AP U.S. History Syllabus Development Guide · American history to the ... historical actors criticizing or justifying the economic order of the Gilded Age. ... U.S. History Syllabus

Syllabus Development Guide: AP® U.S. History

Syllabus Development Guide: AP® U.S. HistoryThe guide contains the following sections and information:

Curricular Requirements The curricular requirements are the core elements of the course. The syllabus must provide clear evidence that each requirement is fully addressed in the course.

Scoring Components Some curricular requirements consist of complex, multipart statements. These particular requirements are broken down into their component parts and restated as “scoring components.” Reviewers will look for evidence that each scoring component is included in your course.

Evaluation Guideline(s) These are the evaluation criteria that describe the level and type of evidence required to satisfy each scoring component.

Key Term(s) These ensure that certain terms or expressions within the curricular requirement or scoring component that may have multiple meanings are clearly defined.

Samples of Evidence

For each scoring component, three separate samples of evidence are provided. These statements provide clear descriptions of what acceptable evidence should look like.

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Contents Page

Curricular Requirement 1 3

Scoring Component 1a 3

Scoring Component 1b 4

Scoring Component 1c 5













Scoring Component 13a 19

Scoring Component 13b 20

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Curricular Requirement 1 The course includes a college-level U.S. history textbook, diverse primary sources, and secondary sources written by historians or scholars interpreting the past.

Scoring Component 1a The course includes a college-level U.S. history textbook.

Evaluation Guideline(s) The syllabus must cite the title, author, and publication date of a college-level U.S. history textbook.

Key Term(s) None at this time.

Samples of Evidence

1. The syllabus includes the author, title, and publication date of a college survey textbook.

2. The syllabus cites a textbook from the AP® Example Textbook List for U.S. history.

3. The syllabus cites a recently published college-level textbook for a U.S. history course.

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Scoring Component 1b The course includes diverse primary sources consisting of written documents, maps, images, quantitative data (charts, graphs, tables), and works of art.

Evaluation Guideline(s) The syllabus must cite specific examples of primary sources from each of the following categories: 1. Written documents (textual); 2. Maps; 3. Visual (images, artwork, artifacts, films); 4. Quantitative data (charts, graphs, tables).

Key Term(s) Images: could include political cartoons and photographs.

Textual documents: letters, diaries, contemporary newspapers, and government reports.

Samples of Evidence

1. The syllabus assignments regularly include analysis of specific written documents (i.e., Federalist No. 10), maps (i.e., map of 1968 presidential election results), quantitative evidence (i.e., a graph of unemployment during the Great Depression), and images (i.e., 1950s advertisements for consumer goods).

2. The course outline regularly assigns a wide variety of specific primary sources with titles and authors (i.e., Andrew Jackson’s veto of the Second Bank of the United States), maps (i.e., map of antebellum territorial expansion), images (i.e., Andy Warhol paintings or Thomas Nast cartoons), and quantitative data (i.e., table of stock prices from 1927–1941).

3. The syllabus regularly references an anthology of primary source readings and then cites specific sources from that anthology as well as specific sources for quantitative data, artifacts, and maps.

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Scoring Component 1c The course includes secondary sources written by historians or scholars interpreting the past.

Evaluation Guideline(s) The syllabus must assign at least two secondary sources beyond the course textbook.

The syllabus must cite the title and author of each source.

Key Term(s) Scholar: interpreter of the past who is not necessarily a historian (i.e., archeologist, sociologist, political scientist).

Samples of Evidence

1. The syllabus assigns books, excerpts, or articles by various historians such as Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy; Eric Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction; Paula Fass, The Damned and the Beautiful, on youth in the 1920s; or John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History.

2. The course outline assigns articles or book chapters by historians, such as Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States or Bruce Schulman’s Lyndon B. Johnson and American Liberalism.

3. The syllabus assigns excerpts from two different historical interpretations of a historical event such as Bernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution and Gordon Wood’s The Radicalism of the American Revolution.

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Curricular Requirement 2 Each of the course historical periods receives explicit attention.

Evaluation Guideline(s) The syllabus must show explicit evidence of instruction in all nine periods extending from pre-Columbian North American history to the present.


Samples of Evidence

1. The syllabus lists textbook chapter headings that cover the complete chronological scope of each period.

2. Each syllabus unit includes a culminating activity or assignment that assesses student understanding of each of the nine periods as a whole.

3. The syllabus is organized by periods and clearly indicates readings and assignments that begin with the pre-Columbian period and end in the present day.

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Curricular Requirement 3 The course provides opportunities for students to apply detailed and specific knowledge (such as names, chronology, facts, and events) to broader historical understandings.

