In February 2020, the author was offered a position as a postdoctoral teaching fellow at a large land-grant college in the American West. A couple weeks later, COVID-19 hit in full force. As the newly hired postdoctoral teaching fellow, the author's department chair tasked the author with a challenging assignment -- to develop an asynchronous section of the survey course "HIST 1700: American History." Historically, HIST 1700 has been a popular course. Unlike the traditional U.S. history survey sequence, HIST 1700 must cover American history from colonization to the present day. Selecting the content and skills to teach in HIST 1700 can make experienced instructors question their pedagogical choices. After some reflection and brainstorming, the author recognized that they had an opportunity to rethink the introductory survey. In short, the author designed a course to foster student agency. In 2020, the author conceived of and built an asynchronous course that employed zero-based grading. For the first semester the author taught the course, they recorded thirty short, engaging lectures. The author also created over 100 assessments from which students could pick and choose. These assignments included everything from low-stakes quizzes and online discussions to academic article analyses and an assessment where students could create and analyze a history meme. The author gave students a seemingly simple goal: to complete whatever assessments they wanted, but to earn over 93 points for an A. In this article, the author examines the theories of agency that underpin HIST 1700's "choose your own grading adventure."