation 12. Hobo
5. Stock Market 13. Soup Kitchen
6. Securities (Finance) 14. Direct Relief
7. Black Tuesday 15. Herbert Hoover
8. Great Depression 16. Bonus Army

1. Summarize the critical problems that threatened the American economy in the late 1920’s.
2. Describe the causes of the stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression.
3. Explain how the Great Depression affected the economy in the United States and the
subsequent global economy.
4. Describe how people struggled to survive during the Depression.
5. Explain how the depression affected men, women, and children.
6. Explain Hoover’s initial response to the Depression.
7. Summarize the actions Hoover took to help the economy and the hardship suffered by
Americans.
 ID/Discussion List: Module 19 The New Deal

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates,
and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or
term.
1. New Deal 9. SEC
2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt 10. Orson Welles
3. CCC 11. Frances Perkins
4. WPA 12. Gone with the Wind
5. Social Security Act 13. War of the Worlds
6. Deficit Spending 14. Wizard of Oz
7. Wagner Act 15. Grapes of Wrath
8. FDIC

1. Describe New Deal work programs.

2. Chart the critics and their criticisms of FDR New Deal.
3. Identify the ways in which the New Deal tried to help farmers.
4. Analyze the effects of the New Deal programs on women.
5. Analyze Roosevelt’s attitude toward African-Americans.
6. In what ways did the new deal impact the lives of African-Americans?
7. Identify the groups that formed the “New Deal Coalition”.
8. Describe the entertainment provided by motion pictures and radio.
9. Describe and identify the artists and writers of the New Deal era.
10. In your opinion how effective or ineffective was the New Deal?
ID/Discussion List: Module 20 World War II
Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and
relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
1. Fascism 25. Rationing
2. Communism 26. Manhattan Project
3. Totalitarian 27. War Production Board
4. Nazism 28. Japanese Internment
5. Benito Mussolini 29. North Africa Campaign
6. Joseph Stalin 30. Battle of Stalingrad
7. Hideki Tojo 31. Invasion of Italy
8. Adolf Hitler 32. D-Day
9. Francisco Franco 33. Battle of the Bulge
10. Gleichschaltung 34. Race to Berlin
11. Winston Churchill 35. Liberation of Europe
12. Charles de Gaulle 36. Battle of Iwo Jima
13. Appeasement 37. Battle of Okinawa
14. Non-Aggression Pact 38. Battle of the Midway
15. Kristallnacht 39. Bataan Death March
16. Blitzkrieg 40. Island Hopping
17. Concentration Camp 41. Kamikaze
18. Holocaust 42. Bushido Code
19. Genocide 43. Atom Bomb
20. Anti-Semitism 44. Hiroshima and Nagasaki
21. Ghetto 45. Harry Truman
22. Neutrality Acts 46. United Nations
23. Lend-Lease Acts 47. Nuremberg Trials
24. Pearl Harbor 48. GI Bill of Rights

1. Identify the types of governments that took power in Russia, Italy, Germany and Japan, and Spain
following the events of World War 1.
2. Chart the development of Nazi persecution of the Jews and the problems that were subsequently
faced by Jewish refugees.
3. Detail the causes for why the United States chose isolationism in regards to its foreign policy.
4. Explain and identify Hitler’s motives for expansion and how Britain and France responded.
5. Describe the “blitzkrieg” tactics that Germany used against Poland.
6. Summarize the first battles of WWII. What was the state of the war for the allied forces at the
beginning of the war.
7. Detail the Nazi “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Question” and the horrors of the Holocaust.
8. Identify and describe the profound and lasting effects of the Holocaust on survivors.
9. Describe the United States response to the outbreak of World War II in 1939.
10. Detail how President Roosevelt assisted the Allies without declaring war.
11. Summarize the events that brought the United States into armed conflict with Germany.
12. Analyze the American response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
13. Summarize and identify the major events of the war and their respective impact on the wars
outcome.
14. Describe the liberation of Europe.
15. Identify key turning points in the war in the Pacific against Japan.
16. Describe the allied offensive strategy against the Japanese.
17. Describe the challenges faced by the Allies in building a just and lasting peace in Europe and the
world.
18. Describe the economic and social changes that reshaped American life during World War II.
19. Summarize both the opportunities and discrimination African-Americans and other minorities
experienced during the war