Advanced Placement or “AP” World History is a course designed to meet and exceed the curriculum and rigor of a college level world history and civilization course. It will cover roughly 800 years of world history, culture and geography with the expressed outcome of students taking the Advanced Placement exam conducted by College Board. Students who succeed in passing this examination with a score of 3 or higher are assured of course credits from all campuses of both the University of California and the California State University systems. Most other public and private universities recognize the course as well and a list of their offered credits is available at the College Board Website.
The breadth of world history has always posed challenges for AP teachers to create opportunities for deep conceptual understanding for students while addressing a syllabus largely driven by sheer scope. The AP World History course outlined addresses these challenges by providing a clear framework of nine units viewed through the lens of related key concepts and course themes, accompanied by a set of skills that clearly define what it means to think historically.
The course’s organization around a limited number of key concepts instead of a perceived list of facts, events, and dates makes teaching each historical period more manageable. The three to four key concepts per period define what is most essential to know about each period based upon the most current historical research in world history. This approach enables students to spend less time on factual recall, more time on learning essential concepts, and helps them develop historical thinking skills necessary to explore the broad trends and global processes involved in their study of AP World History.