Discussion Response
Expectations
The discussion responses you submit for each Discussion Post should all follow the same
format and style. These should be 250 words, and are meant to be written in a “blog
style,” as opposed to more formal writing. The intention behind this is to map
the process of learning and analyzing history–therefore it should have a tone of personal
reflection in addition to analysis. Reflect on the content you’ve learned in this unit. Then,
consider your position/experience and how you relate to this material (yes–you can use
first-person). Though there is an overall informal tone to these posts, your answers
should employ critical thinking (as opposed to regurgitating material) and effectively
apply reading and media sources from the unit’s module within your overall analysis.
Include several specifics from course material, offering really simplistic citations in
parentheses such as: (name of textbook chapter), (name of primary source), (name of
historian video).
Unit 10
Background
Social transformations defined the Jacksonian Era as Americans took up various causes
to improve society. There were multiple forces driving this push for reform. Drawing on
this unit’s material, write a 250 word post considering the below questions in your
response.
Questions
1. How did the Second Great Awakening support social reform?
2. What gave rise to the abolitionist movement?
3. What gave rise to the women’s movement?
4. Why is it important for us to investigate movements that wage long-term
campaigns over an extended period of time before their objectives are
obtained?
Unit 11
Background
The South flourished in this period as the “cotton kingdom,” but their prosperity directly
correlated with growing the enslavement system. Drawing on this unit’s material, write
a 250-350 word post considering the below questions in your response.
Questions
1. How did white Southerners justify slavery?
2. How did enslaved people endure and resist their oppression?
3. What were the effects of Nat Turner’s Rebellion?
4. Why is it important to understand the intermingling of slavery in the national
economy?
Unit 12
Background
John O’Sullivan romanticized expansion and spoke of America fulfilling it’s Manifest
Destiny. Ralph Waldo Emerson, on the other hand, would refer to the land gained from
Mexico as a dose of arsenic. Drawing on this unit’s material, write a 250word post
considering the below questions in your response.
Questions
1. What was Manifest Destiny, and why did Americans embrace positive views
on expanding?
2. What were the causes of the Mexican-American War?
3. Why did Emerson refer to the new land as poison?
4. Why is it important to understand both the motivations for expansion and the
consequences that followed?
Unit 13
Background
Slavery has been undisputedly proven to be the cause of secession and the subsequent
Civil War. Despite slavery being a contentious issue for decades, the North and South
found compromise time and again. However, both regions reached a peak of divisiveness
in the 1850s from which they would not back down from this time. Drawing on this
week’s readings and lectures, write a 250word post considering the following questions
in your response.
Questions
1. Name and explain 3 crises of the 1850s that surrounded slavery and created
sectionalism.
2. In your opinion, what crisis contributed most to official union dissolution with
secession?
3. Why is it important to understand slavery at the center of the sectional crisis
and why it could no longer be compromised on by 1860?
Unit 14
Background
The Civil War starts with Lincoln’s call for reunification of the states. However, in 1862,
Lincoln calls for emancipation to become a higher cause for war. Lincoln’s draw for
emancipation was still concerned with bringing the seceded states back into the union.
Overall, no one would take great action in emancipation than enslaved people
themselves. Drawing on this unit’s material, write a 250word post considering the below
questions in your response.
Questions
1. How did Lincoln characterize the objective of the war when it started?
2. Given the wording and timing of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, what
were his true aims with this action?
3. How did enslaved people take emancipation into their own hands?
4. Why is it significant to characterize emancipation as a long-form movement
with a broad network of participants, as opposed to one figure?

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