Download AP World History Course Overview: This full

AP World History
Course Overview:
This full-year course explores the expansive history of the human world. You will learn many
facts, but also the critical thinking skills necessary to analyze historical evidence. Five themes
will be used as a frame of reference in the chronological study of our world’s history; these
themes are: Interaction between humans and the environment; development and interaction of
cultures; state-building, expansion and conflict; creation, expansion, and interaction of economic
systems; and development and transformation of social structures. [CR2]
An important skill you will acquire in the class is the ability to examine change over time,
including the causation of events as well as the major effects of historical developments, the
interconnectedness of events over time, and the spatial interactions that occur over time that
have geographic, political, cultural, and social significance. It is important for each student
to develop the ability to connect the local to the global, and vice versa, as well as the present to
the past. You also will learn how to compare developments in different regions and in different
time periods as well as contextualize important changes and continuities throughout world
history.
Our study of the expanse of world history will begin with something more familiar, the recent
past. We will attempt to answer the historical question of “What is the state of the world today?”
before we explore how the world came to this state.
Textbook
Stearns. 2004. World Civilizations: Global Experience, fourth edition. Pearson. [CR1a]
Course Introduction: (3 Days)
What, how, and why we study history. Critical readings in historiography will be examined for
identifying the purpose of the historians’ writing. [CR1b]
Sources:
Why Study History Peter Stearns
Worlds of History Kevin Reilly
Historiography Ernst Breisach
Course Units:
For the rest of the year, we will do similar assignments for each of the six time periods of the
course. The assignments will require students to participate in:
• Societal Comparisons for which we will use primary and secondary sources such as religious
and political texts, images of architecture and art, and historical quantitative data to gather
evidence for supporting written arguments (essays) about the similarities and differences
between societies that developed in the same time period but in different parts of the world.
[CR12] [CR1b]
• Leader Analyses for which we will analyze mostly primary sources to compare the basis
of leaders’ claims to power and the effects of their rule. We also will analyze those primary
sources by and about political and religious leaders to practice identifying the purpose, point of
view, and limitations of historical primary sources. [CR1b]
• Conflict Analysis for which we will use primary and secondary sources including historical
data to analyze the causes and effects of conflicts [CR9]
• Change and continuity analyses for which we will use primary and secondary sources to trace
the patterns of development for imperial domination, expansion of trade routes, spread of belief
systems, industrial mass production, and warfare. There will be essays analyzing change and
continuity as well as source-based assessments, similar to document based questions that will
require formal written arguments explaining changes and continuities. [CR10] [CR1b]
• Map analyses will involve the creation of annotated maps that show the changes and
continuities in the five themes: effects of interactions on people and the environment, cause of
the creation of new political systems, spread of agricultural developments, and causes and effects
of migrations. [CR2] [CR1b]
• Periodization debates will require students to form small teams to research and rank at least
three significant events that happened 100 years before and 100 years after the beginning and the
ending dates for the six APWH periods. Students will argue whether they agree with the
beginning and ending dates for each of the six APWH time periods or if they would propose a
new periodization based on conclusions from their research [CR11]
Unit One: Technological and Environmental Transformations to c. 600 B.C.E. (7 Days)
• Key Concept 1.1. Big Geography and the Peopling of the Earth [CR5d]
• Key Concept 1.2. The Neolithic Revolution and Early Agricultural Societies
• Key Concept 1.3. The Development and Interactions of Early Agricultural, Pastoral and Urban
Societies [CR3]
Text: Stearns, Chapter 1
Activities:
 Read and analyze The Worst Mistake in Human History” Jared Diamond
 Evaluate the role of women using various primary sources from the text, compare those
to present society.
 Using geographical and archeological documents students will design a Neolithic
irrigation device examining the impact of geography on sedentary farms [CR15]
[CR1b, CR3, CR4, CR5d, CR5e, CR7, CR8, CR11, CR15]
Unit Two: Organization and Reorganization of Human Societies c. 600 B.C.E. to 600 C.E.
