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World History Course Requirements
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The AP Program unequivocally supports the principle that each individual school must develop its own curriculum for courses labeled "AP." Rather than mandating any one curriculum for AP courses, the AP Course Audit instead provides each AP teacher with a set of expectations that college and secondary school faculty nationwide have established for college-level courses. AP teachers are encouraged to develop or maintain their own curriculum that either includes or exceeds each of these expectations; such courses will be authorized to use the "AP" designation. Credit for the success of AP courses belongs to the individual schools and teachers that create powerful, locally designed AP curricula.
The AP World History course should be designed by your school to provide students with a learning experience equivalent to that of an introductory college course in world history. The purpose of your course should be to understand the evolution of global processes and contacts, in interaction with different types of human societies. Your course should highlight the nature of changes and continuities over time and their causes and consequences, as well as comparisons among major societies. Students develop analytic skills through exposure to historical documents, visual and statistical evidence, and conflicting interpretations.
There are no specific curricular prerequisites for students taking AP World History.
All students who are willing to accept the challenge of a rigorous academic curriculum should be considered for admission to AP courses. The College Board encourages the elimination of barriers that restrict access to AP courses for students from ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in the AP Program. Schools should make every effort to ensure that their AP classes reflect the diversity of their student population.
High schools offering this exam must provide the exam administration resources described in the AP Coordinator's Manual.
Requirements
To request authorization to label a course "AP," complete the following two steps:
- Complete and submit an AP Course Audit form, on which the teacher and principal attest that their course includes or exceeds the following curricular requirements delineated by college and university faculty.
- Submit an electronic copy of the course syllabus that demonstrates inclusion or improvement on the curricular requirements (see Syllabus Preparation Guidelines). If your course does not include one or more of the curricular requirements but merits designation as a college-level course, see Instructions for Submitting Materials for the process for describing alternate approaches to the course.
 Syllabus Preparation Guidelines
Instructions for Teachers
Instructions on how to submit AP Course Audit materials via the Web will be posted on AP Central and mailed to principals in January 2007.
Curricular Requirements
- The teacher has read the most recent AP World History Course Description available as a free download on the AP World History Course Home Page.
AP World History Course Home Page
- Periodization guidelines are used to select relevant course content from 8000 B.C.E. to the present.
- The five overarching themes articulated in the Course Description receive approximately equal attention throughout the course. The course requires students to engage with the dynamics of continuity and change across the historical periods that are included in the course.
- The course provides balanced global coverage, with Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe all represented. No more than 30% of course time is devoted to European history.
- The course teaches students to analyze evidence and interpretations presented in historical scholarship.
- The course includes extensive instruction in analysis and interpretation of a wide variety of primary sources, such as documentary material, maps, statistical tables, works of art, and pictorial and graphic materials.
- The course provides students with frequent practice in writing analytical and interpretive essays such as document-based questions (DBQ) and thematic essays addressing issues of change, continuity, and comparison (see the Course Description for more information).
Resource Requirements
- The school ensures that each student has a college-level world history textbook (supplemented when necessary to meet the curricular requirements) for individual use inside and outside of the classroom.
- The school ensures that each student has copies of primary sources and other instructional materials used in the course for individual use inside and outside of the classroom.
- The school ensures that students have access to support materials for the AP World History course, including scholarly, college-level works that correspond with course themes; as well as standard reference works such as encyclopedias, atlases, collections of historical documents, and statistical compendiums, either in a school or public library or via the Internet.
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