APUSH Course Information
Advanced Placement United States History (APUSH) is a college-freshman-level course designed to provide students with the skills and knowledge necessary to deal critically with problems and concepts in American history. The demands of the program are equivalent to those of a full-year introductory college course. AP American History requires students to spend additional time outside of class reading, writing and preparing for classroom discussions. Students assess the relevance and reliability of historical materials and weigh the evidence and interpretations presented in historical scholarship. The course develops the skills necessary for students to draw informed conclusions and to write a variety of essays and document based essays of superior quality. It is recommended that students in this course take the AP Exam when it is offered in May.
This course focuses on seven themes:
American and National Identity:
This theme focuses on how and why definitions of American and national identity and values have developed, as well as on related topics such as citizenship, constitutionalism, foreign policy, assimilation, and American Exceptionalism.
Work, Exchange, and Technology:
This theme focuses on the factors behind the development of systems of economic exchange, particularly the role of technology, economic markets, and government.
Migration and Settlement:
This theme focuses on why and how the various people who moved to an within the United States both adapted to and transformed their new social and physical environments.
Politics and Power:
This theme focuses on how different social and political groups have influenced society and government in the United States, as well as how political beliefs and institutions have changed over time.
America in the World:
This theme focuses on the interactions between nations that affected North American history in the colonial period, and on the influence of the United States on world affairs.
Geography and the Environment:
This theme focuses on the role of geography and both the natural and human-made environments on social and political developments in what would become the United States.
Culture and Society:
This theme focuses on the roles that ideas, beliefs, social mores, and creative expression have played in shaping the United States, as well as how various identities, cultures, and values have been preserved or changed in different contexts of U.S. history.
This course focuses on seven themes:
American and National Identity:
This theme focuses on how and why definitions of American and national identity and values have developed, as well as on related topics such as citizenship, constitutionalism, foreign policy, assimilation, and American Exceptionalism.
Work, Exchange, and Technology:
This theme focuses on the factors behind the development of systems of economic exchange, particularly the role of technology, economic markets, and government.
Migration and Settlement:
This theme focuses on why and how the various people who moved to an within the United States both adapted to and transformed their new social and physical environments.
Politics and Power:
This theme focuses on how different social and political groups have influenced society and government in the United States, as well as how political beliefs and institutions have changed over time.
America in the World:
This theme focuses on the interactions between nations that affected North American history in the colonial period, and on the influence of the United States on world affairs.
Geography and the Environment:
This theme focuses on the role of geography and both the natural and human-made environments on social and political developments in what would become the United States.
Culture and Society:
This theme focuses on the roles that ideas, beliefs, social mores, and creative expression have played in shaping the United States, as well as how various identities, cultures, and values have been preserved or changed in different contexts of U.S. history.
Historical Thinking Skills
Skill 1: Chronological Reasoning
Historical causation
Historical thinking involves the ability to identify, analyze, and evaluate multiple cause-and-effect relationships in a historical context, distinguishing between the long-term and proximate.
Patterns of continuity and change over time
Historical thinking involves the ability to recognize, analyze, and evaluate the dynamics of historical continuity and change over periods of varying lengths, as well as relating these patterns to larger historical processes or themes.
Periodization
Historical thinking involves the ability to describe, analyze, evaluate, and construct models of historical periodization that historians use to categorize events into discrete blocks and to identify turning points, recognizing that the choice of specific dates favors one narrative, region or group over another narrative, region or group; therefore, changing the periodization can change a historical narrative. Moreover, the particular circumstances and contexts in which individual historians work and write shape their interpretations and models of past events.
Historical thinking involves the ability to identify, analyze, and evaluate multiple cause-and-effect relationships in a historical context, distinguishing between the long-term and proximate.
Patterns of continuity and change over time
Historical thinking involves the ability to recognize, analyze, and evaluate the dynamics of historical continuity and change over periods of varying lengths, as well as relating these patterns to larger historical processes or themes.
