SYLLABUS
Centennial High School
2014-2015
Course #: 5230 and 5232
Course Name: AP World History 1 and 2
Teacher Name: Eric Ripken
Room Number: R315 Phone #: 763-792 -
5266
E-Mail: eripken@isd12.org Semester 1 and Semester 2
Prerequisite: See Course Guide Credit Earned: 1
Course Description:
Advanced Placement World History is equivalent to an introductory college survey course. The course has a three-fold purpose. First, it is designed to prepare students for successful placement into higher-level college and university history courses. Second, it is designed to develop skills of analysis and thinking in order to prepare students for success in the twenty-first century.
Finally, it is the intent of this class to make the learning of world history an enjoyable and enlightening experience. Students will be able to show their mastery of the course goals by taking part in the College Board AP World History Exam on May 14th, 2015.
Course Objectives:
Advanced Placement 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, events, and the like but it will also emphasize historical analysis. This will be accomplished by focusing on four historical thinking skills: crafting historical arguments from historical evidence, chronological reasoning, comparison and contextualization, and historical interpretation and synthesis.
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.
This course relies heavily on college-level resources. This includes texts, a wide variety of primary sources, and interpretations presented in historical scholarship. These resources are designed to develop the skills required to analyze point of view and to interpret evidence to use in creating plausible historical arguments. These tools will also be used to assess issues of change and continuity over time, identifying global processes, comparing within and among societies, and understanding diverse interpretations.
Students will be required to participate in class discussions and prepare class presentations in order to further develop higher level habits of mind or thinking skills and broaden content knowledge. No more than 20% of the course time is devoted to European history. The course is

designed to be rigorous and rewarding, and will allow students to take a global view on the historical processes and contact between people in different societies.
The five AP World History Themes that connect the key concepts throughout the course and serve as the foundation for student reading, writing, and presentations requirements are as follows:
Theme 1: Interaction Between Humans and the Environment: Demography and disease,
Migration, Patterns of settlement, Technology
Theme 2: Development and Interaction of Cultures: Religions, Belief systems, philosophies and ideologies, Science and technology, The arts and architecture
Theme 3: State-building, Expansion, and Conflict: Political structures and forms of governance, Empires, Nations and nationalism, Revolts and revolutions, Regional, transregional, and global structures and organizations
Theme 4: Creation, Expansion, and Interaction of Economic Systems: Agricultural and pastoral production, Trade and commerce, Labor systems, Industrialization, Capitalism and
Socialism
Theme 5: Development and Transformation of Social Structures: Gender roles and relations, Family kinship, Racial and ethnic constructions, Social and economic classes
Course Expectations:
Our goal is to introduce you to several of the most important documents in the history of the world as well as to several of the most prominent historians past and present, who have shaped our knowledge of the world. This course will be an ongoing quest to decipher, define, and debate history. That’s why it is so much fun!
Here are some of the enlightening materials you will encounter:
College Level Text: Strayer, Robert W.
Ways of the World : A Global History. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009.
A variety of other readings and resources utilized throughout the course will include excerpts from:
After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split by Lesley Hazleton, Anchor; 2007
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond, Penguin Revised
Edition; 2011
Document-Based Assessment for Global History . By Theresa C. Noonan, Walch Publishing, 2 nd
Ed. 2007.
The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map
That Gave America Its Name by Toby Lester, Free Press 1st Edition; 2009
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond, W.W. Norton &
Company; 1st Edition; 2005
The Human Record: Sources of Global History (Vol. 1 & 2) by Alfred Andrea, Boston:
Houghton Mifflin 5th Edition; 2005.

King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
by Adam
Hochschild, Mariner Books; 2009
Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone by Eduardo Galeano, Nation Books; 2009
Sources of the Western Tradition by Marvin Perry, et. al.Volumes 1 and 2, Houghton Mifflin
4 th
ed; 1999
Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in World Civilizations , Vol. 1 & 2, edited by Helen and Joseph Mitchell, New York: McGraw Hill 5th Edition; 2007
World History in Documents: A Comparative Reader by Peter N. Stearns, New York:
New York University Press; 1998.
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann, Vintage 1st
Edition; 2006
1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann, Knopf; 2011
Internet Resources:
Internet History Sourcebooks Project ( www.fordham.edu/halsall ) Site covers ancient, medieval, and modern history as well as thematically related texts, including African, East Asian, Islamic, and Jewish History
World History For Us All ( www.worldhistoryforusall.sdsu.edu
) Comprehensive World History curriculum and lesson plans.
New York Times Pictures of the Day. ( www.nytimes.com
) Current events and cultural photos from around the world.
Course Schedule:
Unit One: The Neolithic Revolution to 600 BCE (Congratulations! You have read these chapters! We will highlight key points in class, and then move on to Chapter 4.)
Key Concepts:
Big Geography and the Peopling of the Earth
Neolithic Revolution and Early Agricultural Societies
Development and Interactions of Early Agricultural, Pastoral, and Urban Societies
Topics for Overview:
Civilizations, Early Sumer, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Nile River Civilizations,
Indus River and Yellow River, the Americas, sub Saharan Africa, Papua
New Guinea
Strayer, Chapters 2 and 3
Unit Two: The Classical Period, 600 BCE to 600 CE (5 weeks)
Key Concepts:
Development and Codification of Religious and Cultural Traditions
Development of States and Empires
Emergence of Transregional Networks of Communication and Exchange
Topics for Overview:
Similar trends in Roman, Han, and Gupta Empires,
Contacts among major population centers
Catalyst for changes in Political, Economic and Communication Structures

