Blogging the Textbook

Using the text blogs as examples, you will write your own blog post for one of the readings below (excluding those in italics).  Your goal is to summarize your analysis of the text sections, according to the format established in the first text blogs.  Your goal is not to summarize the section.  There’s not enough space for that, nor any point.  Depending on the length of the section, your post should be between 500-1000 words, but not over that limit.

Here are some writing guidelines – You will 1) speak directly to the reader, 2) make direct analysis of the text, 3) pose thoughtful questions to the reader, 4) integrate links to helpful websites that add either context or content to your analysis and 5) when appropriate, quote the text.  You will not 1) just list details (names, dates, events, etc.) in the text, 2) write down your opinions, or 3) leave a statement unsupported.

Chapter 5: The Strains of Empire
Reading #1: Colonial Political Life
Reading #2: The Climactic Seven Years War
Reading #3: The Crisis with England
Reading #4: The Ideology of Revolutionary Republicanism
Reading #5: Turmoil of a Rebellious People

Chapter 6: A People in Revolution
Reading #6: Bursting the Colonial Bonds
Reading #7: The Final Rupture
Reading #8: Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
Reading #9: Declaring Independence
Reading #10: The War for American Independence
Reading #11: The Experience of War
Reading #12: The Ferment of Revolutionary Republicanism

Chapter 7: Consolidating the Revolution
Reading #13: Struggling with the Peacetime Agenda
Reading #14: Sources of a Political Conflict
Reading #15: Political Tumult in the States
Reading #16: Towards a New National Government

Chapter 8: Creating a Nation
Reading #17: Launching the National Republic
Reading #18: The Republic in a Threatening World
Reading #19: The Political Crisis Deepens
Reading #20: Restoring American Liberty
Reading #21: Building an Agrarian Nation
Reading #22: Foreign Policy for a New Nation

Chapter 9: Society and Politics in the Early Republic
Reading #23: A Nation of Regions
Reading #24: Indian-White Relations
Reading #25: Perfecting a Democratic Society
Reading #26: The End of Neocolonialism
Reading #27: Knitting the Nation Together
Reading #28: Politics in Transition

Chapter 10: Economic Transformations
Reading #29: Economic Growth
Reading #30: Early Manufacturing
Reading #31: New England Textile Town
Reading #32: Urban Life
Reading #33: Rural Communities

Chapter 11: Slavery and the Old South
Reading #34: Building a Diverse Cotton Kingdom
Reading #35: Morning: Master & Mistress
Reading #36: Noon: Slaves in the House and Fields
Reading #37: Night: Slaves in their Quarters
Reading #38: Resistance and Freedom

Chapter 12: Shaping America in the Ante-Bellum Age
Reading #39: Religious Revival and Reform Philosophy
Reading #40: Political Response to Change
Reading #41: Perfectionist Reform and Utopianism
Reading #42: Reforming Society
Reading #43: Abolition & the Women’s Rights Movement

Chapter 13: Moving West
Reading #44: Probing the Trans-Mississippi West
Reading #45: Winning the Trans-Mississippi West
Reading #46: Going West and East
Reading #47: Living in the West
Reading #48: Cultures in Conflict

Chapter 14: The Union in Peril
Reading #49: Slavery in the Territories
Reading #50: Political Disintegration
Reading #51: Kansas and the Two Cultures
Reading #52: Polarization and the Road to War
Reading #53: The Divided House Falls

Chapter 15: The Union Severed
Reading #54: Organizing for War
Reading #55: Clashing on the Battlefield (1861-1862)
Reading #56: The Tide Turns (1863-1865)
Reading #57: Changes Wrought by War

Chapter 16: The Union Reconstructed
Reading #58: The Bittersweet Aftermath of War
Reading #59: National Reconstruction Politics
Reading #60: The Lives of Freedpeople
Reading #61: Reconstruction in the Southern States

Chapter 17: Rural America: The West & New South
Reading #62: Modernizing Agriculture
Reading #63: The West
Reading #64: Resolving the Native American Question
Reading #65: The New South
Reading #66: Farm Protest

Chapter 18: The Rise of Smokestack America
Reading #67: The Texture of Industrial Progress
Reading #68: Urban Expansion in the Industrial Age
Reading #69: The Industrial City (1880-1900)
Reading #70: The Life of the Middle Class
Reading #71: Industrial Work and the Laboring Class
Reading #72: Capital versus Labor

Chapter 19: Politics and Reform
Reading #73: Politics in the Gilded Age
Reading #74: Middle Class Reforms
Reading #75: Politics in the Pivotal 1890’s