The overall point of US History: 1877-Modern Times was to understand the interconnectedness and changes between post-reconstruction and modern day United States through critical thinking and argument construction.
As mentioned under the scholarship page, honors courses help me learn differently. Unlike other courses, this class had no tests nor formal lectures, rather class time was designed as a structured discussion about the primary and secondary sources we had analyzed both in and outside of class, after this we applied the topics we were learning to projects in order to further our knowledge of this specific time period. This class helped me to realize that I understand and retain information better through discussion and collaboration.
The learning strategies used in this course culminated in our final project. This assignment was to apply what we learned and the sources used throughout the semester to create a Buzzfeed-like listicle of seven ways the course shaped our thinking about a specific topic. Attached below is my final which was titled “7 Ways that Studying U.S. History: 1877 to Modern Times Shapes the Way You Think About Conformity”. While conformity was not a topic discussed in the class, I was able to use the critical thinking skills I had developed and the connections that class discussions created to tie different class material together.