Chapel Hill High School Mr. Reed Durbin
Advanced Placement® World History
2015-2016 School Year 770-651-6200 (ext. 6333)
Once you’ve read through the syllabus, please complete the accompanying form to acknowledge your understanding.
Course Description:
The purpose of this course is to introduce the requirements and skills necessary for students to take the national Advanced Placement® world history examination. The student goal is to achieve a high enough score to earn college credit in addition to 1 unit of social studies credit toward high school graduation. However, the need for higher level thinking, organization, and time management make students who complete AP® course work more likely to be successful in completing a university degree program.
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 consistent attention to contacts among societies that form the core of world history as a field of study. (source:
Chronological Boundaries of the Course: The course will have as its chronological framework approximately 8000 B.C.E. to the present, with the period 8000 B.C.E. to 600 C.E. serving as the foundation for the balance of the course. An outline of the periodization for the course with associated percentages for suggested course content is listed below.
Period Title / Date Range / WeighingPeriod 1: Technological and Environmental Transformations / To 600 B.C.E. / 5%
Period 2: Organization and reorganization of Human Societies / 600 B.C.E. to 600 C.E. / 15%
Period 3: Regional and Trans-regional Interactions / 600 C.E. to 1450 C.E. / 20%
Period 4:
Global Interactions / 1450 to 1750 / 20%
Period 5: Industrialization and Global Integration / 1750 to 1900 / 20%
Period 6: Accelerating Global Change and realignments / 1900 to the Present / 20%
Course Themes: AP® World History highlights five overarching themes that should receive approximately equal attention throughout the course beginning with the Foundation section:
- Interaction between humans and the environment
- Development and interaction of cultures
- State-building, expansion, and conflict
- Creation, expansion, and interaction of economic systems
- Development and transformation of social structures.
Examining the Historical Thinking Skills:
- Crafting Historical Arguments from Historical Evidence
- Chronological Reasoning
- Comparison and Contextualization
- Historical Interpretation and Synthesis
Textbook:
Bentley, Jerry H. and Herbert F. Ziegler. Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past (5thed.).
New York: McGraw Hill, 2011.
Recommended, but not required:
Test Prep book – choose one you like and will use. The book will clarify content, offer practice tests, and make your exam score better (no guarantees). Get it early and start using it as soon as you get the book.
Grading/Evaluation:
- Major Tests: Tests are multiple choice with 4 possible answers taken after each unit. These tests are written in an Advanced Placement style and are used to check depth of understanding of the material as well as to get students used to the style and pace of the national exam. The exams are difficult.
- Essays: Essays will follow Advanced Placement guidelines for free response questions. They include Document Based Questions, Long Essay Questions, and Short Answer Questions. Students will be taught the rubrics for each style of question.Essays will be completed both in and out of class.
- Reading Quizzes:These quizzes ensure students read the text and that they take responsibility for a good deal of the content; quizzes with include a mix of assessment styles forming one of the core requirements of the class.
- Class Work: Daily class work will include instructor lectures, Socratic seminars, cooperative learning projects, role playing, student presentations and evaluations of sources as well as outside readings to augment the textbook.
- Student Learning Objective: This county-designed exam is given to measure the students’ growth in the class. It will be given as a pre-test (no grade) and a post-test which will count as the final toward the class average.
Summative Assessments: 50% / Formative Assessments: 30% / Student Learning Objective: 20%
Exams, NHD Project, Major Projects / Quizzes, Maps, Homework / Post-exam only; will constitute final with some additions.
Grading System: The class will be graded by a point system and weighted based in the category for each assignment. Major grades such as tests, projects, and presentations, will be graded more heavily. Minor/daily grades will include, but not be limited to, homework, quizzes, class work, and participation. There will be a comprehensive final exam. I do accept late work with a letter grade reduction for every day it is late – late work will only be accepted for three days after the initial due date without prior approval. Do NOT take a zero!
NOTE: Grades on Engrade are not the finalized score, ALWAYS check Infinite Campus for an accurate grade.
Make-up work: Studentsareresponsible for taking care of any assignments or tests missed due to an excused absence. You should either see me before class on your return. Students have one (1) week to make-up any assignment with a legitimate excuse; skipping school or unexcused absences will result in a zero for any graded assignment missed. Do not take up class time to discuss make-up work with the teacher.
Supplies Needed for Class:
- A 2” three ring binder with college-ruled paper; six (6)dividers are required.
- Pens (BLUE or BLACK ink ONLYfor taking notes, writing essays and doing all classwork)
- Pencils (will be used for multiple choice tests)
- Colored pencils, or crayons for maps – the smallest pack will do nicely.
- A couple of glue sticks markers and highlighters may be helpful.
- 100 page Composition Book
Academic Honesty:
Students are expected to be honest in class regarding their work and preparation for class. All student products are expected to be originals; plagiarism and other forms of cheating will result in a “0” for the assignment and an administrative referral.
Advanced Placement Points:
At the end of the semester, five (5) points will be added to the grade that will go on a student’s permanent academic record. (The state of Georgia removes those five points when determining eligibility for HOPE scholarships. However, it does add 0.5 points to the student’s grade point average for the course. For example, a student who earned an 89 would not get the additional 5 points to make the grade a 94. But HOPE would use a grade of 3.5 for the course rather than the grade of 3.0 normally assigned to an 89.)
Lost Book Policy: Board Policy Descriptive Code: IFAD
The student will be charged full replacement cost for any textbook lost, regardless of condition.The amount to be charged for a textbook damaged by a student will be the responsibility of the principal.
The Douglas County Board of Education does not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, religion, national origin, disability, or age in educational programs or activities, or employment practices.