Mr. Jim Cartnal
SCHOOL:
La Canada High School, Room 301
CLASS:
Advanced Placement American History, World History, World Cultures Academy and Honors Social Studies
SCHOOL PHONE:
818.952.4205
I grew up in Covina, a town about twenty-three miles east of Los Angeles and
about 20 minutes away from LCHS. I attended Covina High School and graduated
in 1985. High school was fun. I was active in school government and sports.
I played basketball and, I am NOT ashamed to admit it, golf. After high
school, I attended the University of California, Irvine. I majored in
history and minored in German language and literature and global peace and
conflict studies. During my fourth year at the university, I studied on the
Education Abroad Program in Goettingen Germany, attending Georg-August
Universitaet. In 1999, I completed my Master's degree in history at San
Francisco State University. My academic interests include the foreign
relations of the Atlantic world, with a particular focus on German-American
relations in the 20th century. I like to do a bunch of things, too many to
include here, so I will pick a few. I enjoy traveling, reading, and sports.
In my free time, I coach my kids' sports teams and run. I hope to run two
marathons during the academic year. When writing a brief
biographical statement, it seems appropriate to provide some insight into the
thoughts and ideas that animate my career as an educator. Though there are
many, I find the following to be a particularly forceful call to and for
humankind.
"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."
Horace Mann
Antioch College, 1859
1. Students will evaluate historical material to weigh the evidence and
interpretations presented by historical research.
2. The students will analyze themes in American history and interrelate
categories or trace developments in a particular category through several
chronological periods.
3. The students will employ and analyze primary sources, including
documentary materials, maps, statistical tables, and pictorial and graphic
evidence, to study historical events.
4. Students will take notes from printed materials, lectures, and discussions.
5. The students will practice expressing themselves orally and in writing
with clarity and precision.
6. Students will prepare for the United States History Advanced Placement
exam.
7. Students will develop an understanding that historical events have
multiple causes and effects and that historical interpretation of these
causal relationships is open to change, through careful research and thinking
BY YOU, the historian.
