Preface  (Page 3/3)

Pedagogical foundation

Throughout the OpenStax version of U.S. History, you will find featured material that engage the students in historical inquiry by taking selected topics a step further. Our features include:

• Americana : This feature explores the significance of artifacts from American pop culture and considers what values, views, and philosophies are reflected in these objects.
• Defining “American” : This feature analyzes primary sources, including documents, speeches, and other writings, to consider important issues of the day and present varying points of view on them, while keeping a focus on the theme of what it means to be American.
• My Story : This feature presents first-person accounts (diaries, interviews, letters) of significant or exceptional events from the American experience.
• Link It Up : This feature is a very brief introduction to a website with an interactive experience, video, or primary sources that help improve student understanding of the material.

Questions for each level of learning

The OpenStax version of U.S. History offers two types of end-of-module questions for students.

• Review Questions are simple recall questions from each module in the chapter and are in either multiple-choice or open-response format. The answers can be looked up in the text.
• Critical Thinking Questions are higher-level, conceptual questions that ask students to demonstrate their understanding by applying what they have learned in each module to the whole of the chapter. They ask for outside-the-box thinking, for reasoning about the concepts. They push the student to places they wouldn’t have thought of going themselves.

About our team

Our team is a diverse mix of historians representing various institutions across the nation. We’d like to extend a special thanks to our senior contributors who worked tirelessly to ensure the coverage and level is appropriate for students.

Senior contributing authors

P. scott corbett, phd—ventura college

Volker janssen, phd—california state university–fullerton

John m. lund, phd—keene state college

Todd pfannestiel, phd—clarion university

Paul vickery, phd—oral roberts university

Sylvie waskiewicz, phd—lead editor

Reviewers

Ancillaries

OpenStax projects offer an array of ancillaries for students and instructors. Please visit http://openstaxcollege.org and view the learning resources for this title.