Teaching AP World History as one long essay

AP World HistoryTeaching
Written By Anti-Social Studies .

AP World History: Modern can be incredibly overwhelming, for new and experienced teachers alike. Even with the College Board cutting out thousands of years of content, we still are expected to cover 800 years of history across the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia. Oh yeah, and in a way students actually understand.

Last year I had an epiphany that could make teaching AP World History simpler: the entire AP World History course is organized as one giant LEQ.

Hear me out…

The Prompt: Evaluate the extent to which modern World History has been defined by competition between the “East” and the “West.”

If we take the above prompt as the overarching question of the course, then look at how nicely all of the units fit into a traditional LEQ outline:

Introduction/Contextualization

  • Traditional state building methods (Unit 1) 

  • Increasing connection across Afro-Eurasia that will lead to the meeting of “East” and “West” (Unit 2)

Body Paragraphs

  • Land-Based Empires in Afro-Eurasia (Unit 3)
    vs. Maritime Empires in the West (Unit 4)

  • The Age of “Modernity” in the West (Unit 5)
    vs. Declining / Colonized States in Africa and Asia (Unit 6)

  • Global Conflict Amongst the “Modern” Powers (Unit 7)

  • Cold War Conflict between the New “East” and “West” (Unit 8)

Conclusion

  • Impact of technological advancements on traditional distinctions between world regions (Unit 9)

This approach aligns with the College Board’s Course and Exam Description, which tells us that the most important (and most tested) units are Units 3-8.

Keep in mind also that with a prompt that asks students to “Evaluate the extent to which…” it leaves the door open for a discussion of the ways the course does NOT fit this “East” vs. “West” binary.

Does this solve all of our problems and make the course a piece of cake to teach to fifteen-year-olds? No definitely not. But the more we can streamline and organize our content in a way that is more manageable, the more easily we can get to the fun part: exploring world history with our students.

Anti-Social Studies .