AP World History

Syllabus for AP World History Allen Barker Grade Levels: 10-12

(864) 355-3455

abarker@greenville.k12.sc.us

Course Description:

The purpose of the AP World History course is to develop greater understanding of the evolution of global processes and contacts, in interaction with different types of human societies. This understanding is advanced through a combination of selective factual knowledge and appropriate analytical skills. The course highlights the nature of changes in international frameworks and their causes and consequences, as well as comparisons among major societies. The course emphasizes relevant factual knowledge deployed in conjunction with leading interpretive issues and types of historical evidence. The course builds on an understanding of cultural, institutional, and technological precedents that, along with geography, set the human stage. Periodization, explicitly discussed, forms an organizing principle for dealing with change and continuity throughout the course. Specific themes provide further organization to the course, along with the consistent attention to contacts among societies that form the core of world history as a field of study.

Major Assessment/Calculation of Grades:

1. Students will be tested as units are complete. Tests will come from textbook readings, notes, activities, homework, classwork, videos, and class discussions.

2. Homework and classwork will be assigned regularly.

3. Articles will be evaluated against the text assignments and differing perspectives will be analyzed.

4. DBQs will be completed as in-class assignments.

5. A minimum of one essay, either as classwork or homework, will be assigned for each unit.

6. Quizzes may be announced or not.

7. All work will be handwritten and NO LATE WORK WILL BE ACCEPTED!

Grading Procedures:

Major Assessments (Tests, Essays, DBQs)-60%

Minor Assessments (Chapter Reviews, Articles, Maps etc.)-40%

These percentages are in alignment with social studies department policy

Course Reading Texts:

Bentley, Jerry and Herbert Ziegler. Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past. Sixth Edition New York: McGraw-Hill.

Additional readings from primary and secondary sources, mostly from:

The Communist Manifesto and Other Revolutionary Writings. Bob Blaisdell (ed.). Dover, 2003.

Annual Editions: World History Volumes 1&2. Joseph R. Mitchell and Helen Buss Mitchell. (ed.), 9^th Edition. McGraw-Hill, Dushkin, 2007.

The Social Dimension of Western Civilization Volume 2: Readings from the Sixteenth Century to the Present. Richard M. Golden (ed.). Bedford/St. Martins, 2003.

World Civilizations: Sources, Images, and Interpretations Volumes 1&2. Dennis Sherman, et al (eds). McGraw-Hill, 2006.

Videos

Reference materials from the media center

Teacher-made materials (power-points, maps, etc)

Approximate Timeline:

I. The Global Tapestry: c. 1200 to c. 1450: Two Weeks

II. Organization and Reorganization of Human Societies: c. 1200 to c. 1450. Two Weeks

III. Land-Based Empires: c. 1450 to c. 1750 One Week

IV. Transoceanic Interconnections: c. 1450 to c. 1750 Two Weeks

V. Revolutions: c. 1750 to c. 1900 Two Weeks

VI. Consequences of Industrialization: c. 1750 to c. 1900 Two Weeks

VII. Global Conflict: c. 1900 to the Present Two weeks

VIII. Cold War and Decolonization: c. 1900 to the Present Two Weeks

IX. Globalization: c 1900 to the Present Two Weeks

Subpages (1): Thoughts