Regular United States History (RUSH) is the third installment in California’s interrupted study of American history. In 5th grade, you studied American history from the era before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas up to the American Revolution. In 8th grade, you studied the American colonies up to the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution. As 11th graders, you will review the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Industrial Revolution before delving into the 20th century and modern American history. As seniors, you will examine the U.S. Government and Economics.

It is important to remember that history is a story. Stories have a plot with conflicts, interconnected events, themes that run throughout the story, and characters that drive the action. The history of the United States is no different.

As we progress through the story of America, it is important to understand these plot points and character motivations. We’ll explore themes like political, economic, and social structures.

The exploration of this story will involve critical thinking in reading, analyzing, and then in our writing. We’ll examine primary sources from the time being studied and learn to investigate their message and purpose. We’ll write about the history we learn in the form of essays and project-based activities. We’ll discuss the ways that different events and characters interact and evaluate the significance of their historical impact.

My goal for you is to have you leave this class knowing both the good aspects of our past as well as understand the flawed incidents of our past. I want you to be able to interrogate history because the story is never-ending. It is crucial for us, as citizens of this nation and the world, to both understand the historical background of events occurring in the now (the unusual relationship between Donald Trump of the United States and Vladimir Putin of Russia) and to critically read the primary sources of our own times (Twitter, political cartoons, music, movies, magazines, Facebook).