AP US History
Course and Summer Reading Requirements
The Advanced Placement U.S. History course is a college level examination of historiography covering the
years between 1607-2000 C.E. This course is heavily focused on assessing and analyzing primary and
secondary sources in both class discussion and essay format. THIS WILL BE VERY READING AND
WRITING INTENSIVE. If you can not handle this work load, then see your counselor to re-schedule your
classes. YOU & YOUR PARENT MUST SIGN THE COMMITMENT FORM ATTACHED. RETURN
TO MR. COLLIER IN A-206 TO RECEIVE THE REST OF YOUR SUMMER ASSIGNMENT.
You are required to purchase copies of the following outside reading materials:
Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. New York: Harper
Perennial, 2005.
Hofstadter, Richard. The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It.
New York, 1989.
These are readily available at one of the following places: Books-A-Million (convenient, but more
expensive & a risk of being sold-out) or Amazon.com (average prices range from $3-10 depending on
whether you buy New or Used copies) or any other bookselling website that caters to college students or
teachers (like Half.com)
Summer Assignment:
All students enrolled in AP® U.S. History are required to read the first two chapters of Howard Zinn’s A
People’s History of the United States, prior to the beginning of the academic school year. NO EXCUSES!!
Also, students will read and analyze the first chapter of The American Political Tradition by Richard
Hofstatder. It would be helpful to take annotated notes for review later. Cornell style notes also works!
Again, students are responsible for acquiring a copy of these texts on their own. After reading each text,
students will complete an assessment activity provided by Mr. Collier. These assignments must be
complete by the first day of school and will count as a major grade in the 1st Nine Weeks report card.
There will also be an unannounced assessment of these chapters when you return to school to make sure
there was no copying or illegal collaboration over the summer. 
Brief Course Outline
1st Semester Weeks 1 - 2
Weeks 3 – 4
Weeks 5 – 6
Weeks 7 – 9
Weeks 10 – 11
Weeks 12 - 16
Intro to Historiography and Historical Methods, Pre-Columbian America
Exploration and Colonization
The Revolutionary Period
The New Republic
Jacksonian Democracy and Manifest Destiny
Sectionalism and the Civil War
2nd Semester Weeks 17 – 18
Weeks 19 - 20
Weeks 21 – 24
Weeks 25 – 26
Weeks 27 – 28
Weeks 29 – 33
Weeks 34 – 35
Reconstruction and Westward Expansion
Industrialization and Urbanization
Progressivism, Imperialism, and World War I
The 1920s, Great Depression and the New Deal
World War II and Containment
Protest and Turmoil: Civil Rights, Vietnam, and Watergate
“Modern” America