Weekly Syllabus

Week of Monday, January 16 through Friday, January 20

Welcome to the second half of the school year! This week we will continue to study the Civil War. We will also take some time to study an important figure in American history; Dr. Martin Luther King (whose birthday we celebrate on Monday).

Please note that the due date for your cause of the Civil War paper is Friday, February 10th. Get busy as soon as you can.

Monday, January 16, 2012 (40 minutes)-MLK Day

Topic: Dr. Martin Luther King.

Homework: FOR TUESDAY: Read AP&AN pp. 404 (The Advent of Emancipation)-408 (The Soldier's War) FOR WEDNESDAY: Read Barbara Fields essay "Who Freed the Slaves?" and James McPherson essay "Who Freed the Slaves?"

Due at the start of class on Friday: 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

  • 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"

 

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 (50 minutes)

Topic: Discussion of the reading. 

Homework: Keep up with the reading, begin work on your essay.

 

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 (40 minutes)

Topic:  Conditions experienced by Civil War soldiers.

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

 

Thursday, January 19, 2012 (45 minutes)

Topic: Discussion of the reading.

Homework: Finish up your paper. 

 

Friday, January 20, 2012 (45 minutes)

Topic: Discussion of the Gettysburg Address.

Homework: Read AP&AN pp. 412-416 (1864).