“I hear America singing…each singing what belongs to him or her and no one else…singing with mouths open their strong melodious songs.” – Walt Whitman (PHOTO: Edward Curtis, Canyon de Chelly, 1904)
Introduction
AP U.S. History is a College Board-approved, high school-equivalent to an introductory college-level survey course. It is a two semester course and it is comprehensive in scope. The class is very content-driven and the work is both challenging and interesting — the demands on your time will be considerable. With that said, you will be treated as college students to the greatest degree possible.
Many US history classes are organized chronologically. They move from year to year, era to era. Students learn everything that happens in a twenty or thirty year period, then move on to the next period and learn how everything has evolved. As the course moves on, the pattern continues.
To an extent, I choose not to use this model. Principally, my APUSH course is designed around the question of what it means to be American. It contains nine teaching units, each covering an important thread of American history. We will trace these threads from their beginnings in Colonial America to their respective ends. Along the way, we will build context and analyze how these threads are woven together to form a complex historical canvas. Though it is far from traditional, this design forces you to synthesize and ask questions, to connect dots and establish relationships between events, terms and concepts. It also requires that we put in some effort to build your factual knowledge so that you can make the appropriate connections. This course has been College Board approved and it will prepare you for the AP exam. What’s preferable about the design is that it allows us to study in depth the development of key elements in America’s past.
The College Board and the Advanced Placement Program
APUSH Course Description
APUSH Expectations and Policies
APUSH Grading
APUSH Required Materials
APUSH Units of Study
Taking the AP Exam
UNIT 1: The Summer Assignment
Do I have what it takes to survive APUSH (the summer assignment)?
UNIT 2: The Frontier and the West, 1607-1890
How do the characteristics developed on the frontier define what it means to be American?
UNIT 3: Revolutionary and Constitutional History, 1754-Current
How do democratic ideals and self-government define what it means to be American?
UNIT 4: Industrialization and Reform, Part 1, 1793-1921
How does capitalism and the reaction to it define who we are as Americans?
UNIT 5: Economic History, Part 2, 1921-2000
Is the federal government an effective reformer and how does its role as a reformer define who we are as Americans?
UNIT 6: Immigration History, 1607-1965
How does immigration define what it means to be American?
UNIT 7: African American History, 1619-1975
How does race define what it means to be American?
UNIT 8: War and Diplomacy, Part 1, 1789-1945
How does the United States’ relationship with the rest of the world define what it means to be American?
UNIT 9: War and Diplomacy, Part 2, 1945-2001
How does the Cold War define what it means to be American?
UNIT 10: Test Prep
How can I prepare for and survive the APUSH exam?
UNIT 11: Post-Exam Projects
History projects by historians
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