Professor Laura Lovett
635 Herter Hall
545-6778
Lovett@history.umass.edu
Office Hours: M 1:15-2:15, F 2-2:30, and by appointment

Lecture: MW 12:20-1:10, 124 Hasbrouck Lab
Sections:
# 1 F 11:15-12:05, 112 Herter
# 2 F 12:20-1:10, 106 Herter
# 3 F 2:30-3:20, 106 Herter
# 4 F 10:10-11:00, 112 Herter
#5 F 12:20-1:10, 112 Herter
#6 F 1:25-2:15, 112 Herter
#7 W 2:30-3:20, 342 Herter

Course Description: This course will give students an opportunity to explore some of the major themes and topics in US History from 1877 to the present. Both lectures and discussions will utilize primary documents to allow students to ‘survey’ a range of issues that frame the time period and to begin to critically assess how historical knowledge is created. The course will ask students to read a variety of primary source materials and to synthesize and critique secondary sources.

Texts: (Available at Amherst Books, 8 Main St or at Library Reserves)
John Mack Faragher, et al., Out of Many: A History of the American People, Volume 2. Brief Fourth Edition. (Prentice Hall 2004).
Douglas Bukowski, American History: A Concise Documents Collection, Volume 2 Since 1865. (Bedford/St. Martins 1999).
Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward
W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk. (Dover Edition).
Melba Beals, Warriors Don’t Cry
James Carroll, An American Requiem

Course WebCT Site: http://webct.oit.umass.edu
Instructions for accessing and using WebCT will be distributed during the first discussion section. Contributing to discussion via the WebCT website for this course is required. See Participation below.

What you can expect from this course:
This course will provide you with an opportunity to improve your understanding of the history of the United States. Studying history is much more than the memorization of facts, times, and places. This course will help you develop important skills, such as the ability to critically evaluate how various documents and sources are used as evidence, how to draw inferences based upon that evidence, and how to analyze historical arguments. This course will also challenge you to synthesize and make sense of a wide range of different kinds of information.

What is expected of you in this course:

Academic Honesty
Academic dishonesty in any form (for instance, plagiarism, cheating, and fabrication) is a serious violation of expected academic conduct. Your work must be your own. If you quote or paraphrase work from someone else, you must give credit and provide a reference for that source. Links to guidelines on plagiarism, including the official policy on academic honesty, can be found on the following webpage: http://www.umass.edu/history/links_writing.html. If you have any question about what constitutes academic dishonesty, see pages 70-80 of "Undergraduate Rights and Responsibilities 2003-2004." The penalty for plagiarism in this class is zero credit for the assignment in question.

Attendance
You are expected to attend all lectures and discussion section meetings.

• Please turn off cell phones before entering the classroom and leave them off for the duration of class.
• Please refrain from private conversations during class. With 120 people in this room, your conversation can make it very difficult for other students to hear the lecture.
• Please expect to remain in class for the entire 50 minute period. The noise you make as you pack up your things to go, combined with the noise of even a few others doing the same, can be very disturbing for everyone else.

Reading and Preparation
You must read all of the assigned reading. Please read the chapters from Out of Many before lecture. Read the other documents before the discussion section that week. Please come to class prepared to discuss what you have read. Plan on reading relevant course material again as you prepare for exams and papers in this class. Even if you are a History major, you should review the reading and writing guidelines for history available on the History Department’s webpage at http://www.umass.edu/history/links_writing.html.
Expect to spend at least six to eight hours a week outside of class reading and preparing for section and lecture.

Study Skills
This course covers a huge amount of material – a lot happened in the last 150 years. Your textbook provides a number of useful features to help you make sense of this material. First, use the outline and timeline included in each chapter to get an overview of major events and topics. Second, read each chapter carefully. Third, use the key terms and sample questions at the end of the chapter to test your comprehension.
Take notes on lecture, on section discussions, and on your reading. Note taking will help you learn the material for this course. If you are not confident in your note taking skills, Learning Support Services on the 10th floor of the DuBois Library offers Note Taking Workshops. They also offer workshops on time management and other study skills. See their website at http://www.umass.edu/lss/BasicSkills.htm.

Evaluation:
Participation
Participation accounts for 30% of your course grade. Your participation grade has three components: (1) Attendance, (2) Section participation, and (3) WebCT participation. Each week you will be asked to respond to a reading question on the WebCT discussion pages for your section. Questions will be posted on WebCT one week in advance. Your responses will be due by 9pm on the day before your discussion section meets. Your responses should demonstrate that you have read and thought about the class material. If you cannot post your response, you may bring a one page response paper to section in its place. Each response will be graded on a two point scale: depending on the quality of your response, you will receive two points, one point, or no points. Section meetings are your opportunity to engage with the material and your peers in a smaller class setting. They are an integral part of this course. It is important that you are prepared and that you actively contribute to the discussion. Section meetings may include in-class writing and other graded exercises.

Exams
This course will have a midterm and final exam, each are worth 20% of your course grade. These exams are in-class, closed book tests. The format of the exams will be a mixture of short answer questions, “identification” questions, and essay questions. I will post copies of previous exams for this course as well as review sheets for each exam.

Papers
You will write two papers for this course. The first will be approximately 3 pages in length and will make use of materials on the 1930s, which are available on the internet. The second paper will be 5 pages in length and will address Melba Beal’s Warriors Don’t Cry. Paper assignments will be distributed in class and posted on the class website. Writing guidelines and a mandatory paper coversheet will also be posted.
In addition, you will write responses to any three of the movies in the Contemporary American History Film Series. This series will be shown on Thursday evenings at 7:30pm. A schedule of the movie series is included in the course schedule below. Your response should analyze how that film represents historical actors or events, or what that film tells us about the historical context in which it was made. Movie responses papers should be two pages in length and are due one week after the film has been shown. You must see at least one film before Spring Break.

Grade Scale
The University Grade Scale will be followed:
A = 93 and above; AB = 88-92; B = 83-87; BC = 78-82; C = 73-77; CD = 68-72; D = 60-67; F = 59 and below.
If you have a question about any grade you receive in this class, please consult first with the person who graded the assignment, i.e., your section leader.

Late Assignments
Papers handed in late will be graded down one letter grade per day late. It is your responsibility to take the exams at their scheduled times and to know the locations of those exams. If you miss the midterm or the final due to extenuating circumstances, you must provide a written excuse in order to take a make-up exam. Please contact your TA or instructor as soon as possible if you miss an assignment or know that you will miss an assignment. (see "Undergraduate Rights and Responsibilities 2003-2004," pp. 59-61).

Extra Credit
You may write a fourth FILM response for extra credit toward your participation grade in case you happen to miss section one week.

Disabilities
If you have a documented disability, which may affect your performance in the class, please speak to the instructor so that appropriate arrangements can be made. Please notify the instructor within the first two weeks of the semester.

Schedule (subject to change)

* I highly recommend these films.