The American Yawp constructs a coherent and accessible narrative from all the best of recent historical scholarship. Without losing sight of politics and power, it incorporates transnational perspectives, integrates diverse voices, recovers narratives of resistance, and explores the complex process of cultural creation. It looks for America in crowded slave cabins, bustling markets, congested tenements, and marbled halls. It navigates between maternity wards, prisons, streets, bars, and boardrooms. Whitman’s America, like ours, cut across the narrow boundaries that strangle many narratives. Balancing academic rigor with popular readability, The American Yawp offers a multi-layered, democratic alternative to the American past.

On this page, we have offered syllabi, course readings, chapter-by-chapter discussion questions, key terms, quizzes, essay assignments, and exams to do just that. Individual instructors, of course, should always govern their own curriculum and be able to determine their own pedagogy. Rather than attempting to build a common curriculum, these resources are designed merely as a starting point. Like our text, they are licensed openly (CC-BY-SA): you are encouraged to use them, download them, distribute them, and modify them as you see fit. Moreover, The American Yawp is, as always, an evolving, collaborative project. We welcome the submission of additional teaching materials and feedback on existing material. If you have any ideas or resources you’d like to share, please contact the editors (Ben Wright for the first half, and Joseph Locke for the second) directly.

Native Peoples of North America is intended to be an introductory text about the Native peoples of North America (primarily the United States and Canada) presented from an anthropological perspective. As such, the text is organized around anthropological concepts such as language, kinship, marriage and family life, political and economic organization, food getting, spiritual and religious practices, and the arts. Prehistoric, historic and contemporary information is presented. Each chapter begins with an example from the oral tradition that reflects the theme of the chapter. The text includes suggested readings, videos, and classroom activities

A US history ancillary/textbook that examines some traditional some non-traditional aspects of American social, cultural, gender, racial, political, and military history. Most chapters include content provided by community college students.

These resources are discussion post prompts designed for use in online classes or for class discussions. Each focuses on a topic from a specific chapter in the OpenStax US History textbook beginning with chapter 17. As such, all topics and themes are designed for the second half of the US History survey course.Each prompt is designed to center on a specific topic from each chapter and then connect it to the context of a theme or idea in modern or contemporary times.In this way history is taught so students can understand that it is relevant to their own lives, rather than merely a series of events surviving in their own insulated past.