IB History of the Americas

[cranberry_isle]

Okay, So I knew that I was taking IB History of the Americas. I'm almost done with IB 1, and so far this year we've gone through a basic american history textbook. (learned very little because our teacher is dumb, but that is beside the point), and I was under the impression that this class was simply a basic American History class, but more in depth, and with the addition of Latin America, Mexico and Canada.

We ended at WWI, have gone through many important events of Latin America, yet we have a whole other year of history. I assumed that somehow this year would consist of WWII, Cold War, and a LOT of review considering we learned nothing this year... but today we went to see our senior year teacher for our summer assignment. Which is about Stalin.

...?

I'm all for reading the book, it looks incredibly interesting. But I'm CONFUSED. Because he also said we were learning about Mussolini, The Russian Revolution, and some other things that are very UNrelated to American History (but I must admit I find these topics MUCH more interesting than American history) Though I can appreciate that these things influenced History in the Americas... I expected more information on... well... America.

I think I'm missing a very important bit of information about what the syllabus involves, though I couldn't find one online anywhere.

Could someone PLEASE explain to me what is going on?

Edited May 27, 2008 by cranberry_isle

[Mr. Shiver]

You can find the IB History syllabus right here: [url="http://www.ibsurvival.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=20"]http://www.ibsurvival.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=20[/url]

Find out which topics your teacher is planning to teach, and then focus your reading on those topics as outlined in the syllabus.

[IBStuck]

the syllabus will expalina it, but if you do't want to look what our class did was....
in the fisrt year we did basically what you did. latin american wars of independence, and colonization of the US to just before WWI (we don't touch canada)
then in our second year we did rise and rule of single party states (stalin, castro, and hitler), WWI and WWII, the cold war, mexican revolution, and i am sure there was some other things. oh US Imperialism.

the US is involoved with all of these things is how i explained it to myslef because i thought the samew thing. you need to understad people like stalin to understand how and why the US got involved, and when. then it is on the syllabus, so it has a chance of being on the exam. ask your teachr for old exams, and that will also explain why you have to know stalin. he has a whole section to himself on paper one.

[Guest Lily Bean]

I'm assuming that you're 2009 and you'll be doing the old syllabus (new syllabus starts 2010).

For History you have 3 papers. Paper 1 there are 3 prescribed subjects and you have to study at least 1 (Stalin, Mao or Cold War). Then Paper 2 is 20th century World history which is why you have to do stuff like Mussolini and stuff not to do with America. Then paper 3 is where all your America stuff comes in.

I really dont see how Russian Revolution come in though because it's not really covered in Paper 2 and usually people learn it for the History of Europe paper 3 option...but well it might be interesting. I guess RR ties in with Stalin a bit?

I'm guessing by your topics (stalin and mussolini), you are being taught the topic called Rise and rule of singled partied states (or whatever it's called) in thge 20th century world history portion. For the world history portion (paper 2) there are 5 topics, and you have to study 2. people usually do causes, course and effects of war as one of them because it covers a lot of stuff in other topics as well.

[IBStuck]

it does tie in with stalin because we touched on it too, and stalin and mussolini come in with the rise and rule of single party states.

[cranberry_isle]

Thank you all SO much. the idea that the America section was only one paper was the first guess that crossed my mind after talking to next year's teacher, but i had assumed for such a long time that American was the central topic... I just was lost.

It also makes me feel a lot happier about our history class. I thought it was horribly ironic that we were taking american history in an INTERNATIONAL program. but. this makes MUCH more sense. I feel more well rounded.