Dear Students,
I hope that you and your families are safe from poor conditions post-Sandy, and if you're reading this, you have access to power (yay!). As you know, you are expected to have completed annotations of Chapters 3-6 of Carol Berkin's A Brilliant Solution by the time school is reopened. What follows are suggestions for how you can begin to prepare for the next segment of our coursework. I cannot stress enough that this work is supplementary, not required, and should only be attempted as long as your families are safe and able to comfortably use power sources.
Our next Foner chapter will be Chapter 7 "Founding a Nation: 1783-1789." I have not distributed copies of this chapter to read, but I would like to invite you to review the Foner website to get the general idea of the chapter before we begin reading it. There are two easy ways to do this, which I have provided links for below:
1. Watch/Listen to Foner answer questions on topics related to Chapter 7. Each video is only 2-4 minutes long and questions include:
- Video 1: The Constitution begins with the words "We the people of the United States"; who were "the people" according to the framers?
- Video 2: How did the Constitution affect the institution of slavery in America?
- Video 3: How important was the Bill of Rights at the time, and what has been its significance since then?
- Video 4: How did race emerge as the sole significant marker between slavery and freedom in this period?
- Video 5: The Market Revolution is an important concept in your discussion of the early to mid-nineteenth century. What was the Market Revolution, and how did it contribute to a stronger sense of a private self that should be free of interference from others and the government?
Again, I hope that you are all well and safe- my support and strength goes out to families who are currently without power or who's homes have sustained damage from the storm. I look forward to seeing your smiling faces when schools reopen!
Ms. Hanemann
