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ADVANCED PLACEMENT WORLD HISTORY
COURSE DESCRIPTION
The purpose of the AP World History course is to offer motivated students the opportunity to
immerse themselves in the processes that, over time, have resulted in the knitting of the world
into a tightly integrated whole. The course offers balanced global coverage with Africa, the
Americas, Asia and Europe each represented. It is a year long course open to students in the 1012 grades. Students are expected to take the AP exam at the conclusion of the course.
THE AP W ORLD HISTORY THEMES
The following themes will be used throughout the course to identify the broad patterns and
processes that explain change and continuity over time.
 The relationship of change and continuity from 8000 B.C.E. to the present.
 Impact of interaction among and within major societies.
 Impact of technology, economics, and demography on people and the environment.
 Systems of social structure and gender structure.
 Cultural, religious, and intellectual developments.
 Changes in functions and structures of states and attitudes toward states and political
identities, including the emergence of the nation-state.
TEXTS
 World Civilizations: The Global Experience, by Stearns et al., New York: Pearson Longman: 5th
AP ed., 2007.
 The Human Record, by Alfred Andrea and James Overfield, Boston: Houghton Mifflin: 5th ed.,
2004.
 Worlds of History: A Comparative Reader, by Kevin Reilly, Bedford St. Martin’s: 2nd ed. 2004.
Note: a variety of other primary and secondary sources will be used during the course.
GRADING POLICY
The district grading scale is as follows:
A
93-100%
B
85-92%
C
76-84%
D
65-75%
COURSE OUTLINE
UNIT 1
C. 8000 B.C.E. TO 600 CE
 Focus Questions
1. What is civilization? What are the characteristics of a culture?
2. Does change occur through diffusion or independent invention?
 Topics
1. Locating world history in environment and time.
2. Developing agriculture and technology.
3. Basic features of early civilizations.
4. Major belief systems.
5. Classical civilizations.
6. Interregional networks by 600 CE.
 Class Activities
1. Map Activity
2. Class discussion over Jerod Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel”, Part One.
3. Civilizations Activity and class discussion on the “Idea of Civilization.”
4. Preparation for the Data Based Question
a. Writing a thesis.
b. SOAPPS document analysis.
5. DBQ: Eurasian Steppe: small group work.
6. Review Chart based on the Themes.
 Assignments
 Essays
1. The collapse of Empire
2. Rome and Han China
3. Compare and Contrast the impact of trade routes
4. Compare and Contrast Bantu and Indo-European Migrations
 Debates/Seminars
1. Slavery and the Caste System
2. Gender, religion and social hierarchy
 Unit One Exam: 70 Multiple Choice Questions
UNIT 2
600 TO 1450
 Focus Questions
1. Should we study cultural areas or states?
2. Did changes in this period occur from the effects of nomadic migrations or urban growth?
3. Was there a world economic network during this period?
 Topics
1. The Islamic World, the Crusades, and the Great Schism in Christianity.
2. Trade networks, China and urbanization.
3. European and Japanese feudalism, Vikings.
4. The impact of the Mongols and the Black Death.
5. Africa and the Americas.
6. The role and function of cities.
 Class Activities
1. Preparation for writing the Compare/Contrast Essay
Compare and contrast Islam and Christianity.
Compare and contrast the Tang and the Song.
Compare and contrast the Maya, Aztecs, and Inca.
 Seminars
1. What roles did commerce and migration play in shaping Eastern Europe?
2. How did feudalism and manorialism provide order in Europe?
3. Were the Crusades more important for the Europeans than for the Muslims?
4. What were the consequences of the Plague?
5. What was the Islamic contribution to the Renaissance?
6. Map work: Indian Ocean Trade.
7. Change Over Time activity: Women and Islam.
8. Inner/Outer Circle Discussion: Which of these has had a greater impact upon history—
Pax Romana or Pax Mongolica? What, in your view, is the greatest legacy of the
Mongols?
9. Change Over Time chart: Unit Two Themes.
10. Change Over Time chart: 8000 B.C.E. to 1450 CE.
 Assignments
 DBQ Essays
1. Islam and Women
2. Ming and the Portuguese
 Compare and Contrast Essays
1. The effects of the Black Death and the pandemics in the Americas.
2. The disruptions caused by the Mongols and the arrival of the Europeans in the
Americas.
3. The role of women in two regions (time writing in class).
 Unit Two Exam: 70 Multiple Choice Questions
UNIT 3
1450 TO 1750
 Focus Questions
1. How and to what extent did European nations become dominant during this period?
 Topics
1. Revolutions: Scientific and Religious.
2. The Columbian Exchange; New and Old World Encounters.
3. Expansion of the world Trading Network.
4. Labor Systems: slavery and serfdom.
5. Land and Sea-Based Empires.
6. Effects of the Atlantic Slave Trade on demography; resistance to the slave trade; Islam
expands in sub-Saharan Africa.
