Wednesday, January 8th

Wednesday, January 8th Bell Work: Please find your assigned seat on the seating chart on the front tables. Once seated, answer the following questions on your own sheet of paper:What did North America look like prior to 1492? What would you see? What did the landscape and the people look like? What did they do? Were there any similarities between America and Europe?Guess the populations of the following places in 1500: Paris, London, the British Isles, and France.Now guess the population for North America as a whole, and the biggest city up to this time in North America.

Daily Agenda: January 8th Bell Work: Picturing Pre-Columbian AmericaDiscussion: A New Semester, A New CourseVocab Acquisition: 1.1 SFIsCritical Reading: 1491Summarizer: The Most Important Thing

Essential Question: What does it mean to be an American?What contribution did Native Americans make toward the development of America?Homework: Read and complete worksheet for the article 1491 (be prepared to discuss the article in a Socratic Seminar tomorrow). Welcome to AP U.S. History Changes for this SemesterMore lecture in class, less reliance on video lecturesMore Core Readings (Historical Thinking focus) and Socratic DiscussionMore Writing (essay on every test and at least one more per unit)Daily Structure Changes (Monday and Tuesday = Vocab Acquisition; Wednesday = Review; Thursday = Writing; Friday = Critical Reading)Video Log per unit (due at end of unit, equal to a quiz grade)Verb ReviewLets take a few quick minutes to recall what we learned last semester. Each of you have been issued a card with a verb on it. Take a few minutes to think about what person or event you learned about last semester that you can relate to the term. Each of you will be asked to verbally share you conclusion with the class.Consider the Following:Relative Populations in 1491:London 50,000Paris 200,000British Isles 3 millionFrance 16 millionNorth American population = c. 15 millionCentral America = 90-115 million people (1/5 of worlds total population and more than all of Europe combined)Cahokia = around 50,000 peopleWhy do we assume the continent was so sparsely populated?Wanted to believe that it was unoccupiedless guilt.In the first 130 years of contact about 95 percent of the people in the Americas died from disease.Disease killed as much as 90 percent of the people of coastal New England.

Consider the following European records about the Americas and note the dates:1. Las Casas (1542): it looked as if God has placed all of or the greater part of the entire human race in these countries.2. Sebastin Vizcano (1602): I have traveled more than eight hundred leagues along the coast and kept a record of all the people I encountered. The coast is populated by an endless number of Indians.3. New England colonist (1630s): And the bones and skulls upon the several places of their habitations made such a spectacle that the Massachusetts woodlands heavily urbanized populations were wiped out.Native American Culture:By 1000 A.D., trade relationships had covered the continent for more than a thousand years; mother-of-pearl from the Gulf of Mexico has been found in Manitoba, and Lake Superior copper in Louisiana. The Native Americans inhabited a world in which, unlike Europeans, they expected to meet peoples different from themselves.

Setting the Stage: Vocab AcquisitionPlease go to the Vocab page on the class wiki. There you will find a game designed to introduce you to some of the terms from Unit 1.Take the next 10 minutes to get acquainted with the terms. Tomorrow we will work with the same terms in a different format to help you get ready for your first pass-fail quiz.

Pre-Columbian AmericaAs you read the assigned article, look carefully for the assertions of the author as he challenges some pre-conceived notions about life in the Americas prior to 1492. After identifying each assertion, note how the author supports his position in the text. After finishing the article, complete the back side of the worksheet in preparation of tomorrows Socratic Seminar.Note: This is a class set of the article, if you do not finish in class, you can find a digital copy on the Handouts page of the class wiki.

Exit Slip:On your own sheet of paper, answer the following questions and turn them in before you leave to the homework bin:What are three misconceptions about life in the Americas prior to 1492?Why do you think historians are skeptical of the new ideas about pre-Columbian life in the Americas?Does diminishing pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas help to diminish their role in forming American civilization?