AP World History 2006-2007 - DOC - DOC

							AP World History Summer Assignment 2010 -2011
         Welcome to Advanced Placement World History. AP World History is a college-level course
offered to sophomores at McNeil. The AP World History course is divided into 5 major units of study-
8000BCE-600CE, 600-1450, 1450-1750, 1750-1914, and 1914-present. The main focus of the course is
to examine global movements through specific case studies. In addition to preparing for the AP exam,
this course is designed to give you the skills needed to be highly successful as a college student. In
preparation for the AP exam a strong emphasis is placed on writing skills as well as mastery of content.
It is the expectation of this course that you will be taking the AP World History Exam in May 2011.

       Assignments for the AP World History class are extremely challenging. The text is a college-level
textbook and is written at a significantly higher reading level than most history textbooks. AP World
History has a significantly large amount of reading assignments and students are expected to read daily
in preparation for class.

          A required text for this year will be an AP World History study guide. Students have found
these to be very helpful. These publishers produce very good guides; Barrons, Princeton Review, and
Kaplans. Most book stores and online have copies of these books. A used copy from a former student
is just fine and recommended. Just make sure it is no older than 2005-2006 as the course changed
significantly that year. Do not purchase one published by REA (Research & Education Association).

       Another excellent source for preparation in AP World History would be to begin reading
Experiencing World History by Paul Adams, Erick Langer, Lily Hwa, Peter Stearns, Merry Wiesner-Hanks.
This companion text to our textbook breaks down the information into themes and units around which
the AP course is designed. This book will give students much needed background for the AP World
History course. This book can also be purchased as a used book through many online sources.

        Access to a computer and the internet on a regular basis will be necessary for this course.
Either a home computer, access at school or a local library is sufficient. Supplies for next year will be 5-
subject spiral with pockets, black pen, pencil, highlighters.

                           AP World History Summer Assignment 2010-2011

       The summer Assignment will be a major grade and due to Turnitin.com by the second (2nd)
class meeting of the school year. Do not leave this until the end of the summer to complete. You may
submit this assignment at any time. You do not have to wait until school begins. You will also have a
short quiz or this material and a global map quiz the 2nd week of class. Save your World Geography
map tests as study guides.

       You will be turning in your typed assignment to a Turnitin.com drop box. Most of you have
created a Turnitin.com account during your freshman year. DO NOT create a new one if you already
have an account. If you did not, please create an account. Then add class: 2732308 (APWH Summer
Assignment) with password: summer10.

       There are three (3) parts to the Summer Assignment. For the assignment you will be watching
4 segments of the Annenberg Foundation Video Series “Bridging World History” and answering
questions, reading short selections from historians and scientists, completing a religions chart and
reviewing a powerpoint concerning writing in Social Studies available on either Mrs. Giblin’s or Ms.
Brooks’ Teacherweb site. Each video segment is approximately 30 minutes in length. While watching
each video segment you will be answering questions. Please remember plagiarism will not be
tolerated and will result in a zero on the assignment. You will submit parts I and II through
Turnitin.com. Part III, the chart, will be submitted in class.

Summer Assignment Part I
You can access the videos by following the directions below:

1. go to www.learner.org

2. click “View Programs”

3. Select “Bridging World History”

4. Select each video segment by clicking on the VoD box to right of video name.

UNIT 1: Maps, Time and World History – 3 tasks
Time Period: All-inclusive
This is a unit designed to provide an overall framework for the study of world history, so its
chronological scope is all-inclusive. However, it is important to note that just as European national
histories in the nineteenth century were the product of the rise of the nation-state, world history is
a product of the forces and processes of globalization in the twentieth century.

   1. Watch video: Unit 1 Maps, Time and World History.

   2. Answer questions on attached worksheet.

   3. Read the excerpt below and then write a 1-paragraph summary in your own
      words. Define any words you do not know. .

       Ross Dunn, San Diego State University

Scholars used to take it for granted that history began with writing. Writing however was invented only
about 5,500 years ago. From that time to the present represents only about 2% of modern Homo
sapiens’ earthly experience. Before writing, didn’t anything happen that we can call world history?

We know that plenty happened because historians in recent decades have reconceived historical
inquiry to embrace many types of evidence besides written words. These include the fruits of
archeology as well as the analysis of languages, climatic change, epidemiological change, and most
recently DNA. Broadening the range of evidence has freed us to investigate historical change over the
several million years since our earliest hominid ancestors appeared.

Beginning in the early 1990s, several scholars - David Christian is the best known - have argued that the
history of our species is inseparable from the earth’s changing environment. The earliest hominids
entered into a stream of biological, climatic, geological, and cosmological development already in
progress. To understand human history, you must also understand something about the environmental
context and its history. That context is ultimately not just the earth but the entire universe and the
historical starting point is not writing but the Big Bang.
This way of thinking about the past has acquired its own informal name: Big History. Because big
history’s mission requires strong connections between the historical discipline and the physical and
biological sciences it’s not for everyone.

Thinking about the past on a very large scale, however, steers us toward big but significant historical
questions. What makes human beings different from other animals? Why did humans populate the
entire world and not just part of it? Why did humans suddenly take up farming after so long without it?
What makes our Modern Age different from all past ages of our species? World history education must
address many questions about change in the past 5,500 years but the biggest of the big questions are
important too.

UNIT 2: History and Memory – 3 tasks
Time Period: 1500-present
Like Unit 1, this unit is designed to provide an overall framework for the study of world history.
However, most of the case studies concern the period after 1500, and can be used to illustrate
issues resulting from European-American contact (Columbus and the reinterpretation of the Maya)
or the competing historical memories of colonialism and World War II (Korean National Museum).