 Class Activities
1. Contrast and Compare how European nations centralized their power and transformed
their states.
2. Renaissance Role Play.
3. “The World That Trade Created: The Economic Culture of Drugs”: group project
a. The importance of sugar.
b. The impact of Capitalism and Mercantilism.
4. Compare and contrast chart: Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals.
5. Contrast compare chart: Land and Sea-Based Empires.
6. Seminars
a. True or False: The Tokugaswas established a political and economic system that bode
well for the future of Japan.
b. True or False: The decline of the Ming Empire was largely due to factors beyond its
control.
7. Role Play: What does it take to establish and rule an empire?
8. Unit Three Review Chare using AP World Themes.
 Assignments
 Focus Questions
1. Describe the Columbian Exchange and its impact on both the Old and New Worlds.
2. Describe how each colonizing nation effected the character of its colonial empire in
America.
 Document-Based Question Essays
1. The Columbian Exchange and the World
2. The Rise and Fall of Ottoman Turkey, Safavid Iran, and Mughal India.
 Compare and Contrast Essays
1. Coercive labor systems in the Americas.
2. The impact of Christianity and Islam in Africa.
3. African kingdoms, empires and states.
4. Russia and its relations with the West and any two of the following: China, Japan,
Mughals, and the Ottomans and their relations with the West.
 Change Over Time Essays
1. Change in the world economy from 1450 to 1750.
2. Discuss three major examples of cultural diffusion from 1450 to 1750.
 Unit Three Exam: 70 Multiple Choice Questions.
UNIT 4
1750 TO 1914
 Focus Questions
1. How did industrialization spread throughout the world?
2. How did the rights of individuals and groups change during this period?
3. To what extent did new types of social conflict emerge during the nineteenth century?
4. How and with whom did the notion of the “West” acquire validity?
 Topics
1. The Enlightenment, American French, Haitian, and Latin American Revolutions.
2. The early Industrial Revolution.
3. Imperialism and Industrialization.
4. Nationalism and Modernization.
5. Reform Movements.
6. Chinese, Mexican and Russian Revolutions.
 Class Activities
1. Enlightenment Salon Discussion.
2. Debate: Absolutism v. Democracy.
3. Inner/Outer Circle: Which revolution was most revolutionary?
4. Seminars
a. Compare and contrast the impact of the industrial revolution on upper/middle class
women of western Europe with the peasantry/working class.
b. Compare and contrast Western intervention in Asia and Africa with that in Latin
America.
c. Compare and contrast the relations of Britian and India with the relations between
Britain and the Ottoman and Qing Empires.
5. Congo Simulation
6. Debate: Was colonialism beneficial to Africa?
7. Group work: Compare and contrast nationalism movements in Germany, Italy, France,
Britain, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Japan.
8. Review Activities
a. Compare and contrast Land and Sea-Based Empires.
b. Change Over Time: How and why did labor systems change from 1400 to 1900?
Explain how ideas about government evolved from 1400 to 1900.
 Assignments
 Essays
1. Document-Based Question: Revolutions in World History.
2. Compare/Contrast: The First and Second Industrial Revolutions.
3. Change Over Time: Discribe and analyze the changes in technology from 1750 to
1914.
 Unit Four Exam: 70 Multiple Choice Questions.
UNIT 5
1914 TO THE PRESENT
 Focus Questions
1. How do ideological struggles provide an explanation for many of the conflicts of the 20th
Century?
2. To what extent have the rights of the individual and the state replaced the rights of the
community?
3. How have conflict and change influenced migration patterns internally and
internationally?
4. What has been the role of international organizations in the 20th Century?
 Topics
1. The Great War and its aftermath.
2. The Rise of Consumerism and the Internationalization of Culture.
3. World Depression and Totalitarianism.
4. The Second World Ware, the Holocaust, the Atomic Bomb.
5. United Nations and Decolonization.
6. Cold War, Imperialism, and the End of the Cold War.
 Class Activities
1. Debates
a. To what extent was Kaiser Wilhelm responsible for instigating the Great War?
b. Should Palestine be returned to the Palestinians?
c. Was the dropping of the Atomic Bomb necessary?
2. Role Plays
a. The Russian Revolution.
b. The Versailles Treaty.
3. Contrast and Compare
a. The impact of World Wars I and II on areas outside of Europe.
b. The decolonization movements in Africa and Asia.
c. The evidence substantiating the Holocaust with the arguments of Holocaust Deniers.
4. Chart: Expressions of Culture
 Assignments
1. Document-Based Question: Man and His Environment
2. Change Over Time: analyze and describe the political, economic, and cultural impact of
the US on the world from 1750 to the present.
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