Waynesboro Consortium - Description (syllabus) for 2011

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“Critical Connections” is a professional development curriculum for elementary, middle and high school teachers designed to improve their knowledge and appreciation of traditional American history by focusing on critical connections in America’s past.  The curriculum emphasizes the comparative nature of American history by examining twelve intersections in which universal influences combined to help define the development of the United States as a nation and change the course of world history.  These twelve intersections illustrate the relevance and global importance of American history while providing teachers with an organizational structure to help students understand—and get excited about—the universal ideas and issues running through America’s past.  In short, “Critical Connections” provides teachers with a thematic construct around which to frame questions and organize their thinking and teaching about American history in a global context.     

The American Century

Unit/day 1:  Woodrow Wilson and American internationalism 

Unit/day 2:  “Freedom from Fear”: the Depression, “The Good War,” and American memory 

Unit/day 3   “Age of Anxiety”: the Cold War, civil rights, and social protest 

Unit/day 4:  “The World is Flat”: the United States and globalization 

Unit/day 5:  Documents and artifacts session