The following learning activities provide opportunities to learn about the topics and to engage with the content covered. It is important for you to engage with the material in different ways and in multiple situations. The more often you interact with the information, the better your understanding and recall of the information will be. None of the learning activities are "busy work." What you put into your studies is what you will get out of them.
Required: These are core readings to the lesson. The concise reading will be required to at least expose you to the material. The concise version is just that--concise--which means it will not include the narratives that tie the material together or explain the historical situation to grasps a deeper understanding. The concise reading is a starting point but not a final destination. You must conduct extended research.
Optional: There will be textbook (hard and soft) options for those who want to read the stronger narratives to better grasp the historical situation. These may be used as resources for extended research on all or some topics.
Extended: These are recommendations for those interested in historiography or additional readings relevant to the topic.
Supplemental: These are also extended readings; however, these titles tend to be used for assignments requiring you to select one and compile an abstract to share with your colleagues.
The purpose of creating a Topic Reflection for each topic is to ensure that you have covered all required topics for the AP curriculum, provide yourself review materials, and to (hopefully) explore the various options to engage with the material. These Topic Reflections will be useful review tools. Topic Reflections may be collected or viewed at the conclusion of each period. Therefore, make sure you keep on top of completing them. There is a strong correlation between the students to properly complete these reflections and their class grade and their final AP exam score. Choosing not complete these properly or regularly will hinder your overall success in this course and the exam.
Use your own words: The more often you put information into your own words, the stronger and deeper the understanding you will have of the topic. Also, your recall of information will be faster and easier which will enable you to respond to a prompt at a later date, especially when you will be asked to respond in a timed, impromptu situation.
These activities combine reading, writing, and analytical skills development. Each SumHIPPOS activity provides an opportunity to choose one document from a selection of documents. This way you do not necessarily need to read and respond to every article but can learn from the responses provided by your colleagues. Working smarter...not harder!
This will be a set of documents relevant to the period of focus compiled into one Google Doc. This particular set of documents are intended to be completed as a collaboration to encourage discussion and deeper understanding of the documents and the historical situation. The purpose of this assignment is to develop your analytical skills which will also strengthen your writing skills.
This assignment will have you read one of the supplemental readings, which may be assigned or student choice, and provide only the well-written abstract (precis, synopsis, summary) of the reading. This assignment is completed as posts to Google Classroom and usually includes responses by your colleagues. The purpose of this assignment is to expose you to many different supplemental materials to deepen your understanding and recognize the complexity of history.
Some students enjoy watching presentations while others do not. You are being only asked to watch at least one (1) presentation for each Period (Module), specifically for the first topic of each new Period (i.e. Topic 1.1, Topic 2.1, etc. ) Some are definitely better than others; however, I have provided a selection for you so you have options. Some people love to make videos (or are paid to make them), so enjoy. Hearing and seeing the information in different ways can be quite useful in understanding the material but they do not replace reading and writing skills.
Academic conversations provide the opportunity to engage in a deeper examination of a specific topic while also developing historical thinking skills. Interacting in discussions and collaborate presentations helps with understanding the material and being able to articulate that understanding in stronger written and oral expression.
Whiteboards are often used for these conversations so the teacher can efficiently monitor progress of each group, provide feedback or guiding questions, and overall gauge the level of understanding on the topic. The more you put information in your own words and organize the material to address a prompt will strengthen your overall understanding of the content as well as regularly developing your historical skills. Also, this activity format is most useful with the larger classes.
These lessons focus on developing historical thinking and writing skills which are the skills that college professors will assume you have already developed. Use the time now to master these skills.
You may be asked to simply review the information; you may be asked to review the information and complete a Google Form to submit completion of the task and to submit questions or concerns regarding the process or the strategy; or you may be asked to practice the skill by submitting an assignment to Google Classroom.
The AP Exam will address content from Periods 1-9 (Units 1-9) in the form of fifty-five (55) stimulus-based multiple choice questions (MCQ).
This assessment is currently pending.
The AP Exam will address content from Periods 1-9 (Units 1-9) in the form of three (3) short answer questions (SAQ). You will have two (2) stimulus-based question sets that are required and then one (1) non-stimulus-based question set that will allow you to choose one (1) prompt from covering Periods 1-5 or one prompt covering periods 6-9.
This assessment is currently pending.
The AP Exam will address content from Periods 3-8 (Units 3-8) in the form of one (1) document based essay question (DBQ). You will not have an option for this section of the exam. You must write a response that properly answers the question, incorporates the documents, and addresses historical thinking and writing skills (i.e. analysis, contextualization, ...).
Although you will not be writing an entire essay based on a topic from Periods 1-2, you may use information from these periods to provide pre-contextualization for the document based question.
This learning activity focuses on research, document analysis, and writing that includes completion of a prompt analysis process before writing the response. These are untimed thus allowing for deeper research, collaboration, and proper writing conventions. Additionally, you will gain a stronger sense of the scoring rubric for this component of the AP exam.
This assessment is currently pending.
The AP Exam will address content from Periods 1-9 (Units 1-9) in the form of one (1) essay question (LEQ) with no supporting documents. You will be able to choose one (1) prompt from three (3) provided: one prompt will cover content from Periods 1-3; one prompt will cover periods 4-6; and one prompt will cover periods 7-9. The theme will be consistent across the options.
This learning activity focuses on research and writing that includes completion of a prompt analysis process before writing the response. These are untimed thus allowing for deeper research, collaboration, and proper writing conventions. Additionally, you will gain a stronger sense of the scoring rubric for this component of the AP exam.