Debate (Forensics)
One of the best activities for engaging students is to give them the option of choosing what they learn and make them responsible for defending what they believe. Achieving this is giving students, every Unit/Reading Guide, a topic with which they will defend their side against the opinions of the opposite side--debate.
The great series Taking Sides in United States History! Choose a side and prepare for a debate against another student with the same topic. More to come...
The great series Taking Sides in United States History! Choose a side and prepare for a debate against another student with the same topic. More to come...
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Taking Sides, Fifteenth Edition, Vol. I.
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All pdfs are supplemental to class textbooks.
Semester One Topic Reading Guide
Correlation
Reading Guide One: Colonial Society
Issues:
1. Did the Chinese Discover America?
2. Was the Settlement of Jamestown a Fiasco?
3. Was Conflict Between Europeans and Native Americans Inevitable?
4. Was the Salem Witchcraft Hysteria a Product of Women’s Search for Power?
5. Was There a Great Awakening in Mid-Eighteenth Century America?
Reading Guide Two: Revolution and the New Nation
Issues:
1. Was the American Revolution Largely a Product of Market-Driven Consumer Forces?
2. Was the Constitution of the United States Written to Protect the Economic Interests of the Upper Classes?
3. Did Alexander Hamilton’s Policies Lay the Foundation for America’s Economic Growth in the Early National Period?
Reading Guide Three: Antebellum America
Issues:
1. Did Andrew Jackson’s Removal Policy Benefit Native Americans?
2. Did the Industrial Revolution Provide More Economic Opportunities for Women in the 1830s?
3. Was Antebellum Temperance Reform Motivated Primarily by Religious Moralism?
Reading Guide Four: Conflict
Issues:
1. Was the Mexican War an Exercise in American Imperialism?
2. Was John Brown an Irrational Terrorist?
3. Was Slavery the Key Issue in the Sectional Conflict Leading to the Civil War?
Reading Guide Five: Conflict and Resolution
Issues:
1. Are Historians Wrong to Consider the War Between the States a “Total War”?
2. Was Abraham Lincoln America’s Greatest President?
3. Did Reconstruction Fail as a Result of Racism?
Semester Two
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