AP US History

Description

AP United States History focuses on developing students’ abilities to think conceptually about U.S. history from approximately 1491 to the present and apply historical thinking skills as they learn about the past. There are seven themes of equal importance built into this course: identity; peopling; politics and power; work, exchange, and technology; America in the world; environment and geography; and ideas, beliefs, and culture that provide areas of historical inquiry for investigation. These require students to reason historically about continuity and change over time and make comparisons among various historical developments in different times and places. 

Major Topics and Concepts

Module One: Quest for the Americas
1941-1607

North, Central, South American native tribes (corn and government structure)
Columbus then Spanish and Portuguese colonization (Columbian exchange, encomienda, Christianity)
New cultures of Central America and Caribbean
Influx of African slavery

 
1607-1754

Map of Spanish, Dutch, French, and British colonization in N. America
British slave system and indentured servants
Compare and contrast of British colonies—NE, Middle, Chesapeake and NC, and Southern Atlantic including British isles and West Indies

Growing conflict between settlers and native populations
“Atlantic World”—mercantilism, Anglicization, early Enlightenment spread

 
Module Two: Colonies at War
1754-1800

Native American conflicts with colonies
Seven Years’ War
Revolution
Articles of Confederation
Constitution
Washington’s Presidency

 
Module Three: A New Republic
1800-1848

Domestic policy and trade
International policy and trade (1812)
Migration to US as well as within
Manifest Destiny
Nullification and political issues, sectionalism
Market Revolution 

 
Module Four: American Civil War
1844-1877

Effects of Manifest Destiny
Abolition—women, social
Compromises—1850, Kansas-Nebraska, Dred Scott
Election of 1860—sectionalism, secession
Civil War
Reconstruction—political
Reconstruction—social

 
Module 5: A Growing Nation
1865-1898 

Industrialization and big business—2nd Industrial Revolution
Urbanization—early reform, political machine
Western migration
Native Americans
Gilded Age—social
Gilded Age—political

 
Module 6: Imperialism & Progressivism
1890-1932

Effects of industrialization—progressives
Imperialism
World War I
Post-war 1920s

 
Module 7: The World at War                                                                                 
1932-1945

End of the boom and depression
FDR and New Deal
End of neutrality
World War II—domestic and foreign
Effects of World War II

 
Module 8: Cold War
1945-1980

Cold War origins
Political and military involvement—Korea, Vietnam, Middle East, Latin America
Great Society
Civil Rights Movements
Changing migration—Immigration Act of 1965
Liberal and Conservative society and their effects on politics

 
Module 9: A Brave New World
1980-Present

Failures of the 1970s led to change in 1980s—political, social, economic
Reagan’s Presidency and the fall of Communism
Global marketplace
War on Terror
Social changes—internet, demographics