AP US HISTORY SKILLS AND THEMES
-Redesigned Curriculum 2015-2016
Historical Thinking Skills
Throughout this course, you will be asked to develop and employ several types of historical thinking skills. There are four broad categories of skills with two to three specific skills within each category. You should be aware of these skills and endeavor to generate both verbal and written arguments using them.
Skill Type Historical Thinking SkillI. Chronological Reasoning 1. Historical Causation
2. Patterns of Continuity and Change over Time
3. Periodization
II. Making Historical Connections 4. Comparison
5. Contextualization
6. Synthesis
III. Creating and Supporting a Historical Argument 7. Historical Argumentation
IV. Analyzing Historical Sources and Evidence 8. Analyzing Evidence: Content and Sourcing
9. Interpretation
Thematic Learning Objectives
The redesigned AP US History course is organized around seven major themes. These themes will help you recognize broad trends and processes that have emerged over the centuries of United States history. You will be using these themes to help connect your content knowledge across the curriculum and will incorporate them into your writing.
1. American and National Identity – This theme focuses on the formation of both American national identity and group identities in U.S. history. Students should be able to explain how various identities, cultures, and values have been preserved or changed in different contexts of U.S. history, with special attention given to the formation of gender, class, racial, and ethnic identities. Students should be able to explain how these sub-identities have interacted with each other and with larger conceptions of American national identity.
2. Politics and Power – Students should examine ongoing debates over the state in society and its potential as an active agent for change. This includes methods for creating, implementing, or limiting participation in the political process and the resulting social effects, as well as the changing relationships among the branches of the federal government and among the national, state, and local governments. Students should trace efforts to define or gain access to individual rights and citizenship and survey the evolutions of tensions between liberty and authority in different periods of U.S. history.
3. Work, Exchange, and Technology – This theme focuses on the development of American economies based on agriculture, commerce, and manufacturing. Students should examine ways that different economic and labor systems, technological innovations, and government policies have shaped American society. Students should explore the lives of working people and the relationship between social classes, racial and ethnic groups, and men and women, including the availability of land and labor, national and international economic developments, and the role of government support and regulation.
4. Culture and Society – This theme explores the roles that ideas, beliefs, social mores, and creative expression have played in shaping the United States. Students should examine the development of aesthetic, moral, religious, scientific, and philosophical principles and consider how these principles have affected individual and group actions. Students should analyze the interactions between beliefs and communities, economic values, and political movements, including attempts to change American society and align it with specific ideals.
5. Migration and Settlement – This theme focuses on why and how the various people who moved to, from, and within the United States adapted to their new social and physical environments. Students examine migration across borders and long distances, including the slave trade and internal migration, and how both newcomers and indigenous inhabitants transformed North America. The theme also illustrates how people responded when “borders crossed them.” Students explore the ideas, beliefs, traditions, technologies, religions, and gender roles that migrants/immigrants and annexed peoples brought with them and the impact these factors had on both these peoples and U.S. society.
6. Geography and Environment – This theme examines the role of environment, geography, and climate in both constraining and shaping human actions. Students should analyze the interaction between the environment and Americans in their efforts to survive and thrive. Students should also explore efforts to interpret, preserve, manage, or exploit natural and man-made environments, as well as the historical contexts within which interactions with the environment have taken place.
7. America in the World – In this theme, students should focus on the global context in which the United States originated and developed as well as the influence of the United States on world affairs. Students should examine how various actors (such as people, states, organizations, and companies) have competed for territory and resources of the North American continent, influencing the development of both American and world societies and economies. Students should also investigate how American foreign policies and military actions have affected the rest of the world as well as social issues within the United States itself.
AP US History Exam Format
The exam will be 3 hour and 15 minutes long. There are two sections; each section has two parts. A major part of scoring well on the exam will be your success at managing the time available to you to complete each section.
Section 1 # of questions Timing % of total exam scorePart A: Multiple Choice 55 55 minutes 40%
Part B: Short Answer Questions 4 50 minutes 20%
Section 2
Part A: Document-Based Essay Question 1 55 minutes 25%
Part B: Long Essay Question 1 (of 2 choices) 35 minutes 15%
Mr. Peters H5X
Outlines
One of the most important elements of success in AP US History is to create a blueprint of the factual information that is presented in your textbook. Since we will be discussing and analyzing the events that have taken place in American history, you must develop the skill of mapping out an outline of each chapter. This outline must be entirely of your creation, based on your reading of the textbook. Keep in mind that these outlines, generated over the course of the entire school year, are intended to help you study for the AP exam in May. Be thorough, but be concise!
Below is a sample outline based on The American Pageant textbook:
(p.2-3) Part One- Founding The New Nation
· Overview 33,000 B.C-A.D. 1783
Chapter 1- New World Beginnings
(p.5) *The Shaping of North America
· 225 million yrs. ago-a single supercontinent
· 350 million yrs. ago mountain ranges formed- Ex. Appalachian Mountains
· 135 to 25 million yrs. ago western ranges formed –Ex. Rockies, Sierra Nevada, Cascades and Coastal Ranges
· 10 million years ago-N. America basic shape
o Canadian Shield-NE corner-1st area to emerge above sea level
o Tidewater region-Eastern coastal plains
o Roof of America-Rocky Mountain Crest
· 2 million yrs. ago-Great Ice Age
· 10,000 years ago-similar to topography of North America today which
o led to formation of Great lakes, formed west, formed great Salt Lake, Utah
(p.5-8) *Peopling the Americas
· 35,000 yrs. ago-Land Bridge formed between Eurasia and North America by the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska (map p.6)
· small band of nomadic Asian game hunters followed land bridge
· 10,000 yrs. ago Ice Age ended and water covered up the land bridge
· People roamed N. America to southern tip of S. America
· European arrival in 1492, app. 54 million native people
o Incas-Peru
o Mayans-Central America
o Aztecs-Mexico
· Common traits of civilizations-all sophisticated, advanced agriculture (maize), elaborate cities, commerce, no wheel and horses, astronomers, Aztecs-human sacrifices
The outline should be a highlight of the most important information in the text. The page numbers must be included so you may look up material when information is unclear in your outline. You must highlight different information with varying colors-ex. yellow=important documents, blue=important figures, green=important places, orange=important events, etc. Each outline should have its own key for these highlights on the top. Finally, you must include a paragraph explaining which of the AP US History themes can be found in the chapter being outlined.