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Course Overview
The advanced placement World History course is designed as a college level class that is based on a global
perspective of World History. As a college level course, it will require extensive reading and numerous writing
activities throughout the year. Major writing assignments will include a minimum of one essay each six weeks in
addition to a major research project each semester. The scope of the course covers the period of time from the
Neolithic Revolution to the present. That time is divided, according to the AP World History Course Description
as follows:
No more than 30% of the course will be devoted to European History and the United States will be covered only
as it pertains to “involvements in the global process.”
We will use the six overarching themes of World History as described by the AP World History Course
Description:
1. The dynamics of change and continuity (CCOT) across the world history periods covered in the course,
and the causes and processes involved in major changes of these dynamics.
2. Patterns and effects of interaction among societies and regions: trade, war, diplomacy, and international
organizations
3. Impact of technology, economics, and demography on people and the environment (population growth
and decline, disease, labor systems, manufacturing, migrations, agriculture, weaponry)
4. Systems of social structure and gender structure (comparing major features within and among societies,
and addressing change and continuity)
5. Cultural, intellectual, and religious developments, including interactions among and within societies
6. Changes in functions and structures of states and in attitudes toward states and political identities
(political culture), including the emergence of the nation-state (types of political organization)
Students will develop the “Habits of the Mind” that address the skills necessary in this or any rigorous history
course:
Constructing and evaluating arguments
Using demulcents and other primary data
Assessing issues of change and continuity over time (CCOT)
Understanding diverse interpretations of history through analysis
Seeing global patterns while connecting local developments to global ones
Comparing within and among societies
Being aware of human commonalities and differences while assessing universal standards, and
understanding culturally diverse ideas and values in an historical context
Textbook
Bulliet, Richard, Pamela Kyle Crossley, et al. The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History. 2nd. Boston Houghton
Mifflin, 2001.
Bentley, Jerry H., Herbert F. Ziegler. Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past. 4th. Boston
McGraw-Hill, 2008.
*Supplemented with primary documents, historical essays and reprinted readings from college level texts.
Scope and Sequence:
I Foundations-The World before 600 C.E. 7 weeks
A. The Nature of History
1. The World and a Very Small Place in Africa- seeing history as global
2. POV—frame of reference and historic context—a collage
B. Civilizations
a. Usefulness of the word "civilization"
2. Neolithic Revolution-Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel
a. Catal Huyuk
3. Characteristics of early river valley societies as well as Mesoamerica and Andean South America
Assignments:
Analyzing POV, VENN Bronze and Iron Age, World Religions (Chart and journal), Hellenistic Readings,
Snapshot of Classical World, Mental Map of Classical World, Introduction of Comparative Essay, Decline of
Han, Rome and Gupta VENN, CCOT Charts, Gender Jigsaw
Major Assessments:
Comparative Essay on Fall of Empires, Foundation Exam
Assignments:
Atlantic Revolutions Readings and Comparative Chart, Nationalism Readings, Comparative Essay on Atlantic
Revolutions, Early Industrialism: Demand for Cotton, Trigram: Global Industrialization, Social Consequences
Readings, Snapshot: Non-Western Societies, Imperialism Chart and Primaries, Mental Map: Imperialism,
Gender Jigsaw, CCOT Charts
Major Assessments:
Early Revolutions Exam, Revolutions Exam, DBQ Essay on Imperialism
*This is only a partial list of assignments; students participate in weekly graded discussions, lectures, reading
quizzes and group activities too numerous and changing to list here in their entirety. Those listed are the core of
the course.