Weekly Syllabus

Week of Monday, January 14 through Friday, January 18

Welcome to the second half of the school year! This week we will continue to study the Civil War.

Please note that the due date for your cause of the Civil War paper is Friday, February 8th. Get busy as soon as you can.

Monday, January 14, 2013 (45 minutes)

Topic: Discussion of the reading

Homework: Read the essays.

 

Tuesday, January 15, 2013 (45 minutes)

Topic: Class time to prepare a 3 page TYPED essay (which will count for 50 points) as follows:

In her essay "Who Freed the Slaves?" historian Barbara Fields writes:

"The slaves had decided at the time of Lincoln's election that their hour had come. By the time Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, no human being alive could have held back the tide that swept toward freedom....The government discovered that it could not accomplish its narrow goal --union--without adopting the slaves' nobler one--universal emancipation."

In his essay "Who Freed the Slaves?" historian James McPherson writes:

"By pronouncing slavery a moral evil that must come to an end, by winning the Presidency in 1860, by refusing to compromise on the issue of slavery's expansion, by knitting together a Unionist coalition and by prosecuting the Civil War to unconditional victory as Commander-in-Chief of an army of liberation, Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves."

Do you agree with Fields or with McPherson? Write a coherent essay saying why. In your answer, please consider some of the following points:

  • Lincoln's First Inaugural Address
  • the actions of the slaves once the war started
  • Frederick Douglass' opinion that slaves must fight for their freedom
  • Northern sentiment that the war was about "the union"
  • Southern sentiment that the war was about "liberty" and "a way of life"

Homework: Complete the essay.  It is due at the start of class tomorrow.

 

Wednesday, January 16, 2013 (30 minutes)

Topic:  Slavery in the modern world.  How many slaves work for you?

Homework: Finish the slavery survey. Send me an email with the total number, and tell me what you think of this exercise.   

 

Thursday, January 17, 2013 (50 minutes)

Topic: Follow up on the writing actvity; Conditions experienced by Civil War soldiers.

Homework: Read AP&AN pp. 408 (The Soldier's War)-412 (Disunity); the Gettysburg Address.

 



Friday, January 18, 2013 (45 minutes)

Topic: Discussion of the reading. Discussion of the Gettysburg Address.

Homework:  PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS HOMEWORK IS DUE FOR NEXT TUESDAY!! Read AP&AN pp. 412-416 (1864). Read AP&AN pp. 419-422 (Death Toll); also read Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.