After reading James Loewen, Chapter 1 "The Tyranny of Coverage" in Teaching What Really Happened, please complete the following assignment. Bring your typewritten assignment addressing each of the below components to class and be prepared to share your assignment with a group of your peers.

1. Using your own mind and interests - not a textbook - as a reference, make a list of 25 topics you WANT to teach in either an 8th or 11th grade U.S. History course. An 8th grade class covers pre-Columbian people through the Gilded Age and an 11th grade class reviews the founding documents and focuses largely on the 20th Century.
   • Be sure to keep Loewen's guiding comments in mind as you make up your list by asking yourself: What will my students need to know about this topic 20 years from now? Why is this important for my students to learn - or is it? What should they do with this information when school is over? How can I make this topic relevant to my students?
2. Now, compare your list with the California U.S. history standards for either 8th or 11th grade found at at http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/standards/. Using a colored marker, mark each of the topics that are included in the standards for your selected grade level.
3. For those topics that are not stated in the standards for your grade level of choice, write 2-3 sentences about how and why you think they are important to teach.
4. On pages 22-23, Loewen explains how he thinks about and uses themes. He has done what many educators do - uses topics as themes. Using what we have discussed in class (see http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/hist420/TeachingGoodHistory.html) to explain what themes are and are not, create 5 overall themes for either the 8th or 11th grade class for which you created your list of 25 topics.
5. Write down any questions you have about this chapter so that we can address them in class.