Since it says america and not the united states of america, I would soley focus on upper north america (silly cunucks) central and south, everything but the usa, just to fuck with the proffesor a bit edit... On a serious note, i always found the louisianna purchase, lewis and clark expedition, and westward expantion the most interesting. Plenty of credible documentation for all of it too
People in england, spain, france, whathaveyou, end up getting bored or chastitized about their religion (something like that lol) and end up setting sail to fall off the edge of the earth. But, the jokes on them cause the worlds round, and there are other lands to the west. Now the native peoples of this new muricka (yeah thats how they first spelled it) didn't take to kindly to these new peoples, and started tearing there shit up. Scalping, tomohawking, and just straight up pillaging the new colony, so the pilgrims built a fort. Skip forward a few years, murickas thriving and this pisses of king george, or henry, (fuck it this is merican history) and sends soldiers to put us in our place. Little did they know, were some crafty bastards, making our own guns and weapons and whatnot. Murickan revolution leads to a delcaration of independence, where they changed the name to America, for some political reason, and started the manifest destiny. Bought louisiana up to oregon from france, planted the south with cotton, and the north with buildings. Then at some bar at the nort/south carolina border, the village drunks from the north and south got into a fight, and all of a sudden all the states got their panties in a bunch and started warring with each other, texas was like, "imma just run away" and new york was all "do it bitch" (but we all know what happened). A little further ahead, germans murder some archduke and europes all in a war, and merica stays out of it, untill were called on for reinforcement. Get back home and its all dusty, like errywher, and depressing. No one has money, hoovertowns start popping up, the national guard starts abusing their own people, and then they outlaw whiskey... That doesn't last long, and we start to get back to normal when japan starts fuckin with hawaii. A few threatening texts and emails, and boom, surprise attack. Well that pisses off merica, and we start sending people everywhere to fuck shit up, untill we finally get the world under control. Then russias like,"yo I bet I can get a monkey into space first" and mericas like "yeah, you can do it first, but we can put a person on the moon." And germany is in the background all like "I gotta wall" but mericas like "mr gorbechek, take down that damned wall and act normal for once" chinas all like "hahaha bitches", but russias like "I'll nuke your wall, and that pretty little dog of yours to merica" But they don't get far, and mericas still wanting to fuck shit up, so they keep parading around middle east, having a pissing contest with everyone, trying to start stuff outta nothing, untill we get an almost valid excuse, then attack the wrong country. Never made up, just put a black guy in office, and was like, "hey look we changed," but never did, untill this past year when 2 states legalized the use of marijuanas. To be continued....
I would focus on the 2nd amendment (the right to bare arms) and the governments attempt to abolish the amendment vs. the people's attempt to hold onto it.
This is easy. Look up manifest destiny and the American dream. Use something like the declaration of independence, it being your primary source, to tease out ideas as to how that document has helped frame American culture and laid a foundation for the "American dream" idea to continue. Using that, you can tie in the previous poster's 2nd amendment focus and explain how that conflict is America's own people (citizens) working to change government control to adapt to their own idea of what American culture should be.
here's a list of important documents from u.s. history you may be able to use http://www.ushistory.org/documents/ the key here is to finding your own personal argument on the topic and discussing it within the context of the 3 primary sources you choose.
Theirs tons of stuff with the creation of our Constitution. The Federalist Papers, Common Sense, and some other stuff. THe creation of the Constitution is intersting because we went a while with out one and many people prtested it at first. Most people said they would not accept it if we did not have what we know now as the Bill of Rights. But the people in charge didnt want to put in because it was "implied" but many feared that their rights would be taken if they were not clearly stated. Which is now known to be correct.
What does 'our reader' mean? Is there a local source or a specific place you are supposed to get primary documents for this question? Do you have anything built up from seminars or lectures that you could use for inspiration? If they're asking such a broad question they must have gone into specifics at some point. Constitution, secession and compromise would probably be the topics I'd look for documents on, which you should be able to find fairly easily; you're the one doing the degree after all, I only have A-level knowledge.
They were talking about the text I believe. Also it should be known I'm not a history Major this is an elective course.