Evaluation Guideline(s) The syllabus must describe at least one activity or assignment requiring students to apply detailed and specific knowledge (such as names, chronology, facts, and events) to broader historical understandings.


Samples of Evidence

1. Students give an oral presentation explaining how the actions of specific colonial leaders did or did not influence the outcome of the American Revolution.

2. Students engage in a role-playing debate between different historical actors criticizing or justifying the economic order of the Gilded Age.

3. Students write an essay explaining how and why the Tennessee Valley Authority demonstrated the larger goals of the New Deal.

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Curricular Requirement 4 The course provides students with opportunities for instruction in the learning objectives in each of the seven themes throughout the course, as described in the AP U.S. History curriculum framework.

Evaluation Guideline(s) The syllabus must include a minimum of one student activity for each of the seven themes. Each of these activities must state which learning objective is being met through the activity.


Samples of Evidence

1. The course outline describes specific activities related to each of the themes at relevant points in the course. For instance:

• Theme 1 (ID-1) — In lectures, the teacher shows students works of poetry and painting made by American artists in the first half of the 19th century and asks students to evaluate each work for its expression of ideas of American national identity.

• Theme 2 (WXT-4) — Working in groups, students develop a class presentation that analyzes reasons for the development of different labor systems in any two of the following regions of British colonial settlement: New England, the Chesapeake, the southernmost Atlantic coast, and the British West Indies.

• Theme 3 (PEO-7) — Students use a graphic organizer to compare and contrast the causes and goals of each act as described in excerpts from the 1924, 1965, and 1990 Immigration Acts.

• Theme 4 (POL-3) — After reading the work of historians Richard Hofstadter and Ronald G. Walters, students are asked to write an essay agreeing or disagreeing with Hofstadter’s arguments by referencing one reform movement from the antebellum or progressive eras.

• Theme 5 (WOR-5) — Students read the sources in a document-based question on the Mexican-American War and engage in a classroom debate on President Polk’s motives for entering the war.

• Theme 6 (ENV-5) — Students create an annotated time line for the creation of five major national parks since the late 19th century and explain a) the rationale for the creation of each park, and b) the opposition (if any) that each park’s creation faced.

• Theme 7 (CUL-6) — Students examine the writing and photographs of Jacob Riis, Lewis Hine, and other progressive era writers and create a mock exposé of urban social conditions in the early 20th century.

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2. Student assessments are connected explicitly to the seven AP U.S. History themes. For instance:

• Theme 1 (ID-4) — Students engage in a debate over the question, “Did the Revolution assert British rights or did it create an American national identity?”

• Theme 2 (WXT-1) — Students compare and contrast the presentation of European colonization efforts in a U.S. history and a world history textbook and debate the approach used by each discipline.

• Theme 3 (PEO-7) — Students create political cartoons comparing and contrasting attitudes toward immigrants in the 1920s and the present.

• Theme 4 (POL-3) — Students are given an assignment to research one antebellum reform movement and explain how it fit into broader patterns of antebellum reform.

• Theme 5 (WOR-5) — Students read excerpts from the work of historians Reginald Horsman, Sean Wilentz, and Sam Haynes and write an essay using evidence to justify which perspective they believe the most convincing account of Manifest Destiny.

• Theme 6 (ENV-5) — Students write a mock op-ed article for or against drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that cites precedents in U.S. law and history to justify their position.

• Theme 7 (CUL-6) — Students read a “living newspaper” produced under the auspices of the WPA and debate whether or not it constitutes propaganda for the New Deal.

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(continued from previous page)

3. The syllabus specifically shows how student activities explore the themes at relevant points in the schedule. For instance:

• Theme 1 (ID-1) — After reading the work of historian Gordon Wood, students write an essay analyzing the degree to which the Constitution reflected an emerging sense of American national identity.

• Theme 2 (WXT-1) — Students make a museum map tracing the impact of the Columbian Exchange with reference to specific commodities, then provide a curator’s comment explaining the importance of the commodities to both Old World and New.

• Theme 3 (PEO-2) — Students examine a map of reported ancestry on the 2000 Census and engage in small-group research teams to report on the causes for the settlement patterns revealed in the map.

• Theme 4 (POL-7) — Students construct a time line of the civil rights movement from Reconstruction to the 1970s and annotate key turning points in the movement.

• Theme 5 (WOR-7) — Students create a political cartoon arguing for or against annexation of Cuba after the Spanish-American War and create an accompanying editorial paragraph.

• Theme 6 (ENV-5) — Students write an essay asking what role the acquisition of natural resources has played in U.S. foreign policy decisions since the late 19th century.

• Theme 7 (CUL-6) — Students write an essay debating the role of popular music in affecting public attitudes toward the Vietnam War.