Periodization
Historical thinking involves the ability to describe, analyze, evaluate, and construct models of historical periodization that historians use to categorize events into discrete blocks and to identify turning points, recognizing that the choice of specific dates favors one narrative, region or group over another narrative, region or group; therefore, changing the periodization can change a historical narrative. Moreover, the particular circumstances and contexts in which individual historians work and write shape their interpretations and models of past events.
Skill 2: Comparison and Contextualization
Comparison
Historical thinking involves the ability to describe, compare, and evaluate, in various chronological and geographical contexts, multiple historical developments within one society and one or more development across or between different societies.
Historical thinking also involves the ability to identify, compare, and evaluate multiple perspectives on a given historical experience.
Contextualization
Historical thinking involves the ability to connect historical developments to specific circumstances in time and place, and to broader regional, national or global processes.
Historical thinking involves the ability to describe, compare, and evaluate, in various chronological and geographical contexts, multiple historical developments within one society and one or more development across or between different societies.
Historical thinking also involves the ability to identify, compare, and evaluate multiple perspectives on a given historical experience.
Contextualization
Historical thinking involves the ability to connect historical developments to specific circumstances in time and place, and to broader regional, national or global processes.
Skill 3: Crafting Historical Arguments from Historical Evidence
Historical argumentation
Historical thinking involves the ability to define and frame a question about the past and to address that question by constructing an argument. A plausible and persuasive argument requires a clear, comprehensive and analytical thesis, supported by relevant historical evidence — not simply evidence that supports a preferred or preconceived position. Additionally, argumentation involves the capacity to describe, analyze, and evaluate the arguments of others in light of available evidence.
Appropriate use of relevant historical evidence
Historical thinking involves the ability to identify, describe, and evaluate evidence about the past from diverse sources (written documents, works of art, archaeological artifacts, oral traditions, and other primary sources), with respect to content, authorship, purpose, format, and audience.
Historical thinking involves the ability to extract useful information, make supportable inferences, and draw appropriate conclusions from historical evidence.
Historical thinking involves the ability to understand such evidence in its context, recognize its limitations, and assess the points of view that it reflects.
Historical thinking involves the ability to define and frame a question about the past and to address that question by constructing an argument. A plausible and persuasive argument requires a clear, comprehensive and analytical thesis, supported by relevant historical evidence — not simply evidence that supports a preferred or preconceived position. Additionally, argumentation involves the capacity to describe, analyze, and evaluate the arguments of others in light of available evidence.
Appropriate use of relevant historical evidence
Historical thinking involves the ability to identify, describe, and evaluate evidence about the past from diverse sources (written documents, works of art, archaeological artifacts, oral traditions, and other primary sources), with respect to content, authorship, purpose, format, and audience.
Historical thinking involves the ability to extract useful information, make supportable inferences, and draw appropriate conclusions from historical evidence.
Historical thinking involves the ability to understand such evidence in its context, recognize its limitations, and assess the points of view that it reflects.
Skill 4: Historical Interpretation and Synthesis
Interpretation
Historical thinking involves the ability to describe, analyze, evaluate, and create diverse interpretations of the past — as revealed through primary and secondary historical sources — by analyzing evidence, reasoning, contexts, points of view, and frames of reference.
Synthesis
Historical thinking involves the ability to arrive at meaningful and persuasive understandings of the past by applying all the other historical thinking skills, by drawing appropriately on ideas from different fields of inquiry or disciplines and by creatively fusing disparate, relevant (and perhaps contradictory) evidence from primary sources and secondary works. Additionally, synthesis may involve applying insights about the past to other historical contexts or circumstances, including the present.
Historical thinking involves the ability to describe, analyze, evaluate, and create diverse interpretations of the past — as revealed through primary and secondary historical sources — by analyzing evidence, reasoning, contexts, points of view, and frames of reference.
Synthesis
Historical thinking involves the ability to arrive at meaningful and persuasive understandings of the past by applying all the other historical thinking skills, by drawing appropriately on ideas from different fields of inquiry or disciplines and by creatively fusing disparate, relevant (and perhaps contradictory) evidence from primary sources and secondary works. Additionally, synthesis may involve applying insights about the past to other historical contexts or circumstances, including the present.