Introduction to AP World History
This is the first of several posts this summer to keep communication lines open with those who attend my AP World History Summer Workshops. Specifically, I want teachers from my workshops to have a summary of what we covered as well as quick links to the resources mentioned on each day. So, here’s a review of day one . .
Equity and Access. First of all, the College Board’s Equity and Access policy is crucial to Advanced Placement programs. This is not packing classes with as many students as possible but seeking out underrepresented subgroups who have the potential to do well in AP classes. (You can find more this at AP Potential.) Recruiting students not traditionally inclined or recommended to take AP classes is a significant change to how many teachers conceive of Advanced Placement. Personally, I find the greatest satisfaction not in the most advanced students who enter my class, but rather in those who are uncertain of themselves, who work hard and are transformed by the effort. There is a risk in opening the class to a wider range of students but I love being part of the experience that awakens students to their potential.
The Nature of AP World History. The main point I try to drive home on Day 1 is the centrality of the Curriculum Framework (CED) to your teaching. I have strong opinions about this and others disagree, but I believe many teachers teach the course in a far too textbook-centric manner. I prefer to draw from a variety of resources with the goal of completely addressing the Learning Objectives, the Historical Developments, and the necessary examples to illustrate them. The textbook is merely one of many resources to that end and my students do not read every one of its chapters. Perhaps I would feel differently if the AP Exam were a big test on Bentley, Strayer or Stearns, but it’s not.This basically refers the the Course and Exam Description, or the CED.
The most practical element of the CED is the Topic Pages that you will use to plan your content lessons. HERE is a list of PDF files of all AP World History Topic Pages, and HERE is a video about how we learned to use the CED to plan out our year. We used Scheduling Your Units of Study 2026 page from the workshop note book to plan.
As you devise your own system for teaching the course you might find the Correlation Guides from the textbook publishers helpful. These link they pages of the textbook to the Key Concept outline. However you decided to order content the Curriculum Framework is your friend and keeps you from being overwhelmed by the scope of the subject.
Geography. Students must know the Geographic Regions as outlined in the Curriculum Framework. Confusing regions (East Asia with Southeast Asia for example) can destroy an entire essay attempt. As with the time Periods, there are arguments and ambiguities in these regions students should be aware of (is Egypt in North Africa or the Middle East? Why or why not?) A great video to introduce the POV of map making is this clip from the West Wing TV series. Here is an interesting article of how maps can lie.
Teaching the Basics: Making an Argument
We spent some time the first morning talking about what sets this class apart from regular history classes: students have to make arguments about the past. I begin hammering this home the first 9 weeks of the course and then work this skill into the format of the Long Essay Question and Document Based Question.
The first argument I model for them is about metals and early societies, which you can see HERE. We then move on to the archeological finds from the Indus River Valley. The evidence page is in your workbook, but you can find the entire lesson plan HERE. Although we didn’t do it in the workshop, I have another “Unit Zero” lesson that uses state building during the classical age and gets students to dig further into different types of historical sources.
The Multiple Choice Questions
The Short Answer Question (SAQ)
About half way through Day 1 we began to look at the Short Answer Questions for the AP Exam. The basic handout from the workbook is HERE.
On the SAQ, these terms would look like this:
Identify an economic development between 1750 and 1900 that led to the formation of new elites.
- An economic development between 1750 and 1900 that led to the formation of new elites was the industrial revolution
Describe an economic development between 1750 and 1900 that led to the formation of new elites.
- The industrial revolution, a process of shifting production from hand made methods to machine production in factories, led to the formation of new elites between 1759 and 1900.
Explain how an economic development between 1750 and 1900 that led to the formation of new elites.
- Between 1750 and 1900 the industrial revolution led to the formation of new elites. Because industrial production rewarded investors rather than inherited wealth, the middle class gained much and rose to prominence over the aristocracy.
You can find a Covid-Era video of the SAQ presentation I gave on Day 1 HERE (but be mindful of the recent change–no more choice and ALL questions will have a stimulus.)