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Curricular Requirement 5 The course provides opportunities for students to develop coherent written arguments that have a thesis supported by relevant historical evidence. — Historical argumentation

Evaluation Guideline(s) The syllabus must describe at least two essay assignments requiring students to develop written arguments that have a thesis supported by relevant historical evidence.


Samples of Evidence

1. Using evidence from Howard Zinn, the textbook, and the writings of Abigail Adams, students write an essay, which includes a thesis statement, arguing for or against the revolutionary nature of the new republic.

Students use both primary and secondary sources to construct an argument, which includes a thesis statement, about exactly what changed in U.S. politics and society as a result of World War II.

2. Students write an essay, which includes a thesis statement, arguing for or against the idea that the Civil War was an inevitable outcome of the American Revolution.

Students write an essay, which includes a thesis statement, comparing and contrasting the strategies and outcomes of African American civil rights efforts in the 1860s-70s and the 1950s-60s.

3. Students write an essay, which includes a thesis statement, assessing the degree to which innovations in markets, transportation, and technology affected the economy and the different regions of North America from the colonial period through the end of the Civil War.

Students write an essay, which includes a thesis statement, assessing how changes in transportation, technology, and the integration of the U.S. economy into world markets have influenced U.S. society since the Gilded Age.

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Curricular Requirement 6 The course provides opportunities for students to identify and evaluate diverse historical interpretations. —Interpretation

Evaluation Guideline(s) The syllabus must describe at least one assignment or activity in which students evaluate a minimum of two interpretations by scholars beyond the textbook.

The syllabus must cite the sources used for the assignment or activity.

Key Term(s) Scholar: interpreter of the past who is not necessarily a historian (i.e., archeologist, sociologist, political scientist).

Samples of Evidence

1. Using the textbook and Major Problems in American History, Vol. II, students complete a graphic organizer that compares and contrasts the historical interpretations of David Kennedy and Burton Folsom on the effectiveness of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies.

2. Students write an essay that shows the evolution of historical interpretation of the origins of the Constitution by comparing the viewpoints expressed in historical works such as Charles Beard’s An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, Forrest McDonald’s We the People, Gordon Wood’s article “Interests and Disinterestedness in the Making of the Constitution,” and Jack Rakove’s Original Meanings.

3. Students participate in a debate in which they analyze different interpretations of slave society in the South, drawing on Eugene Genovese’s Roll, Jordan, Roll, Stephanie McCurry’s Masters of Small Worlds, and James Oakes’s Slavery and Freedom.

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Curricular Requirement 7 The course provides opportunities for students to analyze evidence about the past from diverse sources, such as written documents, maps, images, quantitative data (charts, graphs, tables), and works of art. — Appropriate use of historical evidence

Evaluation Guideline(s) The syllabus must describe at least one assignment or activity requiring students to analyze primary source(s) for two or more of the following features: audience, purpose, point of view, format, argument, limitations, and context germane to the evidence considered.

The syllabus must cite the sources used for the assignment or activity.


Samples of Evidence

1. Students analyze and contrast political cartoons found in major American publications (i.e., The Washington Post, The Nation, National Review) from the perspectives of hawks and doves on the Vietnam War. Additionally, students will describe the historical context of the cartoons and the points of view of the cartoonists.

2. Using the SOAPSTone handout, students analyze and contrast oral histories from the Great Depression such as Studs Terkel’s Hard Times and the WPA slave narratives.

3. Students are asked to compare and analyze transcripts of speeches by Emma Goldman and Susan B. Anthony on the meaning of women’s suffrage. Students will turn in written briefs of their work based on the APPARTS strategy.

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Curricular Requirement 8 The course provides opportunities for students to examine relationships between causes and consequences of events or processes. — Historical causation

Evaluation Guideline(s) The syllabus must describe at least one activity or assignment that explicitly addresses both causes and effects. The activity or assignment must allow students to evaluate the relationship between multiple causes and effects of a historical event.


1. Students analyze the factors that led to Abraham Lincoln’s issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation and its resulting impacts on the Union’s war effort.

2. Students write an essay responding to the question: In terms of causes and effects, what historical developments made the American Revolution inevitable?

3. Throughout the course, students are asked to identify multiple causes and consequences of major historical events such as Native American resistance to westward expansion, American imperialism, the post-war civil rights movement, or the Watergate scandal.

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Curricular Requirement 9 The course provides opportunities for students to identify and analyze patterns of continuity and change over time and connect them to larger historical processes or themes. — Patterns of change and continuity over time

Evaluation Guideline(s) The syllabus must describe or explain at least one activity or assignment requiring students to identify historical patterns of continuity and change across or within specified time periods within the U.S.

