Exploring America Course Descriptions
Notgrass History

American History

Grade Level: High School (9th-12th grades)

Prerequisites: None

Text: Exploring America by Ray Notgrass

Curriculum Publisher: Notgrass History

Course Description:
This is a one-year survey of American history for students in grades nine through twelve. The student will study American history from Native nations and early European explorers to the 21st century. The course discusses events, issues, and policies on the national level, especially involving the federal government, as well as developments in American culture. The student will read a significant number of original documents and speeches while studying the narrative of lessons.

Course Content/Goals/Outline:
Themes in American history
English colonies
American Revolution
The Constitution
Early presidents and events during their terms (War of 1812, westward expansion)
Slavery and abolition
Civil War
Reconstruction
Populism, business, and labor unions
Progressivism
World War I
The 1920s
The Great Depression and New Deal
World War II
Postwar America
The 1950s (Civil Rights)
The 1960s (Space exploration, Vietnam)
The 1970s (Watergate)
The 1980s (Cold War, Persian Gulf War)
The 1990s (Clinton Impeachment)
The 2000s (September 11th, Great Recession)
The 2010s/2020s (War on Terror, Technology, COVID-19, religious history)

Types of Assessment Used:
Projects
Review questions
Tests

English: American Literature and Composition

Grade Level: High School (9th-12th grades)

Prerequisites: None

Text: Exploring America by Ray Notgrass

Curriculum Publisher: Notgrass History

Course Description:
In this one-year survey of American literature for students in grades nine through twelve, the student will read twelve books, including novels and autobiographies. The student will also read a collection of essays, poetry, and hymns. How the literature reflects the historical settings of the works is a particular emphasis. The student also has a weekly assignment of either an essay or another kind of creative project. Historical issues in the various periods of American history are the basis of many writing assignments. The writing assignments take several forms, including essays, editorials, speeches, and letters. The curriculum also assigns a research paper. Note: A student does not have to utilize this English course if he or she is enrolled in another English course. The history course is complete in itself, and the English component is parallel to the history.

Literature Assignments:
The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (David Crockett)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Frederick Douglass)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe)
Co. Aytch (Sam Watkins)
In His Steps (Charles Sheldon)
Up From Slavery (Booker T. Washington)
Mama’s Bank Account (Kathryn Forbes)
Miracle in the Hills (Mary T. Martin Sloop and LeGette Blythe)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
The Giver (Lois Lowry)
Thunder Dog (Michael Hingson with Susy Flory)

Selections from the American Voices anthology:
Poetry by Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, William Cullen Bryant, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Emily Dickinson, Frances E. Harper, Walt Whitman, and Emma Lazarus
Short stories by Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edward Everett Hale, and Mark Twain

Types of Assessment Used:
Writing assignments
Literary analysis and review
Tests

Bible: Issues in 
American Christianity

Grade Level: High School (9th-12th grades)

Prerequisites: None

Text: Exploring America by Ray Notgrass

Curriculum Publisher: Notgrass History

Course Description:
This is a one-year course for students in grades nine through twelve. The student will examine developments and movements in American religious history, from the role of religion in the founding of the colonies to contemporary moral and spiritual issues such as abortion and evolution. Topical Bible studies bring Biblical teachings to bear on the historical issues discussed. Note: This course involves assignments during the first four assignments each week. The fifth and final lesson in each unit focuses on one of the topics listed below. If the student does not need elective credit for Bible, then the student does not have to complete the Bible assignments. In this case, the student should still study the fifth lesson in each unit as part of the American history course.

Course Content/Goals/Outline:
Religion in the New World
The Shape of Religion in the Colonies
The Great Awakening
A Nation Finding Itself
The Bible as Spiritual Constitution
Religion in the New Nation
The Second Great Awakening
19th Century Religious Movements
The American Tradition of Protest
Slavery and the Bible
War
Faith on the Front Lines
How Does America Measure Success?
Are We Men or Are We Monkeys?
Social Darwinism and the Social Gospel
God and Freud
Liberal and Conservative
From Every Nation, Tribe, and Tongue
The Scopes Trial
How Do We Cope with Suffering?
Don’t You Know There’s a War On?
Religious Issues of the 1940s
Were They Really the Golden Days?
The Counterculture of Jesus
Spiritual Issues of the 1970s
Bringing Good Out of Something Bad
Public Leaders, Private Lives
Discerning the Truth
Recent American Religious History
Putting American History into Perspective

Selected readings from the American Voices anthology and the Bible:
Sermons or spiritual writings by John Winthrop, Jonathan Edwards, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr.
Hymns from throughout American history
Passages from the Old Testament and New Testament that relate to the Bible studies

Types of Assessment Used:
Writing assignments
Tests