Riverside Preparatory High School 2018-2019

Mr. Humphreys’ AP World History Syllabus 2018-2019

Instructor: Robert Humphreys
Phone (Emergency Parent Contact Only): 760)403-5322
E-Mail (Best Option): Robert_humphreys@riversideprep.net
Website Resource: http://roberthumphreysclassroom.weebly.com/

Introduction: Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Robert Humphreys, your instructor. A little bit about
me; I graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in History, and minor in Kinesiology from California State University
Fullerton. I consider myself to be a bit of a sports fanatic, with a passion and love for all sports having coached
the Riverside Prep High School Varsity Baseball Team, and adopting a similar teaching philosophy. My
philosophy and theory to education in the high school setting is to teach students not what to think, but rather
how to think. Similarly so, I also aim to encourage that student’s take accountability for their work, ensure that
they understand the content material, and consistently inform parent’s of their students progress and
expectations to pass my course. As an educator is it my goal and understanding to provide student’s of all
backgrounds with an equal opportunity to assess and reassess the impact and importance of historical events
shaping the world we live in today. As the upcoming school year begins, I look forward to an exciting year,
filled with fun, meaningful engagement, higher academic achievement, and an environment committed to
success, excellence, and progression.

Course Description:
A.P. World History is a college-level course that analyzes global patterns of historical development and
exchange from roughly 8000 B.C.E. to the present. Using primary and secondary sources, AP World History
students will track historical change and continuity within and across six periods of study, paying close
attention to unifying course themes and accompanying learning objectives. Great emphasis is placed on the
honing of historical thinking skills, such as chronological reasoning, comparison,
Contextualization, argumentation, interpretation, and synthesis. The course culminates with the national
AP World History examination, which will be administered in May. Students will earn a weighted grade for
this class and, if successful on the national examination, they could receive college credit at their preferred
university.

The A.P. World History course offers motivated students and their teachers the opportunity to immerse
themselves in the historical developments and processes that, over time, have resulted in the knitting of the
world into a tightly integrated whole. The course offers balanced global coverage, with Africa, the
Americas, Asia, Oceania, and Europe all represented. The content covered in AP World History is
structured around the investigation of five course themes and nineteen key concepts in six different
chronological periods, from around 8000 BCE to the present. These themes serve as unifying threads
helping students to relate the uniqueness of each time period to the “bigger picture” of history.

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. Focused primarily on the past thousand years of the global experience, the course builds on an
understanding of cultural, institutional, and technological precedents that, along with geography, set the
human stage.

Course Resources:
Textbook: Strayer, Robert W. Ways of the World: A Global History with Sources, 3rd Edition,
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Mr. Humphreys’ AP World History Syllabus 2018-2019

Bedford/St. Martin’s, Boston, MA, 2013. ISBN 978-1-457-69991-7
* In addition to the mentioned text, we will also be spending a vast majority of the course analyzing various primary
and secondary sources, including transcribed documents in their original text, political cartoons, artist depictions of
various events, and many, many more.
Historical Thinking Skills: World History requires the development of thinking skills using the processes
and tools that historians employ in order to create historical narrative. Students will also be required to think
on many different geographical and temporal scales in order to compare historical events over time and space.
Advanced Placement (AP) World History is structured around the investigation of five themes woven into 19
key concepts covering six distinct chronological periods. History is a sophisticated quest for meaning about the
past, beyond the effort to collect and memorize information. This course will continue to deal with the facts—
names, chronology, and events—but it will also emphasize historical analysis. This will be accomplished by
focusing on four historical thinking skills:
Chronological Reasoning
Comparison and Contextualization
Crafting Historical Arguments from Historical Evidence
Historical Interpretation and Synthesis

Themes: Throughout the course, students will practice and be provided scaffolds to produce thesis- driven
arguments. These essay assignments and practice exams will include the Document-Based Question (DBQ) as
well as the Long-Essay Question types that address the targeted historical thinking skills of causation,
comparison, continuity and change, and periodization.

•Interaction Between Humans and the Environment (ENV)

•Development and Interaction of Cultures (CUL)
•State Building, Expansion, and Conflict (SB)
•Creation, Expansion, and Interaction of Economic Systems (ECON)
•Development and Transformation of Social Structures (SOC)

Periodization:
The course will have as its chronological frame the period from approximately
8000 BCE to the present.

