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U.S. HISTORY - MRS. BARB BAXTER
This year your child will be studying U. S. history from the end of the Civil War to the present day. The book we will be using is a brand new book called United States History – Civil War to the Present by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Because these are new books, I will be covering them in class with brown paper bags which protect the books much better than the store bought cloth ones, so save your money.
Each student will be required to bring six things to my class daily. They are: a notebook, a folder, their history textbook, a bag of supplies, a library book and their assignment notebook. It would be helpful if the notebook and folder were the same color and that they are labeled with “U.S. History.” Also put your child’s name (first and last) on both.
Your child will be studying Reconstruction after the Civil War, Industrialization, Immigration, World War I, Great Depression, World War II and the Vietnam War plus many other aspects of our nation’s history. Your child will have two or three assignments a week. Some of these are handed in and graded, and others are not. Most of my assignments should not take more than 15 minutes to do. These assignments can be worth anywhere from 7 - 35 points. Sometimes they require the textbook to complete and sometimes they don’t. I do not believe in extra credit to help bring up a grade. If a student does all my assignments and hands them in on time, I assure you they will have a passing grade from me. Assignments that are handed in late will be deducted points or given no points at all.
After each unit, I usually have a test to evaluate the students’ knowledge of the subject matter. I do not always review with the students in class. They will need to study the notes they have in their history notebooks, their vocabulary words and the handouts in their folder from the unit. I do expect the students to study for these tests on their own.
The third quarter of school I have the students work on Current Events, listening for news about the state, the nation and the world. This is worth 50 points to students this quarter. Students should come in daily with a current event taken from the newspaper, watching the news on television or listening to the news on the radio in the morning. I keep track of this on charts on the classroom’s back wall. They need to tell me who, what, where and when it happened. I encourage you to remind your student to listen for news to become aware of the happenings in our world. This is an important part of their grade this quarter.
If you should have any questions about my assignments or anything that has to do with U.S. History, please feel free to call me at the Middle School from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. If you need to get a hold of me during the day, just email me at bbaxter@rvschools.org
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