This is a yearlong course designed to provide students with the analytical skills and factual knowledge necessary to deal with the problems and materials in U.S. history. It prepares students for intermediate and advanced college courses by making demands upon them equivalent to those made by full-year introductory college courses. Students should learn to assess historical materials–their relevance to a given interpretive problem, reliability, and importance–and to weigh the evidence and interpretations presented in historical scholarship. This course will develop the skills necessary to arrive at conclusions on the basis of an informed judgment and develop the ability to present reasons and evidence clearly and persuasively in essay format. Content ranges from the Colonial period to modern times.