American History and Society: An Introduction

After completing this course, you will be able to:

• demonstrate an understanding of the critical developments in American history, culture, politics, and society
• analyze historical documents and secondary sources
• in response to prompts/questions, write well-structured, essay-length texts that demonstrate reading comprehension, strong source work, good writing, and robust analysis
• demonstrate skills of problem solving, conceptualization, and work independently and in groups
• analyze ideas and arguments in appropriate academic English

Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.

Lectures, 2 hours weekly for 12 weeks—on alternating schedule: groups with academic staff 2 hours bi-weekly for 4 weeks and groups with learning assistants 2 hours bi-weekly for 5 weeks.

Obligatory activities:

• A timed, electronic take-home midterm test that consists of a set of different question types (e.g. multiple choice, short answer, etc.) and a prompt-based writing task. This course requires that references and bibliographic entries be in the Chicago Manual of Style (available in full online through the library). Read more here about rules concerning valid excuses and how to apply for postponements.Information about guidelines for obligatory activities. Positive completion of the midterm exam is a qualifying requirement for sitting the final exam.
• It is obligatory to attend a minimum of 60% of the teaching. In this course, you have to attend 5 of 9 group meetings. The requirement is absolute.

The allowed absence limit will cover all absences, including illness. You will not be granted valid absences with documentation, even when the absence is due to something beyond your control.

In certain circumstances, i.e. serious or chronic illness, you could apply for special needs accommodations.

Once the course requirements have been fulfilled, they remain valid for the current and the next two semesters that the course is taught.

As a full-time student you are expected to spend at least 12 hours a week studying for this course.

In the weeks with tutorials, two of those hours will be spent in groups with your teacher, two hours are spent attending lectures, and eight hours are free for your own studies. In non-tutorial weeks, two hours are spent attending lectures, while the remaining 10 hours are free for your own studies. These hours should be spent reading, making notes on, and reflecting on the syllabus texts; exploring secondary texts, and preparing to contribute your own viewpoints and ideas to class discussions at the tutorial groups. You may also want to spend some of this time discussing the course material with other students.

You are expected to come prepared to each group session. This means that you have completed the assigned reading, and worked on the exercises posted on Canvas by the teacher ahead of the tutorial itself.

ENG1506 consists of lectures, in which we will address the themes covered by the course, and tutorial groups, which consist mainly of student-driven discussions of exercises relating to the lectures. This means that while you may prefer just to listen in, you should nevertheless be prepared to contribute to discussions throughout the term. The more of your week you spend exploring the syllabus texts yourself (or in conversation with classmates), the more you will get out of the tutorials.

• Illness at exams / postponed exams
• Resitting an examination

Once the course requirements have been fulfilled, they remain valid for the current and the next two semesters that the course is taught.