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AP® World History: Modern

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.

The AP program in World History: Modern is designed develop a greater understanding of human societies. The course covers world history from 1200 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).
  • Students will be expected to enroll in My AP Classroom through their VHS Learning AP course and will be guided to complete review work in My AP Classroom throughout the year. My AP Classroom resources include AP Daily Videos and unit-based Personal Progress Checks, which include AP-style multiple choice and free response questions.

Students enrolled in VHS Learning Advanced Placement courses with a passing grade are expected to take the AP Exam. Students register for AP exams through their local school or testing site as “Exam Only” students. AP exam scores will be reported to VHS Learning through My AP Classroom; exam results will not affect the student's VHS Learning grade or future enrollment in VHS Learning courses.

This AP course has a required summer assignment. Students are expected to complete their summer assignment before the course begins and submit their work by the end of Week 1. Students who register on or after September 1st will receive an extension to complete the summer assignment by the end of Week 3. The summer assignment is intended to review crucial content associated with pre-requisite knowledge for the course, where applicable, as well as to allow students to better understand the rigor associated with the content.

Acknowledgements

  • In addition to the enrollment fee, this course has an Additional Course Fee of $80.
  • The required summer assignment for AP® World History can be found in our AP® Summer Work Directory.

Course Objectives

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.

Additional Requirements

This AP course has a required summer assignment. The summer assignment is a review of prerequisite content and critical concepts students must be comfortable with before beginning the course. Students are expected to complete their summer assignment before the course begins and submit their work by the end of Week 1. Students who register on or after September 1 will receive an extension to complete the summer assignment by the end of Week 3.