Syllabus/Contract for HIST 152

NOTE: The Dates on this Syllabus need to be revised for Summer of 2013. However, all other information is correct, including the book and the assignments.

U.S. History, 1865 to the Present

Summer2012 fully on-line Jul 23 - Aug 18, 2012

Office hours: face-to-face meetings by appointment

(available almost every weekday, with 24 hours notice);

I am happy to use email to discuss class matters with individual students, and do my best to answer emails quickly.

Office: Holton 391Office Phone: 229-4531

email:

Course Description

This is a fully on-line, beginning-level, survey course on the history of the United States between the beginning of the Reconstruction era (1865) and the present day. No history course is able to take up all of the events that could be covered within its allotted geographical area, historical time period, and particular subject matter; a survey is the type of history course that is most broad in its scope (an entire nation, as well as the nations outside its boundaries with which it engages), covering the longer time periods (for us, about 150 years), and is the least “detailed” in its narrative chronology. At its best, a history survey course takes up the most important events, trends, and ideas among the flow of collective human experiences in the times and places it covers. To help order and select which of the major events and trends to consider in a survey U.S. history, this survey is partially organized alongside the major debates about “freedom” during the last 150 years. That is, this course is a survey of U.S. history from 1865 to the present, viewed (at least partially) through differing American conflicts over meanings of “freedom.”

Required Materials (I placed a request through People’s Book Cooperative)

Phone: 414–962–0575

Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History, volume 2, THIRD SEAGULL EDITION

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

 ISBN-10: 0393911918

 ISBN-13: 978-0393911916

The course covers Chapters 15 through 28 of the most recent (3rd) edition of Eric Foner’s Give Me Liberty!. Please take careful note that this textbook exists in several different formats and in earlier editions. The book above is the lowest-priced paperback, print version that the publisher offers, although e-books are often even less expensive. You need access to Chapters 15 through 28 of the most recent edition of the textbook – acquire the format that best fits your needs. Purchasing an earlier edition of the textbook means that you do not have access to some significant material that has been added, e.g., about 90 pages were added between the second and third editions.

