Skill 1: Contextualization
a. Describe an accurate historical context for a specific historical development or process.
b. Explain how a relevant context influenced a specific historical development or process.
c. Use context to explain the relative historical significance of a specific historical development or process.
Skill 2: Comparison
a. Describe similarities and/or differences between different historical developments or processes
b. Explain relevant similarities and/or differences between specific historical developments and processes.
c. Explain the relative historical significance of similarities and/or differences between different historical developments or processes.
Skill 3: Causation
a. Describe causes or effects of a specific historical development or process.
b. Explain the relationship between causes and effects of a specific historical development or process. Explain the difference between primary and secondary causes and between short- and long- term effects.
c. Explain the relative historical significance of different causes and/or effects.
Skill 4: Continuity and Change Over Time
a. Describe patterns of continuity and/or change over time.
b. Explain patterns of continuity and/or change over time.
c. Explain the relative historical significance of specific historical developments in relation to a larger pattern of continuity and/or change.
AP History Disciplinary Practices
Practice 1: Analyzing Historical Evidence
Primary Sources
Describe historically relevant information and/or arguments within a source.
Explain how a source provides information about the borader historical setting within which it was created.
Explain how a source's point of view, purpose, historical situation, and/or audience might affect a source's meaning.
Explain the relative historical significance of a source's point of view, purpose, historical situation, and/or audience.
Evaluate a source's crefibility and/or limitations.
Secondary Sources
Describe the claim or argument of a secondary source, as well as the evidence used.
Describe a pattern or trend in quantitative data in non-text-based sources.
Explain how a historian's claim or argument is supported with evidence.
Explain how a historian's context influences the claim or argument.
Analyze patterns and trends in quantitative data in non-text-based sources.
Evaluate the effectiveness of a historical claim or argument.
Practice 2: Argument Development
Make a historically defensible claim in the form of an evaluative thesis.
Support an argument using specific and relevant evidence.
Use historical reasoning to explain relationships among pieces of historical evidence.
Consider ways that diverse or alternative evidence could be used to qualify or modify an argument.
American & National Identity (NAT)
Politics & Power (POL)
Work, Exchange, and Technology (WXT)
Culture & Society (CUL)
Migration & Settlement (MIG)
Geography & the Environment (GEO)
American in the World (WOR)
American & National Identity (NAT)
This theme focuses on how and why definitions of American and national identity and values have developed, as well as related topics such as citizenship, constitutionalism, foreign policy, assimilation, and American exceptionalism.
Students should be able to:
Explain how ideas about democracy, freedom, and individualism found expression in the development of cultural values, political institutions, and American identity.
Explain how interpretations of the Constitution and debates over rights, liberties, and definitions of citizenship have affected American values, politics, and society.
Analyze how ideas about national identity changed in response to U.S. involvement in international conflicts and the growth of the United States.
Analyze relationships among different regional, social, ethnic, and racial groups, and explain how these groups' experiences have related to U.S. national identity.
Politics & Power (POL)
This theme focuses on how different social and political groups have influenced society and government in the United States, as well as how political beliefs and institutions have changed over time.
Students should be able to:
Explain how and why political ideas, beliefs, institutions, party systems, and alignments have developed and changed.
Explain how popular movements, reform efforts, and activist groups have sought to change American society and institutions.
Explain how different beliefs about the federal government's role in U.S. social and economic life have affected political debates and policies.
Work, Exchange, & Technology (WXT)
This theme focuses on the factors behind the development of systems of economic exchange, particularly the role of technology, economic markets, and government.
Students should be able to:
Explain how different labor systems developed in North America and the United States, and explain their effects on workers' lives and U.S. society.
Explain how patterns of exchange, markets, and private enterprise have developed, and analyze ways that governments have responded to economic issues.
Analyze how technological innovation has affected economic development and society.
Culture & Society (CUL)
This theme focuses on the roles that ideas, beliefs, social mores, and creative expression have played in shaping the United States, as well as how various identities, cultures, and values have been preserved or changed in different contexts of U.S. history.
Students should be able to:
Explain how religious groups and ideas have affected American society and political life.
Explain how artistic, philosophical, and scientific ideas have developed and shaped society and institutions.
Explain how ideas about women's rights and gender roles have affected society and politics.
Explain how different group identities, including racial, ethnic, class, and regional identities, have emerged and changed over time.
Migration & Settlement (MIG)
This theme focuses on why and how the various people who moved to and within the United States both adapted to and transformed their new social and physical environments.
Students should be able to:
Explain the causes of migration to colonial North America and, later, the United States, and analyze immigration's effects on U.S. society.
Analyze causes of internal migration and patterns of settlement in what would become the United States, and explain how migration has affected American life.
Geography & the Environment (GEO)
This theme focuses on the role of geography and both the natural and human-made environments on social and political developments in what would become the United States.
Students should be able to:
Explain how geographic and environmental factors shaped the development of various communities, and analyze how competition for and debates over natural resources have affected both interactions among different groups and the development of government policies.
America in the World (WOR)
This theme focuses on the interactions between nations that affected North American history in the colonial period and on the influence of the United States on world affairs.
Students should be able to:
Explain how cultural interaction, cooperation, competition, and conflict between empires, nations, and peoples have influenced political, economic, and social developments in North America.
Analyze the reasons for and results of U.S. diplomatic, economic, and military initiatives in North America and overseas.