This page is your guide to classroom expectations, assignments, and other useful information to help you in your quest to succeed in passing the redesigned Advanced Placement exam in European History. You will also find tidbits to help you improve your writing and master historical research. Use the tabs above to navigate historical time periods, find AP test review, access the class blog, and retrieve your summer assignment.
Have a great year!
The Historical Periods that you will be studying this year... The course outline is structured around the investigation of course themes and key concepts in nine chronological periods. This outline is also included in the College Board’s AP United States History Course and Exam Description:
Unit 1. 1450-1648 – includes the crises of the Late Middle Ages, the rise of humanism, the Renaissance & the Scientific Revolution, the rise of the New Monarchs, the Age of Exploration, the Protestant Reformation & the Age of Religious Wars, absolutism & constitutionalism, and 16th &17th century economics and its impact on society.
Unit 2. 1648-1815 –includes ideas & thinkers of the Enlightenment, commercial and colonial rivalry, the French Revolution, and the age of Napoleon.
Unit 3. 1815-1914 – includes the Industrial Revolution, the conservative order, liberalism and the challenges of reform, the age of nation-states, New Imperialism, 19th century social changes, and intellectual and art movements.
Unit 4. 1914-present –includes WWI, the interwar period, WWII, the Cold War and emergence of the New Europe, and the West at the dawn of the 21st century
You will be mastering Historical Thinking Skills: These are the skills which students will practice throughout the course of the year. Rather than simply memorizing factual information, students will be expected to develop habits of work and mind of an historian.
Causation
Patterns of Continuity and Change over Time
Periodization
Comparison
Contextualization
Historical Argumentation
Use of Relevant Historical Evidence
Interpretation
Synthesis
You will learn Historical Themes: When studying history throughout the course of the year, you should be examining how these themes change over time, why these themes change over time, and the effect they have on European history and society.