The Content section of the Course D2L Site will open July 1

Exams and Discussion Boards will open on July 22

Assignments/Grading

In summary, the course requires that students, before August 18 at 11:59pm, 1) read chapters 15-28 in the Foner textbook and the other content on the course D2L site; 2) complete 14 objective chapter exams; 3) write 3 essay exams that ask questions across a particular era in American history;4) read 100 discussion postings written by the instructor and your classmates, and 5) write 25poststo the discussion boards. The D2L site for the course shuts down and the tabulation for the final grades beginson August 18 at 11:59pm.
The specifics are included below.
All students must return to Joe the Student Honor Code email, with a message stating agreement to the terms of the Code. If you cannot agree to the terms of the Student Honor Code, you must withdraw from the class. The Student Honor Code will be sent out to the UWM email address you have listed with the University (D2L will not deliver to non-UWM email addresses.)This email document must be returned to my email box, with the student’s agreement, BEFORE YOU ARE ALLOWED TO TAKE ESSAY EXAM #1 and complete the course; otherwise, you will be asked to re-take Essay Exam #1 (and any subsequent exams), with different questions, after you have submitted the document.Waiting until the last minute to complete this task will risk failing the course.
All objective exams, essay exams, and discussions are available to students for the entire time of the course. Students are able to take the chapter and essay exams at their own paceand time, although I STRONGLY recommend a regularized schedule of test-taking and participation. Discussions require the participation of others, and waiting until the last minute to read/write responses for discussions is usually associated with a poor grade.
Read the textbook and the Content provided on the D2L site. No other reading is required. No other (“outside”) sources are allowed in the answers to the essay exams; this is an absolute rule. ANY other material included on the essay exams, aside from the enrolled student’s own work, the textbook, or the material on the class D2L site, will be considered academic misconduct, a violation of the student honor code, and pursued vigorously with the Dean of Students. See “Academic Misconduct Below.” Students are welcomed and encouraged to bring the relevant information they find from sources outside the textbook and the D2L site to the discussion postings.
14 (Fourteen) Objective Chapter Exams, one exam per chapter, chapters 15 through 28 in the Foner textbook. Study sheets, outlines, and written lectures are provided for each chapter to facilitate student learning; these are to be used in conjunction with reading the textbook. Students may take any Objective Chapter exam at any time they like, and repeat any Objective Chapter exam as many times as they like for a better grade. The highest score attained on any Objective exam by the end of the semester (August 18, 11:59pm) will be the final recorded grade for that test. Objective chapter exams each contain 15 multiple choice and 5 true/false questions, a total of 20 questions per exam. There is a 30 minute time limit on each attempt. Questions for each objective exam attempt are randomly selected by D2L from a bank of 100+ questions for each chapter, so the test changes each time you take it. The 14 Objective Chapter Exams constitutes 25% of the final grade. D2L automatically grades and reports these. I STRONGLY encourage students to read the textbook and the content provided on D2L, and to complete their Objective Chapter exams on a planned schedule, usually 4 or 5 chapters per week during the short summer semester.
Write 3 (Three) Essay Exams that look across a particular era in American history, each covering 4 or 5 chapters in the textbook. Whereas the 14 Objective chapter exams are directed towards learning factual materials addressed in the individual textbook chapter readings and content, the Essay exams ask you to synthetize, integrate, and argue for your own (fact-based) position on interpretive questions across a longer “era” in US history. All of the possible questions for all three essay exams are available to the student in the essay exam study sheets at the start of the semester. This provides you with the opportunity to takes notes, study, and even outline or pre-write all of the possible questions for this test as you progress through the material, and before you take the test on D2L. Once you “open” the test on D2L, there is a 2-hour time limit for completing the 2 essay questions you select on the exam. You may copy and paste from your computer to the exam on D2L. Unlike the Objective exams, students may not retake the essay exams for a better grade. You may only open each essay exam once. 4 questions will be offered to the student on each exam; students select and write essay answers to 2 (TWO) of the four questions offered in each exam.The four essay questions are offeredrandomly by D2L from a bank of 20 questions -- these are the same questions that are available on the essay exam study sheets. The Essay Exams constitutes 40 % of the final grade. Joe grades and reports these.The grading sheet and evaluation guidelines I use for grading essay exams are available to students on D2L, and show what I value in these essays and how much. After you have returned the Student Honor Code, described above, I STRONGLY urge students to take the first essay exam at the end of the first week of the semester, so you know what to expect. Students may take these exams at any time they like, but there is ONLY ONE ATTEMPT allowed.
Write 25postings to the discussion boards.I initially post 10 questions to get our discussions started; you must post to at least 5 of these discussions during the semester, but you are welcomed and encouraged to post to all 10.Each post submitted is worth 5 possible points. Each posting must meet all criteria to receive full credit. The criteria are posted on each of the 10 discussion boards (usually the first post) as well as the Content section of D2L. The written postings constitute 25% of the final grade. Joe grades these intermittently across the semester, but provides feedback on any that do not meet all criteria, as long as they are posted BEFORE August 13. Joe does not provide feedback for postings submitted on and after August 13. You may submit more than 25 posts, but only 25 will be graded for credit.
Read 100 discussion postings written by the instructor and your classmates. D2L records these, and they constitute 10% of the final grade.
A second summary of the graded assignments for this course:
25% of final grade: average of 14 Objective Chapter exams
40% of final grade: average of 3 Essay Exams
25% of final grade: average of 25 postings to the Discussion Boards
10% of final grade: number of postings to Discussion Boards you read, 100 = 100%

No “Extra Credit” is offered in this course.

Emergency situations

Emergency situations will be handled on an individual basis, but be aware that some sort of evidence that an emergency actually existed will be required.Student athletes, students with disabilities, or students with other kinds of situations that might make meeting deadlines or criteria difficult should contact me immediately to make necessary arrangements.

>ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT<

I follow all University policies in cases of academic misconduct. The University policy states: “Academic misconduct is an act in which a student seeks to claim credit for the work or efforts of another without authorization or citation, uses unauthorized materials or fabricated data in any academic exercise, forges or falsifies academic documents or records, intentionally impedes or damages the academic work of others, engages in conduct aimed at making false representation of a student's academic performance, or assists other students in any of these acts.” If you have ANY questions about what these guidelines mean AT ANY TIME before handing in your work, please contact me.

The UWM Academic Misconduct Webpage is:

Please note: I have found plagiarism and other kinds of cheating in student work during most of the semesters since I began university teaching as a fully time faculty in 1996. I fully understand that “cheating” is as culturally “American as apple pie,” and that fraud and illegality have historically, and continue in the present, to play a significant part of our national economic and social system. Recognizing that historic fact, I have so far recommended to College Deans that 23 students be expelled from the university on ethics/Academic Misconduct violations since 1996. Cheat at the risk of your reputation.