• review the events leading up to the outbreak of hostilities;
• evaluate the assets of the Union and the Confederacy; and
• consider how each side tried to use its strength to achieve victory.

Reconstruction:

• explore attempts to rebuild the South on the basis of racial equality and the ultimate failure of those efforts; and
• see how segregation emerged as a way of life in the Southern states.

Westward Expansion:

• understand the events and people in the time of the Westward Movement by using a collection of authentic documents.

Immigration:

• write journal entries from the perspective of a European immigrant describing the turn-of-the-century immigrant experience; and 
• create illustrated poems describing Chinese immigrants' experiences when detained at Angel Island.

Industrialization and Progressivism:

• explain how the specialization of labor and the move to assembly line production imapcted workers; and 
• describe the factors contributing to and the impact of the rapid industrialization between 1865 and 1910.

Imperialism:

• explain the shift in US foreign policy during the nineteenth and twentieth century;  
• describe key events in the Spanish-American War; and 
• role play candidates to become soldiers for Colonel Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Rider.

World War I:

• relate the key events of World War I and the US response to them;
• describe the horrors of trench warfare on the Western Front;
• experience the scale of loss and attrition on the World War I trenches;
• describe the process in a boot camp for army recruits training to become soldiers before being shipped out for the trenches in France; and 
• negotiate the terms of a peace treaty to end World War I.

The Roaring Twenties:

• describe postwar tensions in American society during the 1920s; and 
• identify some cultural contributions made by African Americans, increasing consumerism, improved transportation, the popularity of radio and movies, the changing role of women, prohibition, and sports mania during the 1920s.

The Great Depression and the New Deal:

• explain the intersecting causes of the late 1920s economic collapse;
• describe the human impact of bank failures during the Great Depression;
• feel what it is like to be put into a bread line and a soup kitchen during the early years of the Great Depression; and 
• describe the policies and programs of the New Deal.

World War II:

• create picto-words that demonstrate the meaning of eight key World War II terms;
• explore the events that led to the outbreak of World War II and discuss how the US responded;
• be involved in the evacuation and relocation of more than 110,000 Japanese Americans in the spring of 1942;
• create raps depicting major Atlantic Conference military events during World War II;
• critically analyze the escalation of the Holocaust in Germany during World War II; and
• create matchbooks depicting major military events in the Pacific Conference.

The Cold War:

• explain the meaning of eight Cold War term; and
• explain how the Cold War and domestic changes in the postwar years affected the nation.

The Civil Rights Movement:

• analyze placards that show how African Americans overcame discrimination after Reconstruction;
• relate to the discrimination and segregation faced by ethnic groups in the United States;
• describe key events in the development of the African American civil rights movement;
• write a fictional dialogue reflecting Martin Luther King Jr.'s and Malcolm X's differing viewpoints; and
• prepare biographical reports depicting various African Americans' heroic acts during the civil rights.