Harper's Academy U.S. History and American Literature

Our last class focused on Westward Expansion. Here are some main points for you to keep in mind. Like the South, the West has always been a region wrapped in myths and stereotypes.  Manifest Destiny is the belief that the expansion of the US throughout the American continents was justified and inevitable. Between 1870 and 1900, Americans settled more land in the West than in the centuries before 1870. Much of this expansion and mythology stems from American landscape artists, like Bierstadt and Russell.            In order to attract more women to the West, some states allowed women to vote and hold office. Wyoming was first, then Utah, Colorado, and Idaho soon followed. As settlers spread across the continent, some 25,000 Native Americans, many originally from East of the Mississippi, were forced into what was supposed to be their last refuge.  The fighting between the Native Americans and the Americans continued, as Americans repeate...

Dear Parents and Students, I’m sure many of your students came home today discussing a final project I assigned today in class. I want to fill you in on this. Essentially, I have asked your students to pick a project they are either passionate about or really want to accomplish. They will spend the last 20 minutes of each class working on these projects with their peers and with me. The rest of the work will need to be worked on during the week. I will have weekly check-in passes for each student that meets the week’s goals to make sure they are adequately budgeting their time. So why am I doing this? I have a couple of reasons. In today’s business world, we need innovative thinkers who have a passionate drive to solve some incredibly complex problems. Forward-thinking companies know the value of encouraging workers to pursue personally meaningful projects as they exercise their critical thinking skills and create exciting new products to improve life (and the bottom line). At 3M,...