ADVANCED PLACEMENT WORLD HISTORY
2015-2016
Mr. W. McMahon ()
Help Classes: Tues. Morning and Afternoon Activity Periods in Room 130
Course Description:
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 with an emphasis on appropriate analytical skills or habits of mind appropriate to the discipline of History.
The course highlights the nature of changes and continuity in humankind’s cultural, social, political and economic institutions with a particular emphasis on how local conditions relate to global processes as well as comparisons among major societies. It emphasizes relevant factual knowledge used in conjunction with leading interpretive issues and types of historical evidence. Periodization and social systems analysis form the organizing principles for dealing with change and continuity throughout the course.
Course Prerequisite:
Students must have successfully completed the freshman Advanced Placement course in Human Geography with a final grade of B+ or better and an overall GPA of 4.0 or better. We shall particularly build on the units on Migration, Language, Religion, Political Geography, Development, Industrialization, and Globalization.
Course Goals/Objectives:
· To prepare students for the Advanced Placement test in World History
· To develop the following skills and habits of mind:
(1) those addressed by any rigorous history course:
•Constructing and evaluating arguments: using evidence to make plausible arguments
•Using documents and other primary data: developing the skills necessary to analyze point of view and context, and to understand and interpret information
•Assessing continuity and change over time and over different world regions
•Understanding diversity of interpretations through analysis of context, point of view, and frame of reference
(2) those addressed by specifically by a world history course:
•Seeing global patterns and processes over time and space while connecting local developments to global ones
•Comparing within and among societies, including comparing societies’ reactions to global processes
•Considering human commonalities and differences
•Exploring claims of universal standards in relation to culturally diverse ideas
•Exploring the persistent relevance of world history to contemporary developments
Organizing Principles:
The course is organized around three fundamental schemata (conceptual framework):
1. Civilizations. The concept of civilization—cultures with cities and related institutions—is a fundamental and somewhat contentious concept that will serve as both the starting point for our consideration of history as well as the major theme of our text: Worlds Together, Worlds Apart. We will consider the four core classical civilizations, their interactions, and the increasing complexity of the world system over time.
2. Themes or institutions. The AP course description is based on the interactions between the cultural, social, political, and economic institutions that define a particular civilization or culture as well as the interactions between this civilization/culture and its environment.
3. Periodization. While periodization serves to break the course down into more manageable segments, it also raises several of the essential questions that run through the course, especially those relating to continuity and change. The easier question is what are the major changes that have occurred throughout history that justify the divisions into different periods, especially in terms of World History and not just one civilization (e.g., Agricultural Revolution, Industrial Revolution, Scientific Revolution). A more difficult question is what constitutes the continuities in a civilization that might define the identity or Mentalité or Zeitgeist of that period and how does that compare and contrast with our own period.
Themes:
The five course themes present areas of historical inquiry that will be investigated at various points throughout then course and revisited as they are manifested in particular historical developments over time.
A central organizing concept in the course is that of an institution meaning a relatively stable pattern of behaviors and expectations governing the behavior of individuals within a given society. We will analyze and compare societies in terms of their cultural, social, political and economic institutions as well as how these systems of social structure interact with the environment.
1. Interaction between humans and the environment
· Demography and disease
· Migration
· Patterns of settlement
· Technology
2. Development and interaction of cultures
· Religions
· Belief systems, philosophies, and ideologies
· Science and technology
· The arts and architecture
3. State-building, expansion, and conflict
· Political structures and forms of governance
· Empires
· Nations and nationalism
· Revolts and revolutions
· Regional, transregional, and global structures and organizations
4. Creation, expansion, and interaction of economic systems
· Agricultural and pastoral production
· Trade and commerce
· Labor systems
· Industrialization
· Capitalism and socialism
5. Development and transformation of social structures
· Gender roles and relations
· Family and kinship
· Racial and ethnic constructions
· Social and economic classes
Instructional Methods:
1. Analytical Readings from primary text
The emphasis on the reading assignments will be on the authors’ arrangement of the materials in terms of periodization, main themes and subthemes. Students are expected to master the material in terms of the historical thinking skills addressed by a world history course rather than as mastery through the memorization of specific names, events and facts. Specifically students are to look for the authors’ cues for the following four aspects in completing the textbook assignments:
1) Cues indicating continuity and change within a culture, society or civilization (e.g., eventually, for the first time, gradually, marking a significant break, transforming).
2) Cues making comparisons between different cultures and civilizations (e.g., unique, like, in contrast to, shared, when compared to).
3) Cues to the appropriate use of historical evidence (e.g., as seen in, based on, as evidenced by, for example)
4) Cues indicating causal patterns and relationships, especially within the institutional aspects of a civilization (cultural, social, political, economic) (e.g., because, led to, caused by, due to, affected, impacted, came from, in order to, as a result, consequently).
2. Applications and Documents from a comparative reader in World History
The emphasis in our use of material from the reader in this course will be to work on the historical thinking skills. The Kevin Reilly reader that we will use not only organizes a collection of primary and secondary sources by theme and period but also in terms of a number of “Thinking Historically” exercises including:
· thinking about history in stages;
· distinguishing and interpreting primary and secondary sources;
· making comparisons,
· asking about author, audience, and agenda;
· understanding continuity and change;
· analyzing cultural differences
· distinguishing social, economic, political, and cultural aspects of civilization;
· understanding narrative and point of view
· distinguishing historical understanding from moral judgments;
· considering cause and effect;
· evaluating a comparative thesis;
· evaluating grand theories;
· distinguishing change from revolution
· distinguishing historical processes
· understanding causes and consequences
3. Videos:
We will use a range of videos including college lectures, historical recreations, and visual adaptations of secondary sources including Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel and Michael Woods, The Story of India. Students will be responsible, depending on the nature of the video, for outlines, summaries and quizzes on this material.
