Advanced Placement World History Credit: 1 Unit per Year

Grade Recommended: 9-10 Exam: AP

The purpose of the AP World History course is to develop greater understanding of the evolution of global processes and contacts, in interaction with different types of human societies. This understanding is advanced through a combination of selective factual knowledge and appropriate analytical skills. The course highlights the nature of changes in international frameworks and their causes and consequences, as well as comparisons among major societies. The course emphasizes relevant factual knowledge deployed in conjunction with leading interpretive issues and types of historical evidence. The course builds on an understanding of cultural, institutional, and technological precedents that, along with geography, set the human stage. Periodization, explicitly discussed, forms an organizing principle for dealing with change and continuity throughout the course. Specific themes provide further organization to the course, along with the consistent attention to contacts among societies that form the core of world history as a field of study.

This course will be taught over a two year period (AP World History 1 in 9th grade and AP World History 2 in 10th grade) and will culminate with the Advanced Placement exam in World history in May of the AP World History 2

Prerequisites:

·  Freshmen taking the course must have acquired a 85% or higher in 8th grade US History, a recommendation from his or her 8th grade US History teacher, and a letter of reference from another teacher outside of the Social Studies Department.

·  Any freshman student who demonstrates mastery in a regular Global 9 course (at least a 85% class average and a 85% on the Global 9 local exam) may be a candidate for AP World History 2. This will be examined on a case by case basis and at the discretion of the teacher.

·  Any upperclassmen who wishes to take AP Word History in 11th or 12th grade must meet the following requirements:

o  85% or over on the Global History and geography Regents Exam

o  85%or over on the United States Regents Exam.

o  Recommendation of at least two teachers (one social studies and one non-social studies)

o  Completion of a Summer Assignment to be determined by the teacher.