The syllabus must explicitly connect these patterns to a larger historical process or theme.


Samples of Evidence

1. Students write an essay in which they assess the impact of North American and overseas territorial expansion on popular beliefs about American national destiny in the 19th century.

2. Students participate in group work and complete a written assignment that examines slavery and work within the larger context of the black African diaspora in the 18th and 19th centuries, focusing on work and race as guiding concepts.

3. Students create a “before and after” cartoon illustrating the effects of the Second World War on the movement for African American civil rights.

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Curricular Requirement 10 The course provides opportunities for students to investigate and construct different models of historical periodization. — Periodization

Evaluation Guideline(s) The syllabus must describe at least one activity or assignment where students explain ways that historical events and processes can be arranged within blocks of time.


Samples of Evidence

1. In an essay, students present arguments for two different sets of beginning and ending dates for an era (e.g., the American Revolution, Reconstruction), linking them to the thematic focus of the historical narrative — political, economic, social, cultural, intellectual, or diplomatic.

2. Students engage in class debate analyzing the extent to which the Spanish American War was a turning point in the history of U.S. foreign relations.

3. Students create a time line of the African American civil rights movement in which they justify an argument for when it began.

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Curricular Requirement 11 The course provides opportunities for students to compare historical developments across or within societies in various chronological and geographical contexts. — Comparison

Evaluation Guideline(s) The syllabus must describe at least one assignment or activity requiring students to compare related historical developments and processes across regions, periods, or societies (or within one society).

Key Term(s) Societies: examples could include social groups such as women, Native Americans, African Americans, immigrants, etc.

Samples of Evidence

1. In an essay, students compare and contrast cultural values of British, French, Spanish, and Native American societies in the colonial era.

2. Students compare the labor movement from the post-Civil War period to the present, being sure to examine the North, South, and West.

3. Students write an essay that compares and contrasts progressive reformers’ views of Americanization with immigrants’ views of Americanization.

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Curricular Requirement 12 The course provides opportunities for students to connect historical developments to specific circumstances of time and place, and to broader regional, national, or global processes. — Contextualization

Evaluation Guideline(s) The syllabus must describe at least one assignment or activity requiring students to connect historical phenomena or processes to either specific circumstances of time and place or to broader regional, national, or global processes.


1. Students write an essay in which they evaluate the impact of the Columbian Exchange on Native Americans in North America during the 16th century.

2. Students engage in a class discussion that compares and contrasts American and European imperialism between 1880 and 1914.

3. Students are asked to present their research on why the American Indian Movement emerged in the 1960s and not the 1930s.

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Curricular Requirement 13 The course provides opportunities for students to combine disparate, sometimes contradictory evidence from primary sources and secondary works in order to create a persuasive understanding of the past, and to apply insights about the past to other historical contexts or circumstances, including the present. — Synthesis

Scoring Component 13a The course provides opportunities for students to combine disparate, sometimes contradictory evidence from primary sources and secondary works in order to create a persuasive understanding of the past.

Evaluation Guideline(s) The syllabus must describe an activity or assignment in which students construct a persuasive understanding of disparate evidence.

Key Term(s) Disparate: different types of evidence, which can also be contradictory.

1. Students examine competing primary source accounts of the Boston Massacre, compare them to the textbook account of the incident, and formulate an argument regarding how we know “what really happened” in that event.

2. Using primary sources from Northern wage workers, Southern slaves, abolitionists, and slave masters, as well as the textbook, students debate the working conditions in the pre-Civil War era.

3. Students write an essay on the lives of Gilded Age workers that asks them to compare quantitative evidence about wages with the conclusions reached by Progressive Era social investigators.

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Curricular Requirement 13 The course provides opportunities for students to combine disparate, sometimes contradictory evidence from primary sources and secondary works in order to create a persuasive understanding of the past, and to apply insights about the past to other historical contexts or circumstances, including the present. — Synthesis

Scoring Component 13b The course provides opportunities for students to apply insights about the past to other historical contexts or circumstances, including the present.

Evaluation Guideline(s) The syllabus must describe an activity or assignment in which students apply insights about the past to other historical contexts.


Samples of Evidence

1. Students engage in a group discussion over the degree to which debates over immigration in the early 20th century are similar to, or different from, debates over immigration today.

2. After reading historians’ accounts of Reconstruction from different eras, students stage a classroom discussion on how contemporary events can affect the historical narratives constructed by scholars of the past.

3. Students write an essay in which they argue about the extent to which the tensions that affected the drafting of the Constitution remained relevant to the political debates of the late 19th century.

Documents

AP U.S. History Syllabus Development Guide · American history to the ... historical actors criticizing or justifying the economic order of the Gilded Age. ... U.S. History Syllabus