AP® U.S. History

Basic & On Demand

Enrollment for Basic and On Demand courses is open on a rolling basis.

Plus

Teachers can use the complete Plus course curriculum for flexible instruction.

Course Summary

Investigate the people, places, policies, and events that shaped the United States from the fifteenth century to the present. Explore connections across historical developments from different eras and locations by examining the following themes: America and national identity; politics and power; work, exchange, and technology; culture and society; migration and settlement; geography and the environment; and America in the world. In this course, students engage with content and assignments that facilitate historical inquiry, including writing responses to long essay questions, responding to short-answer questions, and analyzing primary source documents.

This course prepares students for the AP® U.S. History exam.

Course Prerequisite(s): There are no prerequisites for this course. Students should be able to read a college-level textbook and write grammatically correct sentences. In addition, students should be able to analyze images, think critically and write essays using evidence.

Curriculum

This is a 2-semester course. We do not recommend taking both semesters simultaneously.

Semester 1

Unit 1: North American New World

Exploring and Settling the Americas (1492 - 1600)
The English Colonies (1607 - 1750)
Colonial North America (1650 - 1763)

Unit 2: New Nation in Formation

Rebellion in the Colonies (1763 - 1775)
Revolution and Aftermath (1775 - 1783)

Unit 3: A Nation's Foundation

Governing the Republic (1787 - 1800)
Expansion and Engagement (1800 - 1815)

Unit 4: Mountains to Prairies

Land, Laws, and Labor (1815 - 1850)
People and Places (1830 - 1860)
Democracy and Debate (1820 - 1850)

Unit 5: A Complex Country

Beyond Belief (1820 - 1860)
Territorial Shifts to Sectional Tensions (1820 - 1860)

Unit 6: Bloodshed to Rebonding

The American Civil War (1860 - 1865)
Reconstruction Road (1865 - 1877)

Semester 2

Unit 7: New Frontiers and New Challenges

Town and Country (1860 - 1900)
Reform and the Nation (1870 - 1914)

Unit 8: America on the World Stage

Imperial Nation (1870 - 1914)
War Time (1914 - 1920)

Unit 9: Riches, Rags, and Recovery

Roar Time (1920 - 1929)
Rock Bottom to Bounce Back (1929 - 1939)

Unit 10: America the Superpower

The Second World War (1939 - 1945)
Cold War Fronts and Homefront Comforts (1939 - 1945)

Unit 11: Times of Turbulence

Tensions Foreign and Domestic (1959 - 1970)
Civil Rights and Civic Regards (1954 - 1979)

Unit 12: America 2.0

American Malaise (1970 - 1980)
Turn of a Century (1980 - 1999)
American Millennium (2000 - present)