Spring 2027

American History, Civil War Era to the Present

Covers American political, economic, and social development from the Civil War to the present, focusing on identifying patterns and formulating arguments about change over time.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 8

Past student reviews · Athan Biss

Athan Biss assigned lots of outside reading and homework and gave pop quizzes in random classes, usually every other Friday.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Identify important patterns, processes, events, people, and places in U.S. history since 1865.

  • Formulate arguments about change over time.

  • Evaluate arguments about history.

  • Determine what constitutes reliable and valid evidence.

  • Interpret, compare, and contrast primary sources.

  • Think critically about how narratives about the past are constructed and told.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

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Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
HISTORY 102 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

ALLISON USECHE is recorded teaching in Fall 2021. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

ATHAN BISS is recorded teaching in Fall 2015. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

NAN ENSTAD is recorded teaching in Fall 2017, Fall 2018. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

PATRICK IBER is recorded teaching in Fall 2020. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

SCOTT BURKHARDT is recorded teaching in Spring 2017. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

SEAN DINCES is recorded teaching in Fall 2014. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Allison Useche

A student found Allison Useche’s class pretty easy overall, noting that she mainly read from slides and tests were free responses with a detailed rubric.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.81 GPA, 95.5% A/AB (n=67 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.56 GPA, 77.9% A/AB (n=86 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.54 GPA, 84.4% A/AB (n=64 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Athan Biss

Athan Biss assigned lots of outside reading and homework and gave pop quizzes in random classes, usually every other Friday.

Past student reviews · Nan Enstad

A student found Nan Enstad’s lectures unstructured, saying she talked for an hour and fifteen minutes about irrelevant or unimportant things.

Topics

  • American political development since the Civil War.
  • American economic development since the Civil War.
  • American social development since the Civil War.
  • Patterns, processes, events, people, and places in U.S. history since 1865.

Skills

  • Identifying patterns, processes, events, people, and places in U.S. history since 1865.
  • Formulating arguments about historical change over time.
  • Determining what constitutes reliable and valid historical evidence.
  • Interpreting, comparing, and contrasting primary sources.
  • Thinking critically about how historical narratives are constructed.

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.18 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
[]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "7f03a50dc309b0753a4d94e18ef797c0c36253bcc51c9f2d5bede5f43efadd9e",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}