AP World History Semester A 2011

while addressing a syllabus largely driven by sheer scope. The AP World 

History course outlined in this course and exam description addresses 

these challenges by providing a clear framework of six chronological 

periods viewed through the lens of related key concepts and course themes, 

accompanied by a set of skills that clearly define what it means to think 

historically.

                The course’s organization around a limited number of key concepts instead 

of a perceived list of facts, events, and dates makes teaching each historical 

period more manageable. The three to four key concepts per period 

define what is most essential to know about each period based upon 

the most current historical research in world history. This approach 

enables students to spend less time on factual recall, more time on learning 

essential concepts, and helps them develop historical thinking skills 

necessary to explore the broad trends and global processes involved in 

their study of AP World History.

                 To foster a deeper level of learning, the framework distinguishes content 

that is essential to support the understanding of key concepts from content 

examples that are not required. Throughout the framework, possible 

examples of historical content are provided in the right-hand column 

as an illustration of the key concept, but these illustrative examples are 

not required features of the course or required knowledge for the exam. 

Instead, the illustrative examples are provided to offer teachers a variety of 

optional instructional contexts that will help their students achieve deeper 

understanding. In this way the framework provides teachers freedom to 

tailor instruction to the needs of their students and offers flexibility in 

building upon their own strengths as teachers.

                 The themes and key concepts are intended to provide foundational 

knowledge for future college-level course work in history. Command of these 

course themes and key concepts requires sufficient knowledge of detailed 

and specific relevant historical developments and processes — including 

names, chronology, facts, and events — to exemplify the themes and key 

concepts. However, the specific historical developments and processes 

taught in an AP World History course will vary by teacher according to the 

instructional choices each teacher makes to provide opportunities for student 

investigation and learning for each key concept and theme.