Preface (V-LXXII)

Period 1: First Things First: Beginnings in History (2-107)

Origins to c. 500 BCE (5%)

Period 2: Second-Wave Civilizations in World History (108-205)

c. 500 BCE to c. 500 CE (15%)

Period 3: An Age of Accelerating Connections (306-609)

c. 500 CE to c. 1500 CE (20%)

Period 4: The Early Modern World (610-771)

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Mr. Humphreys’ AP World History Syllabus 2018-2019

c. 1450 CE to c. 1750 CE (20%)

Period 5: The European Moment in World History (772-971)

c. 1750 to c. 1914 (20%)

Period 6: The Most Recent Century (972-1187)

c. 1914 to 2012 (20%)

Review for AP Exam

AP EXAM MAY 18th

Unit 1: Technological and Environmental Transformations –

Origins to c. 600 BCE

Key Concept 1.1: Big Geography and Peopling of the Earth

Key Concept 1.2: The Neolithic Revolution and Early Agricultural Societies
Key Concept 1.3: The Development and Interactions of Early Agricultural, Pastoral and Urban Societies

Classroom Topics:
1. Introduction to World History
2. World Regions
3. Hunter/Foragers and early human migration
4. Adaptation to differing environmental influences
5. Economic structure of Hunter/Forager society
6. The Neolithic Revolution and its effects on economic and social systems, and
environmental impacts
7. Foundational civilizations: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Mohenjo-Daro, Shang, Olmec, and Chavin
8. Foundational cultural developments: law, language, literature, religion, art, and architecture
9. Bronze Age states

Textbook Reading Assignments: UNIT I

From Cosmic History to Human History
Beginnings in History Prehistory and the Neolithic Era
The First Civilizations

Unit 2: Organization and Reorganization of Human Societies –c. 600 BCE to c. 600 CE

Key Concept 2.1: The Development and Codification of Religious and Cultural Traditions
Key Concept 2.2: The Development of States and Empires
Key Concept 2.3: Emergence of Transregional Networks of Communication and Exchange

Classroom Topics:
1. The Rise of Classical Civilization: Greece, Rome, Han China, Gupta India
2. The development of major belief systems: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism,
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Mr. Humphreys’ AP World History Syllabus 2018-2019

3. Christianity, Confucianism, Daoism, polytheism, and shamanism
4. Pastoral Nomadic migration and the end of the Classical Age: the Huns,
5. Germanic tribes
6. Networks of exchange and the spread of belief systems
7. Silk Road trade networks
8. Early Urbanization and its impacts

Textbook Reading Assignments UNIT II

State and Empire in Eurasia/North Africa
Culture and Religion in Eurasia/North Africa
Society and Inequality in Eurasia/North Africa
Commonalities and Variations: Africa and the Americas

Unit 3: Regional and Transregional Interactions –c. 600 CE to c. 1450 CE

Key Concept 3.1: Expansion and Intensification of Communication and Exchange

Networks
Key Concept 3.2: Continuity and Innovation of State Forms and Their Interactions
Key Concept 3.3: Increased Economic Productive Capacity and Its Consequences

Classroom Topics:
1. The Islamic World
2. The Mongols: Conquest and Impact
3. The Bubonic Plague
4. Bantu and Polynesian migrations
5. Great Zimbabwe, Ghana, Mali, Songhai
6. Amerindian Civilization: Mayan Empire, Aztecs, Inca
7. Ming China – Voyages of Exploration
8. Europe in the “Middle Ages:” The Schism in Christianity, The Crusades,
9. European Feudalism

Textbook Reading Assignments UNIT III:

The Worlds of Islam
China and the World: East Asia Connections
Commerce and Culture
The Worlds of Christendom: Contraction, Expansion, and Division
Pastoral Peoples on the World Stage (The Mongols)
The Worlds of the 15th Century
Unit 4: Global Interactions – c. 1450 CE to c. 1750 CE

Key Concept 4.1: Globalizing Networks of Communication and Exchange

Key Concept 4.2: New Forms of Social Organization and Modes of Production
Key Concept 4.3: State Consolidation and Imperial Expansion

Classroom Topics
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Mr. Humphreys’ AP World History Syllabus 2018-2019

1. The Revolution in sailing
2. European Exploration and Encounter
3. European Transformation: From Reformation to Enlightenment
4. American Colonial Societies
5. The Columbian Exchange
6. The Atlantic Economy: Slavery and the plantation system
7. Centralized Empires evolve across Asia: Ottomans, the Qing, Mughals, Romanovs, Safavids, and
Tokugawa
Textbook Reading Assignments UNIT IV:
Empires and Encounters
Commerce and Consequence
Religion and Science
Unit 5: Industrialization and Global Integration – c. 1750 to c. 1900

Key Concept 5.1: Industrialization and Global Capitalism Key Concept 5.2:
Imperialism and Nation-State Formation Key Concept 5.3: Nationalism,
Revolution, and Reform
Key Concept 5.4: Global Migrations

Classroom Topics:
1. American, French, Haitian, and Latin American Revolutions
2. Napoleon, Congress of Vienna, Conservatism vs. Liberalism
3. The Industrial Revolution
4. Social Impact of industrialization
5. Abolitionist Movement, suffrage, unionization, socialism
6. The British Empire
7. Breakdown of the “Gunpowder Empires”
8. Imperialism of the late 1800s:
i. The Scramble for Africa,
ii. Spheres of Influence in China
iii. Imperialism in Latin America
9. Modernization: New Technology and a new world economy

