Week 7: Lesson 13 Discussion This week's discussion will focus on Western Expansion before, during, ...

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Week 7: Lesson 13 Discussion This week's discussion will focus on Western Expansion before, during, and after the Civil War and Reconstruction Assignment Objective Students will analyze and reflect on the assigned primary and secondary sources to offer their own assessment of the material. Please respond to two of the following prompts and two colleagues.  Primary Source Analysis, Frontier Thesis: Analyze John Gast’s American Progress (1872) and tell me how each lecture theme is captured by or obscured in this painting. How do we see elements of Frederick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis here? Who is excluded in this image? Incorporate a discussion of at least two assigned readings and provide at least two examples. Include parenthetical citations. Secondary Source Analysis: What does Stacy Smith argue about the ways labor and citizenship was racialized in California? How does her work offer an extended analysis of themes from lecture? Provide at least two examples from the text. Include parenthetical citations. Synthesizing Sources: The Gold Rush: Analyze Walter Colton’s “Gold Rush Diary” (1849-1850). How does he describe the experience of the Gold Rush? Who has come to California? What was mining like? How do miners interact with each other? Include specific examples and contextualize analysis with Smith's chapter. Use parenthetical citations. Primary Source Analysis, Manifest Destiny: Reflect on Richard Caton Woodville's “War News from Mexico” (1848) and John L. O’Sullivan “Annexation” (1845). What are these documents arguing? How does Manifest Destiny function within O’Sullivan’s document? How is America viewing the Mexican-American War? Contextualize analysis with lecture and include citations. Week 7: Lesson 14 Discussion: The Civil War and Reconstruction This week's discussion will focus on the Civil War and Reconstruction.Assignment Objective Students will analyze and reflect on the assigned primary and secondary sources to offer their own assessment of the material. Please respond to two of the following prompts and two colleagues.  Synthesizing Sources, Civil War Tensions: Discussing at least two assigned sources (primary and/or secondary), what can you say about the relationship between the Union and the Confederacy? Contextualize analysis with lecture. Include parenthetical citations.   Synthesizing Sources, Outcomes of Reconstruction: How successful was Reconstruction? Support your argument with at least 2 different assigned sources (primary and/or secondary) of your choosing. Contextualize analysis with lecture. Be sure to cite.  Synthesizing Materials, Spatial Analysis: What arguments do Pekka Hämäläinen and Stacey Smith make about the importance of moving beyond a North-South regional analysis of the Civil War and Reconstruction? Taking a longer analysis of the course, where have we already seen examples showing us that the West is an incorporated arena of the Civil War and Reconstruction histories? Use specific examples from the texts and lectures. Include parenthetical citations.  Primary Source Analysis, Racial Violence: How do “Strange Fruit,” Ida B. Wells “Southern Horrors,” and the Mississippi Black Codes depict the violence of the Jim Crow South? Contextualize analysis with lecture. Include parenthetical citations.  Primary Source Analysis, Change Over Time: How do the Mississippi Black Codes and the Sharecropping Contract help us to understand what life for African Americans was like in the late-1800s and 1900s? How was sharecropping and its social systems similar to and different from enslavement? Contextualize analysis with lecture. Include parenthetical citations.