4. Guided class discussions
While many of these will be related to other instructional aspects such as the readings, videos, and tests, they will also involve group work sorting and resorting primary sources including reproductions of art works and artifacts of different cultures and civilizations, mapping work and debating the documents.
One important areas of class discussion will be going over graded materials: quizzes, tests, and essays. Students will be expected to keep all hand-outs and returned materials in an organized portfolio and to be prepared for follow-up quizzes on those materials.
5. Civilization Charts using the AGIL Paradigm
The AGIL paradigm is based on the theory of social action developed by Talcott Parsons. While we shall use this as an organization scheme similar to schemes such as PERSIA and SPRITE, we shall also use it to consider system change and continuity as well as for some of the hypotheses within the model for how the cultural, social, political, and economic institutions are interrelated.
6. Essays:
There will be three basic essay types based on the Free-response section of the AP test: Compare and Contrast, Continuity and Change over Time, and Document-Based-Questions. Students will be expected to transfer skills and material from using the cue/power words in the readings as well as the civilization charts in these essays.
Evaluation Methods:
1) Quizzes (frequent, geared to the assigned readings and the class discussions)
2) Tests, like the AP test itself, will often have two parts:
1) Multiple-choice questions based on primary text
2) Take home free response questions and essays
The free response questions will be divided into types. In the first type, students will be required to explain the significance of particular terms including a specific evaluation as to whether and how that individual, process, concept, or event represented continuity and/or change within its historical context. In the second type, student will be required to write essays in response to specific prompts including compare and contrast questions and evaluations of points of view. As the course progresses, the tests will shift more from the first type to the second type.
3) There will be several in-class essays modeled on the compare and contrast, change and continuity over time and DBQ formats from the AP test. These will count as major tests.
4) There will be several class projects including Institutional analysis charts, analyses of documents in terms of POV and map work that will count as quizzes.
5) The trimester average will be adjusted up or down a point for class participation. Generally, excellent questions or observations that relate different segments of the course (time periods or different societies) will receive a bonus point. Poor class participation (including being unprepared in terms of either material or note-taking or working on materials from other subjects) will lower the trimester average.
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY:
Academic integrity is an integral part of the Seton Scholars Program. Much of the evaluative work, especially projects and free-response questions will involve independent work outside of class. All such independent work turned in for grading must be the student’s own work and violations of this will may severe consequences including possible failure for the course and dismissal from the Seton Scholars Program. We will go over topics related to plagiarism and proper citations of sources but the responsibility is on the student to make sure that any assistance he gives or receives is within acceptable guidelines.
Text(s)/Materials for Course:
· Robert Tignor et al, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, Fourth Edition, W.W.Norton & Co., 2014
· Kevin Reilly, Worlds of History, A Comparative Reader, Fifth Edition, Volumes One and Two, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013
· John H. Arnold, History: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2000 [ISBN: 978-0-19-285352-3]
· The Great Course College Lectures:
o Peter Stearns, A Brief History of the World
o Gregory Aldrete, History of the Ancient World: A Global Perspective
o Gregory Aldrete, The Decisive Battles of World History
o Craig Benjamin, Foundations of Eastern Civilization
· Michael Wood, The Story of India, PBS, 2008
Summer Reading
John H. Arnold, History: A Very Short Introduction,
Oxford University Press, 2000 [ISBN: 978-0-19-285352-3]
Assignment: Hand-in on the first day of class a one paragraph summary of the main point of each of the seven chapters
Class Policies
1) Students must come to class prepared which means having two items ready at the start of class: a notebook and any assignments that were due that day. Students must also have a number 2 pencil on days of scheduled tests.
i) We will go over note-taking in class. I strongly recommend that students develop some form of the Cornell note-taking system.
ii) There is no requirement for any particular type of notebook but students should develop an organized way to keep all their materials from the course including all returned tests and papers as well as their notes and any class handouts. We will refer to this as their class portfolio.
iii) If a student does not have an assignment on the day that it is due, he must still complete that assignment but there will be a grading penalty. If he does not complete the assignment within one week of the due date, he will receive a zero.
2) Students must make up any tests as soon as they return to school.
i) Students should see me before the start of classes.
ii) Any take-home sections of the test should be emailed to me at school by the due date. They will also be responsible for the in-class part of the test on that first day back. Generally, students will not be required to make up quizzes.
3) Any student who receives a grade below 80 percent on any test or graded assignment must see me at one of the next tutorial sessions. This does NOT apply to quizzes.
4) Poor class participation will lead to a lowering of the trimester average.
i) Students are allowed to use laptop or tablet computers in class but their use in class must be strictly limited to the current class work. No emails, texting or electronic communication is allowed. Students using a computer for unrelated matters will lose their privilege of using a computer in class.
ii) We will use a number of videos during the course. These are important parts of the course. Students should take notes on the video and will be responsible for that material on follow-up quizzes.
iii) If a student is using books or material from some other course or activity during class, these will be taken and that will lower his grade. I will turn that material over to the other teacher involved to be returned to the student.
COURSE OUTLINE
AP Course Outline / Syllabus of assignments:Period 1: Technological and Environmental Transformations,
to c. 600 B.C.E.
Key Concepts:
1.1. Big Geography and the Peopling of the Earth
I. Archeological evidence indicates that during the Paleolithic era, hunting-foraging bands of humans gradually migrated from their origin in East Africa to Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas, adapting their technology and cultures to new climate regions.