This course is a thematic survey of United States history with emphasis on the following topics: physical and political geography; immigration; the Constitution and basic civics; slavery and the evolution of African-American rights and freedoms from the Civil War through the Civil Rights Movement; women’s rights; and the emergence of the U.S. as a world economic and political power in the 20^th century. Skills addressed in this course include: reading for understanding; independent note-taking; test-preparation skills; creation of timelines; map reading; analysis of maps, charts and graphs; summarizing; and writing crisp identification paragraphs about major historical figures and events. A major segment of this course involves writing an analytical research paper. This project involves book and Internet research, organization of research notes into an outline, writing a rough draft, citation of multiple sources, thorough editing, and preparation of a bibliography. The project is broken down into several parts that are reviewed and handed back with suggestions for improvement.