AP World History

Description

AP World History Course Overview

AP World History focuses on developing students’ abilities to think conceptually about world history from approximately 8000 BCE to the present and apply historical thinking skills as they learn about the past. Five themes of equal importance — focusing on the environment, cultures, state-building, economic systems, and social structures — provide areas of historical inquiry for investigation throughout the course.

AP World History encompasses the history of the five major geographical regions of the globe, with special focus on historical developments and processes that cross multiple regions.:

• Africa
• The Americas
• Asia
• Europe
• Oceania

AP World History Course Content

The AP World History course is structured around themes and concepts in six different chronological periods from the emergence of civilization to the present:

• Technological and Environmental Transformations (to c. 600 BCE)

• Organization and Reorganization of Human Societies (c. 600 BCE to c. 600 CE)

• Regional and Transregional Interactions (c. 600 CE to c. 1450)

• Global Interactions (c. 1450 to c. 1750)

• Industrialization and Global Integration (c. 1750 to c. 1900)

• Accelerating Global Change and Realignments (c. 1900 to the Present)

Within each period, key concepts organize and prioritize historical developments. Themes allow students to make connections and identify patterns and trends over time.

Historical Thinking Skills

The historical thinking skills provide opportunities for students to learn to think like historians, most notably to analyze evidence about the past and to create persuasive historical arguments. Focusing on these practices enables teachers to create learning opportunities for students that emphasize the conceptual and interpretive nature of history rather than simply memorization of events in the past. Skill types and examples for each are listed below.

Chronological Reasoning

• Compare causes and/or effects, including between short-term and long-term effects

• Analyze and evaluate historical patterns of continuity and change over time

• Connect patterns of continuity and change over time to larger historical processes or themes

• Analyze and evaluate competing models of periodization of world history

Comparison and Contextualization

• Compare related historical developments and processes across place, time, and/or different societies, or within one society

• Explain and evaluate multiple and differing perspectives on a given historical phenomenon

• Explain and evaluate ways in which specific historical phenomena, events, or processes connect to broader regional, national, or global processes occurring at the same time

Crafting Historical Arguments from Historical Evidence

• Analyze commonly accepted historical arguments and explain how an argument has been constructed from historical evidence

• Construct convincing interpretations through analysis of disparate, relevant historical evidence

• Evaluate and synthesize conflicting historical evidence to construct persuasive historical arguments

• Analyze features of historical evidence such as audience, purpose, point of view, format, argument, limitations, and context germane to the evidence considered

• Based on analysis and evaluation of historical evidence, make supportable inferences and draw appropriate conclusions Historical Interpretation and Synthesis

• Analyze diverse historical interpretations

• Evaluate how historians’ perspectives influence their interpretations and how models of historical interpretation change over time

• Draw appropriately on ideas and methods from different fields of inquiry or disciplines

• Apply insights about the past to other historical contexts or circumstances, including the present