VHS Course Catalog

AP® World History Section JM

Prerequisites
Technical Requirements: Power Point , the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader.
To use all of the features of MyHistoryLab and the on-line text, they will need the following plug-ins: Adobe Acrobat Reader and Flash.

Description
This is a college level history course designed to meet the needs of highly motivated students who have a strong interest and ability in history. The program prepares students for intermediate and advanced college courses by making demands upon them equivalent to those made by full-year introductory college courses. The student is expected to read and analyze both primary and secondary source materials and to demonstrate ability to interpret and evaluate these sources in essay form. Students will take the Advanced Placement World History exam in May, as preparation for this exam is a major goal of this course. Therefore, the course is content driven with heavy emphasis on written critical analysis. Extensive reading writing and class discussions are integral components of the program.

Students should expect 40-50 pages of reading weekly.

The AP program in World History is designed develop a greater understanding of human societies. The course covers world history from approximately 8,000 B.C.E. to the present.

The following themes will be highlighted throughout the course:

*Patterns and impacts of interaction among major societies: trade, war, diplomacy, and international organizations.

*The relationship of change and continuity across the world history periods covered in this course.

*The impact of technology and demography on people and the environment (population growth and decline, disease, manufacturing, migrations, agriculture, weaponry).

*Systems of social structure and gender structure (comparing major features within and among societies and assessing change).

*Cultural and intellectual developments and interactions among and within societies.

*Changes in functions and structures of states and changes in attitudes toward states and political identities (political culture), including the emergence of the nation-state (types of political organization).

The following habits of mind will be practiced throughout the course:

*Constructing and evaluating arguments, using evidence to make plausible arguments.

*Using documents and other primary data: developing the skills necessary to analyze point of view, context and bias, and to understand and interpret information.

*Developing the ability to assess issues of change and continuity over time.

*Enhancing the capacity to handle diversity of interpretations through analysis of context, bias, and frame of reference.

*Seeing global patterns over time and space, while acquiring the ability to connect local developments to global ones and to move through levels of generalizations from the global to the particular.

*Developing the ability to compare within and among societies, including comparing societies’ reactions to global processes.

*Developing the ability to assess claims of universal standards, yet remaining aware of human commonalities and differences;

*Putting culturally diverse ideas and values in historical context, not by suspending judgment, but by developing understanding.

Students enrolled in Advanced Placement VHS courses are required to take the AP exam, and are required to report their AP examination scores to VHS (note: students who are failing their AP class are not required to take the exam). Upon receipt of the student's exam score, each score will be recorded by VHS and assigned an anonymous tracking number to ensure student anonymity and confidentiality. By enrolling in an AP VHS class, the student authorizes their school site coordinator and school administration to report AP examination scores to VHS. Exam results will not affect the student's VHS grade or future enrollment in VHS courses.

Course Objectives