World History AP Course Overview
WORLD HISTORY AP® COURSE OVERVIEWOER Project’s World History AP (WH AP) course is a global history course aimed at high-school students that provides a cohesive approach to learning and understanding the history of the world. Perfectly aligned to College Board’s AP® World History: Modern Course and Exam Description (CED), this course provides teachers with the tools necessary to help students succeed on the AP®exam and build their historical thinking skills. To learn more about the overall OER Project: World History course approach, structure, and materials, please visit the World History Guide. This guide provides specific information for the World History AP course.What Is OER Project: World History AP?WH AP uses a set of overarching inquiry problems along with the AP® themes, situated at a variety of scales, to organize and facilitate teaching and learning. Starting in 1200 CE, before the world became interconnected, this course covers key topics including empires, networks, transoceanic interconnections, revolutions, global conflict, and globalization. Students not only learn the content needed to be successful on the AP® exam, they also become familiar with the necessary themes and historical thinking skills and reasoning processes they’ll need to tackle the AP® free responses, including short-answer questions (SAQs), long-essay questions (LEQs), and document-based questions (DBQs). Course AlignmentWH AP is precisely aligned to the AP® World History: Modern CED. All WH AP units and lessons are a one-to-one match with the CED, and each lesson covers the historical developments and learning objectives outlined in the CED. We’ve also included extension materials to provide teachers and students with options for addressing illustrative examples. WH AP is one of the few free-to-use College-Board-approved AP® World History courses available today. WH AP course materials are approved by College Board as a college text, and teachers can submit the WH AP syllabus to College Board during the course audit process.
2World History AP Course GuideWH AP Course FrameworkBelow is an overview of the course framework. Within each unit, you’ll find a series of lessons. All lessons include opener and closer activities, and most lessons will take two to four 50-minute class periods. For more detailed information, follow the links to unit guides.Unit 1: The Global Tapestry c. 1200 to 1450 CEUnit 1 Problem: How was the process of state formation similar and different in various regions of the world from c. 1200 to 1450 CE?Click here for the Unit 1 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons.Unit 2: Networks of Exchange c. 1200 to 1450 CEUnit 2 Problem: What were the similarities and differences among networks of exchange in various regions of the world from c. 1200 to 1450 CE?Click here for the Unit 2 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons.Unit 3: Land-Based Empires c. 1450 to 1750 CEUnit 3 Problem: How did land-based empires in Afro-Eurasia expand their influence and govern diverse communities between c. 1450 and 1750 CE?Click here for the Unit 3 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons.Unit 4: Transoceanic Interconnections c. 1450 to 1750 CEUnit 4 Problem: How did economic developments and new transoceanic connections affect social structures in different parts of the world from c. 1450 to 1750 CE?Click here for the Unit 4 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons.Unit 5: Revolutions c. 1750 to 1900 CEUnit 5 Problem: How did different parts of the world experience the revolutionary transformations that occurred from c. 1750 to 1900 CE?Click here for the Unit 5 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons.
3World History AP Course GuideUnit 6: Consequences of Industrialization c. 1750 to 1900 CEUnit 6 Problem: What were the effects of imperialism, and how did communities try to manage or resist those effects from c. 1750 to 1900 CE?Click here for the Unit 6 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons.Unit 7: Global Conflict c. 1900 to the PresentUnit 7 Problem: What were the causes of global conflict from c. 1900 to the present?Click here for the Unit 7 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons.Unit 8: Cold War and Decolonization c. 1900 to the PresentUnit 8 Problem: How did the intertwined trends of the Cold War and decolonization impact societies around the world, c. 1900 to the present?Click here for the Unit 8 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons.Unit 9: Globalization c. 1900 to the PresentUnit 9 Problem: How did new global connections and innovations affect different parts of the world from c. 1900 to today?Click here for the Unit 9 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons.WH AP Themes and Historical Thinking Skills and Reasoning ProcessesWH AP students examine world history through six AP® themes: humans and the environment; cultural developments and interactions; governance; economic systems; social interactions and organization; and technology and innovation. These themes are intended to help structure students’ experiences with course content. This approach helps students group information and sort it so that they can see how human experiences changed or stayed the same over time. The themes also help students make comparisons and connections between different regions and time periods. Each WH AP unit focuses on a particular set of themes as outlined in the CED. Students will be introduced to the themes in an activity, article, and video. These assets will set the stage for deeper exploration of the themes using the Themes Notebook activities. In addition, all WH AP articles and videos have Guiding Questions that relate to either the topic, learning objective, theme, or suggested skill in the CED.
4World History AP Course GuideThe integration of skills and content is foundational to OER Project courses. Skills development is just as important—if not more—than content knowledge for student thinking and learning in social studies classes. Throughout this course, students encounter numerous scaffolded opportunities to practice causation, comparison, continuity and change over time, contextualization, sourcing, and making and testing claims. Practice progressions are made up of three categories: progression activities, thinking tools, and feedback forms. Each step in a progression is more sophisticated than the one before, challenging students along the way but also supporting them as they do this work to prepare for the AP® exam. Learn more in our Historical Thinking Skills Guide and see where all the progression activities live in the World History AP Practice Progressions Placement document.Writing AssessmentsIn each unit of the WH AP course, students have the opportunity to practice their formal essay-writing skills to help them prepare for the AP® exam. These assessments align with the Argumentation topics in the CED and include a selection of long-essay questions (LEQs) and document-based questions (DBQs). The WH AP course also offers students practice in constructing concise and detailed responses to prompts that are similar to those they’ll experience on the AP® exam. These practice short-answer questions (SAQs) guide students to analyze the prompts, gather evidence from the primary or secondary sources or their background knowledge, and then write a two- or three-sentence response to the prompt. These practice SAQs target students’ mastery of the historical content for each WH AP unit. In addition to formal writing practice, students write informally throughout the course as they respond to prompts in activities such as those in the Themes Notebook and practice-progression activities. To learn more about strategies for instructing and supporting both formal and informal writing, check out our Writing Guide.