    1. Watch video: Unit 2: History and Memory

    2. Answer questions on the attached sheet.

    3.   Read the excerpt below. What is Winn’s Thesis? What are his arguments? What
         evidence does he use to support his arguments? (Specifically list your response to the above
         questions, then take a position by explaining why you agree or disagree with him. )
         Peter Winn, Tufts University
All history, even ancient history is contemporary history, because each generation and group rewrites that
history in the light of their own values, perspectives, experiences and concerns.

So that even a history of the ancient Maya can be seen as having political implications for today.

The historian may feel under external- and internal-pressure to shape their histories accordingly.

This is even more likely when the subject is a contemporary history of trauma and where the sources for this
history are largely human memory.

Memory, individual and collective, is an important source for history, especially, for relating and analyzing the
historical experience of individuals and groups who are unlikely to leave written documents.

But memory can be a slippery source, particularly where traumatic or controversial events are "remembered."

Years later, people often “remember” not only what they did, but what they wish they would have done, not
what a group did, but what it should have done.

Individual and collective memories can also mix and merge in ways that raise questions of historical truth -
the answers to which are often complex and not always clear.

Rigoberta Menchu, the Maya activist who received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her work in defense of
indigenous peoples of Guatemala, wrote a famous autobiography, recounting the atrocities that she and they
suffered.

It has been attacked for making false claims as to what she personally saw and experienced and defended as
an accurate account of the collective experiences of her people.
BOTH are true.

The question for the historian is: What is the value of her testimony as a historical source?

It is a question that different historians will answer differently.

Those answers will shape their histories in different molds, creating a clash of historical interpretations.

That is why History and Memory are contested terrain.




Unit3: Human Migrations – 3 tasks
Time Period: Foundations
The major feature of world populations through time is their increasing numbers. It is likely that
many early human migrations resulted from the pressure of such demographic increases on limited
food resources; disease, drought, famine, war, and natural disaster figure among the most
important causes of early human migrations. Approximately 100,000 years ago, the first
migrations of Homo sapiens out of their African homeland likely coincided with the ability to use
spoken language and to control fire. Over the next 87,000 years humans migrated to every
continent, encompassing a wide variety of natural environments. The Americas were the last
continents to be reached by Homo sapiens, about 13,000 years ago.

    1. Watch video: Unit 3: Human Migrations

    2. Answer questions on the attached sheet .

    3. Using a thesaurus, list five words indicating change and five words indicating
       continuity.



Unit 4: Agricultural and Urban Revolutions – 4 tasks
Time Period: Foundations, especially 12,000 BCE to 100 CE
The earliest evidence for the human transition to agriculture dates from about 10,000 BCE,
although it is likely that there was experimentation before then. By 5000 BCE agriculture had
become well established in several places, including southwest Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and
the Americas. In this "Neolithic" period — or new stone age — the transition to agriculture
depended on climatic conditions and the availability of domesticable plants and animals. As a
result, not all of the peoples of the world made, or were able to make, this transition. Once
societies shifted to agriculture, social and political life was transformed. Stable, sedentary
settlements allowed population growth and the development of more complex social structures.
This, in turn, led to the development of social stratification and labor specialization, as well as the
emergence of pottery-making, metallurgy, and textile production.



    1. Watch video: Unit 4: Agricultural and Urban Revolutions

    2. Answer questions on the attached sheet .

    3. Read the Cause & Effect outline below. Using this and information learned in the
       video, create two column notes regarding this outline. Your summarization
       should be on the right side. On the left side, put key vocabulary words with
       definitions, specific cause and effect examples, and questions about any
         information you would like to know more about.    Then write a 1-paragraph
         opinion on what you feel was the greatest achievement of humans during the
         Neolithic Revolution and why.

Outline of the Causes and Effects of the Agricultural Revolution

I. Definition of the Agricultural Revolution (also called the Neolithic Revolution)
          a. Evidence of plant and animal domestication appears clearly about 10,000 years ago in the Middle East (Jericho
          and Çatal Höyük)
          b. Previously, humans gathered wild plants and hunted animals. Earlier, hominids scavenged animals killed by other
          predators.

II. Theories about the causes of the Agricultural Revolution vary.
         a. The human population increased, so more reliable sources of food were needed.
         b. The climate became more conducive to plant cultivation.
         c. The gradual experimentation by gatherers of wild plants (mostly women) led to dependence on plant cultivation.

III. Effects of the Agricultural Revolution
          a. The global population increased
                    i. World population was six to eight million around 8,000 BCE
                    ii. World population was around 300 million in 1 CE
          b. Labor divided into food-producing and non-food-producing jobs, creating hierarchies in economic and political
          organization of human societies.
          c. Social complexity increased and created greater differences in the responsibilities and powers of the genders.
          d. Population density increased leading to more diseases and a need for a higher birth rate.
          e. The types of pottery, irrigation, and metallurgy technologies increased.

Summer Assignment Part II
    1.    Review the Writing for Social Studies” PowerPoint on Mrs. Giblin’s or Ms. Brooks’ website.
         Using the information you have learned so far in this summer assignment, including any of the
         “Bridging World History” videos, create four (4) compare/contrast prompts. Write a four
         comparative thesis in response to the prompts you have created, one for each prompt.

Summer Assignment Part III
    1. Complete the Foundations in the development of World Religions Chart. You may use any accurate,
       valid information you have to complete this chart. This chart is very detailed. Vague information will
       NOT be counted as correct. You will be turning this in IN CLASS, not through Turnitin.com.