AP World History
Frequently
Asked
Questions
Updated August
15,
2012
1. Where can I
get "start up" materials for APWH?
2. What's the deal with "C.E."?
3. What about "redesign"?
4. Where can I get
help with my AP course audit?
5. Where can I
get help from real APWH teachers?
6.
What text
books do APWH teachers recommend?
7. What about
supplemental readers?
8. What are
some popular APWH reading assignments?
9. What are some popular
APWH
movies to show in class?
10.
Should I become an APWH essay reader?
11.
Why?
12. How is
the
APWH
exam different from APEH or APUS?
13. What grade level takes the most APWH exams?
14. Is APWH
"anti-Western Civ"?
15. How many
students take the APWH exam?
16. What is
the best "test preparation" book (Barron's, Princeton Review,
Peterson's etc) ?
17. Is AP European History dying because of APWH?
18. How do I
incorporate block scheduling into APWH?
1.
Where
can I
get "start up" materials for APWH?
Go to the AP
World History Course Home Page
to download the AP
World History Course and Exam Description.
You can also download previous APWH
released essays and rubrics.
Without a doubt, the very best way to
learn how to teach APWH is
through
an APWH Institute in the summer,
taught by College Board-approved consultants.
During the school year, shorter seminars held by the CB are
the next best thing. You can search for these here.
2. What's the
deal with "C.E."?
Part of the
"new"
World History is an acknowledgement that "Anno Domini", i.e., "In the
year of Our Lord",
isn't a universally accepted designation of
time.
Thus, A.D. became "C.E." for "Common Era" and B.C. became
"B.C.E." for "Before the Common Era".
Yep, I stumbled at
first over the new terminology, but since that's what is used on the
APWH exam,
I'm doing my students a favor by using BCE/CE in
class.
3. What about "redesign"?
If you
haven't heard,
APWH was redesigned starting in the 2011-2012 year, just as it has
been continually since it
began
in 2002.
Here's an
example: Instead of asking a multiple choice question
like, "Which Chinese dynasty traded
with the Roman Empire?", there will
be more synthesis/analysis questions and questions based on reading
selections.
For now, the essays and their rubrics haven't changed.
The idea behind redesign is to incorporate more materials that get
students analyze and link
important themes in World History.
See the Course and Exam Description link in #1 above.
4.
Where can I get help with my APWH course audit?
here.
5.
Where can I
get help from real APWH teachers?
Join the
College
Board-sponsored APWH
Teacher Community.
6. What text
books do APWH teachers recommend?
The three
most popular
texts cited by APWH teachers are: Bentley and Ziegler's Traditions
and Encounters;
Stearns, et al, World
Civilizations:The Global Experience (the AP
edition);
and Bulliet, et al, The Earth and Its Peoples
(the AP edition).
There are several other excellent choices, including the new
Voyages
in World History and The
Ways
of the World.
To order sample copies, see the link
to
these and other texts at my APWH site.
I switched from the Stearns text to The Ways of the World, by
Strayer.
Wow--it's compact, comparatively inexpensive and has a section at the
end
of each chapter full of visual and textual documents.
7. What about
supplemental readers?
See the
links at
my site for sample copies of these, too. Andrea and Overfield's The
Human Record
and
Wiesner-Hank's Discovering the Global Past are two of the most
popular.
There
are other good choices. I use Andrea and
Overfield.
Each
set
of documents come with excellent questions for the student to consider.
8. What are
some popular APWH reading assignments?
The Big
Daddy of
"New World History" books is the classic
The Columbian Exchange:
Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492
by Dr. Alfred Crosby.
Other popular titles include:
Guns, Germs and Steel
King
Leopold's Ghost
Nectar in a Sieve
Salt
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
A History of the World in Six Glasses
Tastes of Paradise
Things Fall Apart and
The World That Trade Created
You can look these up at Amazon.com
&
BN.com.
PS: If you look up The Columbian
Exchange at Amazon.com,
you'll see
a
sidebar with a helpful list put together by Tom Martin.
9. How many
students take the APWH exam?
Over 200,000 and growing rapidly each year. In 2002, the first
year of the exam, the number was
22,000.
World History
is the fastest-growing AP exam in the College Board's history.
10. Should I become an APWH
essay
reader?
YES.
11.
Why?
You will have
the
greatest experience of your professional career.
(That's not just
me talking; former Chief Reader Ken Curtis of the University of
California, Long Beach, agrees.)
You will spend a week learning
from and hanging out with some of the best world history teachers and
professors on the planet.
You
will learn more about teaching APWH in that week
than you would on your own in years.
We have a blast! You
get paid for reading; plus your travel, room and food is paid for by
the
College Board.
They're looking for
readers, so why
not fill out an application? You need experience
teaching APWH or its college equivalent to apply.
Info
Here
12. Is the APWH
exam different from APEH or APUS?
Yes, but not
by
much.
There are 70 Multiple Choice questions, a DBQ, a Continuity
and Change
Over Time essay and a Comparative essay.
Unlike in EH or USH, the
3 essays are equally weighted. There are no groups of essays from
which to choose,
as in the EH or US Free Response Questions,
although internal choice is possible
in the CCOT and
Comparative essays.
The biggest difference in the DBQ is that it
tells students to cite an additional kind
of document and how
it could help
them address the question.
As in EH, but unlike US History,
outside information on the DBQ is currently not required--but students
MUST use ALL of the docs.
13. What grade level takes
the most APWH exams?
Over
70%
of the
test takers are 10th
graders. Even some ninth graders-gulp!- take the exam.
Not
surprisingly, 11th and 12th graders as a group do
better than the lower grades.
Regardless of the grade level at which an
AP class is offered, it is important to remember that all AP
classes are college-level courses.
14. Is
APWH
"anti-Western Civ"?
All of the
APWH
people I've run into are "pro-global" rather than "anti"
anything. It was explained to
me this way:
Look at history as if you were viewing the world
from space. What common themes run through all humanity over
time?
<>Another
way
of looking at it is: When you studied US
History, did you study the history of the 50 individual states?
No, you
studied
American history. Same with this "new" World
History. Although educated primarily in Western Civ,
I
am intrigued by this approach.
I will confess that I first taught APWH in my 20th year of teaching,
after many years' experience with APUS and APEH,
and that first year
was very, very challenging.
Wrapping your mind around global, not national, themes can take some
time if you're not used to it.
15.
What about popular APWH movies to show in class?
Teachers who
find
the time in their schedule to show movies recommend a great variety of
films.
Many
teachers budget their
limited time by showing segments of films rather than the whole thing.
With
10,000+ years to cover in less than 9 months,
I can only manage
to
squeeze in some of the excellent "Millennium" series from CNN (1999).
Look
for it on ebay, Amazon, or on youtube, under "CNN Millennium".
16. What is
the best "test preparation" book (Barron's, Princeton Review,
Peterson's, etc) ?
See my
comments
at the bottom of my APWH main page.
17. Is AP European History
dying because of APWH?
No
way! The number
of APEH exams continues to grow at a healthy pace.
18. How
do I
incorporate block scheduling into APWH?
One idea
that has
benefitted many 4x4 Block APWH teachers is to cooperate with the AP
English Lit teacher to form an "AP Humanities"
class.
That way,
students have the great advantage of taking both AP courses through the
entire year. College Board studies show that students who take an
AP course for only one semester earn significantly lower scores.
Many of the teachers
on
the APWH listserv teach The Block, so sign up and ask.
Many more
questions can be answered by linking to the College Board's APWH
web site at AP Central.
Go back to my web page for these
links. Return
to Jay's APWH
Page