(24 days)
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Key Concept 2.1. The Development and Codification of Religious and Cultural Traditions
Key Concept 2.2. The Development of States and Empire
Key Concept 2.3. Emergence of Transregional Networks of Communication and Exchange
[CR3]
Text: Stearns, Chapters 2-5
Activities:
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Comparative Chinese Philosophies-using graphic organizer
Primary source reading and analysis- Ashoka
Roman Republic Problem Solving
Small group activity: Students will design irrigation systems using tools of the period as
an application of human controlled environment
 Visual Source analysis using art and architecture of the period to examine their impact on
the develop of urban society [CR15]
[CR5a, CR5c, CR5d, CR5e, CR11, CR15]
Unit Three: Regional and Trans-regional Interaction c. 600 C.E. to c. 1450 C.E. (34 days)
• Key Concept 3.1: Expansion and Intensification of Communication and Exchange Networks
• Key Concept 3.2: Continuity and Innovation in State Forms and Their Interactions
• Key Concept 3.3: Increased Economic Productive Capacity and Its Consequences[CR3]
Text: Stearns, Chapters 6-14
Activities:
 Use Venn diagrams to compare Islam and Christianity and Islam and Judaism in order to
examine the origin of Mohammad’s ideas and beliefs
 Using a four column chart for evaluating Islamic diffusion to Asia and Africa
 African Art analysis and evaluation
 Silk Roads Map and data analysis
 Indian Ocean Trade Simulation (1440)
 Compare and Contrast the Aztec and Incas economic, political and social structure
 Cause and effect analysis of the Crusades
 Visual Source analysis using art and architecture of the period
[CR9, CR14, CR15]
Unit Four: Global Interactions c. 1450 C.E. to c. 1750 C.E. (31 days)
• Key Concept
4.1: Globalizing Networks of Communication and Exchange [CR5d]
• Key Concept 4.2: New Forms of Social Organization and Modes of Production
• Key Concept 4.3: State Consolidation and Imperial Expansion[CR3]
Text: Stearns, 15-22
Activities:
 Analysis charts (PERSIA, SPRITE, SPICE, etc.) to evaluate the shift of power from Asia
to the west

Think pair share activity--Who’s driving? The Birth of World Trade: Silver and 1571
Flynn and Girladez
 Martin Luther Mock Trial
 Change over time: Catherine the Great vs. Enlightenment and Peter the Great vs.
Expansionism
 Columbian Exchange: Data and Document Analysis
 “Mystery” Advanced Urban Culture and Civilization 1000-1450 C.E.—application and
identification
 Analysis of Tokugawa Japan using problem solving scenarios
 Visual Source analysis using art and architecture of the period
[CR4, CR5b, CR5d, CR7, CR6, CR9, CR10, CR12, CR13, CR14]
Unit Five: Industrialization and Global Integration (30 Days)
•
•
•
•
Key Concept 5.1: Industrialization and Global Capitalism
Key Concept 5.2: Imperialism and Nation-State Formation
Key Concept 5.3: Nationalism, Revolution, and Reform
Key Concept 5.4: Global Migration[CR3]
Text: Stearns, Chapters 23-27
Activities:
•
•
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Cause and effect T-Chart of the steam engine on industrialization
Compare and Contrast American and French Revolutions
Post revolutionary nation building assignment—students will create a nation based on
correcting problems of the old regime
• Maps and document investigation regarding Imperialism in Africa 1870-1910
• British Colonial Decisions-1890—Map and Document exercises investigating
connections between imperialism and industrialization
• Visual Source analysis using art and architecture of the period
[CR4, CR5b, CR5e, CR7, CR8, CR8, CR9, CR10, CR 12, CR 14]
Unit 6: Accelerating Global Change and Realignments (34 Days)
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•
•
Key Concept 6.1: Science and the Environment
Key Concept 6.2: Global Conflicts and Their Consequences
Key Concept 6.3: New Conceptualizations of Global Economy, Society, and
Culture[CR3]
Text: Stearns, Chapters 28-36
Activities:
•
Conflict analysis: Map geography evaluating the South Pacific and Japan’s need for
resources to fuel War Machine [CR15]
• Examine genocide using the Ottoman Empire and the Armenians -1915
• Change and Continuity analysis (modern medicine, television, automobile, computer)
• Leader analysis (Stalin, Mao Zedong, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, Oscar Romero,
Nkrumah, Kenyatta and Mandela)
• Visual Source analysis using art and architecture of the period
[ CR1b, CR1c, CR5a, CR5c, CR13, CR14, CR15]
Resource List
Breisach, Ernst. 1994. Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Second edition.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Reilly, Kevin. 2009. Worlds of History a Comparative Reader, Third edition. Boston, MA:
Bedford/ St. Martins.
Strayer, R. W. 2011. Ways of the World: A Global History with Sources. Boston, MA:
Bedford/St. Martins.
Wilson, Wendy. 2004. Critical Thinking Using Primary Sources in World History. Portland,
ME: Walch Publishing.
Course Activities and Assignments:
Each unit will begin with the introduction of material to be taught, which will include unit
objectives, blocked reading assignments, weekly assignments including reading quizzes,
formative and summative assessments. Each unit will conclude with a comprehensive review
and two part assessment. Each assessment will include a multiple choice section and an essay
modeling one of the AP World History essay formats. Throughout the course the students will
be provided with instruction in AP exam taking skills and strategies. [CR6 and CR14]