AP WORLD HISTORY 2014 - 2015 Welcome to Advanced Placement World History. AP courses are sponsored by the College Board, and are dedicated to academic rigor and excellence. Its reputation results from the close cooperation between high schools, colleges and universities, and the College Board. Nearly 3000 colleges and universities grant college credit, advanced standing, or both to those students who perform satisfactorily on national AP exams that are administered each May. The AP course in World History is designed to help highly motivated students develop an understanding of the evolution of global processes, contacts, and interactions among human societies. These understandings are advanced through a combination of factual knowledge and appropriate analytic skills. The course highlights the nature of change as well as continuities, comparisons and contrasts, cultures, technology, and institutional developments that together with geography set the stage for human history. Several themes will inform the study of AP World History, they are:

1. Historical Periodization (chronology) · Arts & architecture · Technological & environmental transformations, to c. 600 BCE 4. State-building, expansion, conflict · Organization of human societies c. · Political structures and forms of 600 BCE to c. 600 CE governance · Regional and transregional · Empires interactions, c. 600 to 1450 CE · Nations & nationalism · Global interactions, c. 1450 to c. 1750 · Revolutions · Industrialization and global · Regional, transregional, and global integration, c. 1750 to 1900 organizations · Global fragmentation and realignment, c. 1900 to present 5. Creation, expansion, and interaction of economic systems 2. Interactions between humans and the · Agriculture & pastoral production environment · Trade & commerce · Demography & migration · Labor systems · Disease · Industrialism · Patterns of settlement · Capitalism & socialism · Technology 6. Development and transformation of social 3. Development of interactions and cultures systems · Religions · Family & kinship · Belief systems, philosophies, · Racial & ethnic constructions ideologies · Gender roles & relations · Science & technology · Social & economic classes

AP World History will address several habits of mind, they are: 1. Constructing and evaluating arguments based on historical evidence 2. Using documents and other primary data 3. Developing the skills of analyzing point-of view, bias, and context 4. Develop the ability to assess issues of continuity as well as change over time 5. Develop the ability to compare within and among societies; to assess comparative responses to global processes 6. To synthesize; to put culturally diverse ideas and values into historical context; not to suspend judgment, but to develop understanding

AP World History students are expected to evince a love of learning and a seriousness of purpose towards their education. This includes a close reading of the text as well as other assigned materials. It is axiomatic that each student will come to class well prepared to interact with both the instructor and with peers, as well as with the information; the richness and overall success of any AP class depends on it. The standards set for this course are high. If you work to your potential, your grades, intellectual growth, and sense of personal satisfaction should come to reflect the level you and your parents have come to expect.

Ms. Sue Gregory Email: [email protected] Class Wikispace: www.shs-ap-world.wikispaces.com Remind 101: to join the texting system for our course – text this code: @89bbb to this number: 1-619-344-8869