Role of women and slaves
Strayer, Chapters 4-7
Unit Three: The Post Classical Period, 600 CE to 1450 CE (8 weeks)
Key Concepts:
Expansion and Intensification of Communication and Exchange Networks
Continuity and Innovation of State Forms and Their Interactions
Increased Economic Productive Capacity and Its Consequences
Topics for Overview:
The Rise and Spread of Islam (Including India, Indonesia and Africa)
Decline of Abbasid Empire
Early African Civilizations (Ghana, Mali, and Songhai)
Byzantine Empire and The Spread of Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Pre-Columbian Americas
Tang and Song Dynasties in China
Diffusion of Chinese Culture to Korea, Japan, Vietnam
The Mongol Khanates
Polynesian Migration
Indian Ocean Trade Networks
Strayer, Chapters 8-13
Unit Four: The World Shrinks, 1450 to 1750 (5 weeks)
Key Concepts:
Globalizing Networks of Communication and Exchange
New Forms of Social Organization and Modes of Production
State Consolidation and Imperial Expansion
Topics for Overview:
Becoming a world economy
Europeans to the Americas
Rise of Russia
Atlantic Slave Trade and Columbian Exchange
Emergence of Latin American Colonies
Asia and its role in Globalization
Strayer, Chapters 14-16
Unit Five: Industrialization and Western Global Hegemony, 1750 to 1900 (6 weeks)
Key Concepts:
Industrialization and Global Capitalism
Imperialism and Nation-State Formation
Nationalism, Revolution and Reform
Global Migration
Topics for Overview:
Industrialization in Western Societies
Connecting Industrialization and Empire Building
Industrialization in Japan and Russia
Age of Revolutions (America, France, Latin America, Scientific)

Decline of the Ottomans, Qing, and Islamic Heartland
Colonization
Strayer, Chapters 17-20
Unit Six: The 20 th Century, 1900 to Present (6 weeks)
Key Concepts:
Science and the Environment
Global Conflicts and Their Consequences
New Conceptualizations of Global Economy and Culture
Topics for Overview:
WWI and WWII
Russian, Chinese, and Cuban Revolutions/Communism
Cold War Conflicts
The Green Revolution
Decolonization: Africa, Asia, India
Strayer, Chapters 21-24
Attendance: (Four unexcused tardies are equivalent to one unexcused absence)
I follow CHS policies. See Handbook pages 10-11
Behavior:
I follow CHS policies. See Handbook page 19
Materials Needed:
Strayer Text (Provided)
Notebook
Folder (some students may prefer 3-ring binders. It is your personal choice)
Writing Utensil
Misc:
Electronic devices may be used for academic purposes only.
Parents and students, please access our course on Schoology. Here is the access code:
7NDFF-B6J7J. We will utilize Schoology regularly for many reasons ranging from lecture notes, links to pertinent articles, on-line or “flipped” lessons, and discussions.
Late work is accepted for half credit.
Test retakes are not accepted.
If you are absent, you will have two days per absent day to make up your work. If the work is not handed in within two days, it will be considered late and thus will earn half credit.
The same policy will hold true for tests. If you are absent the day of a test, you will have two days to make arrangements to come and take the test.

Grades are weighted as follows:
Grading
A = 100 – 93
A- = 92 – 90 (Exemplary work – 90%-100% mastery of subject goals)
C- = 72 – 70
D+ = 69 – 67
B+ = 89 – 87
D = 66 – 63 (Mediocre work – 60%-69% mastery of subject goals)
B = 86 – 83 (Proficient/thorough work –
80%-89% mastery of subject goals)
D- = 62 – 60
B- = 82 – 80
NC = 59 – 0 (Unacceptable work – less than
50% mastery of subject goals)
C+ = 79 – 77
C = 76 – 73 (Acceptable work – 70%-79% mastery of subject goals)
40% = Tests and Quizzes
30% = Homework
15% = Participation
15% = Papers/Projects
I have read and understand the expectations, objectives, responsibilities and grading for this class.
Student Name : ___________________________ Student Signature: ____________________________
Print Name
Parent Signature: __________________________ Date:_______________________________________