History Themes
Teacher Resources
Lesson Guide
Welcome to World History AP®! If you’re wondering what a Themes Notebook is or where to find teacher instructions, check out this guide.
OER Project: World History AP Syllabus
Looking for a College Board-approved syllabus to submit during the course audit process? We’ve got you covered.
OER Project WH AP Community Forum
New to teaching AP® World History? Join the Community Forum.
Driving Question: How do the six themes of AP® World History help us make sense of the past?
Where does history begin? That’s up to you, the historian! In this course, you’ll uncover different narratives, challenge perspectives, and see how one event can have many stories. Sharpen your evidence-analysis skills—useful far beyond history class—and learn about the six themes of AP World History.
Learning Objectives:
- Recognize how historians create narratives to explain historical events and processes.
- Examine how historians frame history by creating narratives of different scales of time and space.
- Learn about the six AP themes and how to identify them.
Vocab Terms:
OER Project: World History AP features openers and closers in every lesson. These are quick and fun entry/ exit tickets that help students activate prior knowledge and review what they’ve learned.
An OER Project AP teacher chose the Barkus Aurelius and Peter the Pup stories as her must-do activity for this unit, saying, “It’s a fun, memorable way to practice using the course’s key analytical tools before jumping into real historical content.”
Ever heard a fable as a kid? Chances are, it had talking animals and a life lesson baked in. But guess what? Fables aren’t just for kids—they’re a powerful way to learn at any age!
Teachers love the AP themes to PIECES. Choose one of the stories for students to read or divide the class in half and assign one story to each group. Want other ideas for how to introduce the themes? Check out the AP Themes Introduction community post.
You’ve been introduced to PIECES but now dig a little deeper into the six AP themes.
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Guiding Questions
Students often think it’s exciting to watch videos in the classroom, but educational video-watching is a skill, just like reading an article! To ensure students are getting the most from videos, be sure to set the context, require active viewing, and periodically check for understanding. Want more video tips? Check out the OER Project Video Guide.
Noticing recurring ideas or patterns—or themes—is very important to understanding the world around us. This understanding of themes allows us to put everything into perspective and make sense of various (and sometimes seemingly unrelated) events.
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Guiding Questions
Each unit of the course begins with an overview video like this one. These videos introduce students to the main narratives and themes of each unit. Each begins with a quick anecdote or source from history that helps connect them to the historical events and processes in the unit.
Imagine living during a time on the brink of enormous changes, a time when the air was rich with the exchange of ideas from every corner. Welcome to the world of 1200 CE and the Islamic Golden Age!
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Guiding Questions
Every reading in this course is accompanied by guiding questions in a routine called Three-Step Reading. Students 1) skim for orientation; 2) read for understanding; and 3) connect to what they’re learning. And don’t forget that there are sample answers for article guiding questions in every Lesson Guide.
Sometimes, what seems to be a small, inconsequential difference can have massive consequences. What could the use (or nonuse) of a hyphen teach us about interpretation and understanding? Explore this question while also learning the Three-Step Reading Strategy.
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Guiding Questions
Wouldn’t it be cool to read a comic instead of a typical text excerpt? Well, now you can! Graphic biographies will give you a whole new way to learn about history, one panel at a time!
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Guiding Questions
The AP themes provide students with ways to frame all the content they’re learning in the unit. There are two Themes Notebooks activities in each unit of the course. In the first activity, students decide if they agree or disagree with statements and predict the theme. Students use prior knowledge to assess the statements and it’s a great way to clear up any misconceptions they might have before diving into the content.
Reading your students’ Themes Notebooks can sometimes take more time than you have. One OER Project AP teacher shares how he uses AI to save time while still giving his students the feedback they need. Check out this community conversation to learn more.
Have you noticed any patterns in what you’ve learned in this lesson? Grouping ideas under themes deepens understanding—and makes it a lot easier to remember what you’ve learned, too!