Textbook Reading Assignments UNIT V

Atlantic Revolutions, Global Echoes
Revolutions of Industrialization
Colonial Encounters in Asia and Africa
Empires in Collision

Unit 6: Accelerating Global Change and Realignments – c. 1900 to the present

Key Concept 6.1: Science and the Environment

Key Concept 6.2: Global Conflicts and Their Consequences
Key Concept 6.3: New Conceptualizations of Global Economy, Society, and Culture
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Mr. Humphreys’ AP World History Syllabus 2018-2019

Classroom Topics:
1. World War I
2. The Twenty Year Crisis – Years between the Wars
3. 20th Century Revolutions: Russia, China, Mexico,
Worldwide Economic Depression
4. The Rise of Fascism
5. World War II
6. 20th Century migrations
7. Decolonization
8. Modern world organizations
9. Cold War
10. Information, technological, and communications revolutions
11. Terrorism? - Post 9/11 world
12. Globalization

Textbook Reading Assignments UNIT VI

Collapse at the Center
Revolution, Socialism and Global Conflict
The End of Empire
Capitalism and Culture

th
The A.P. EXAM IS ON THE MORNING OF MAY 18

The AP World History Exam:

Part I (worth 60 percent of total grade)

Part A (40%): 55 stimulus-based (analyze document) multiple-choice questions, 55 minutes, 4 answer
choices per question; at least two questions, no more than 5 for each stimulus

Part B (20%): Three short-answer questions (SAQ’s), 40 minutes, 20 percent of total grade

Question 1: Secondary Text Analysis; Periods 3-6

Question 2: Visual Analysis; Periods 3-6
Option between Q3 (Periods 1-3) or Q4 (Periods 4-6)

Part II (worth 40 percent of total grade)

Part A: Document-based question (25%), 60 minutes (includes 15-minute reading period), (Periods 3-
6)

Part B: Long essay question (15%) select 1 question from 3 choices, 40 minutes

Option 1: Periods 1-2

Option 2: Periods 3-4
Option 3: Periods 5-6
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Mr. Humphreys’ AP World History Syllabus 2018-2019

Exam Scoring
5 = extremely well qualified
4 = well qualified
3 = qualified
2 = possibly qualified
1 = no recommendation

A.P. WORLD HISTORY - CLASS PROCEDURES

1. All students are required to attend class and be in class on time

2. It is suggested that students obtain the following materials: 3 ring binder, spiral notebook, dividers,
highlighters, pens, #2 pencils. (It is suggested, but not required that students purchase a Review Study
book for AP World)

3. All Assignments, quizzes and tests missed due to an absence should be made up. Excused
absences will have work counted without penalty. Work missed due to an unexcused absence
may not count toward the end of marking period grade. Make-ups are to done within five days
of the return of the absent student. Make-ups are the responsibility of the student. Students
missing class should come to my office during lunchtime enrichment, or need to make
arrangements to stay after school,
or have a friend pick up needed materials. Students need to be aware of the
difference between due dates and deadlines – assignments not made up by the deadline will not
be allowed to be made up. The deadline for all make-up work is the date of the Unit Test for
each unit.

4. Grades are based on how well students master the core concepts and skills of the course. Key Concepts,
Themes, and skills will be discussed at the beginning of each unit. All graded assignments are related
to these objectives. All work is graded on a point scale. Letter grades will be determined by the
percentage of points earned. Grades each quarter will reflect regular
reading quizzes, online “Learning Curve” assessments, regular writing assignments, unit tests,
other classwork, homework, and study group assignments.

5. Students are expected to monitor their grades and assignments. Progress reports will be provided per
school policy.

6. Use of personal electronic devices will be limited to appropriate class activities.

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Mr. Humphreys’ AP World History Syllabus 2018-2019

Student Contract

All teachers prepare a contract, which includes student requirements for passing the class. The
student and parent must sign this contract. These contracts are adapted from school guiding
policy.
Explanation of Grading System and Class Expectations

Homework, Classwork, Participation, etc. (65%)

Homework will be given daily with some exceptions. Informed classroom cannot take
place unless the student satisfactorily completes homework consistently, and on time. Classroom
participation is an excellent opportunity for each student to develop verbal/debate skills, as well as
enhance his/her grade in the process. A high level of classroom discussion is dependent upon
students’ having done their homework the previous night, upon reading handouts provided in
class, and upon their making an honest effort to participate.

Test/Quizzes/Projects, etc. (35%)

Throughout the semester there will be several Exams (Approx. One every Unit- subject to
change). Writing Assignments and Projects (One per Unit). It is the responsibility of the student
to seek out additional support and assistance should they need it. The purposes of these
assignments are to allow the student to express their comprehension of the recently learned
material through rigor and creativity. Much of what we do in this course emphasizes student
participation and effort. Simply put, you don’t do the work and put in effort, you don’t get the
credit.

As the school year gets underway, I look forward to working with all of you and making this a
very enjoyable year at RPHS.

Thank You,

Robert Humphreys
Instructor
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