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Question for My Fellow AP Teachers: How much review?

Drew Fortune

How much historical review do you incorporate before diving into the AP curriculum? Do you dedicate time to cover key foundational events and themes, or do you prefer to weave review into the course as you go?

For context, this is my second year teaching AP World History. It’s a semester course aimed at freshmen, framed as an introduction to the Social Studies AP progression we offer for the Capstone program.

I’m spending a week focusing on skills while introducing themes like Early Humans, Civilizations, Belief Systems, and Collapse. My goal is to provide some historical background before jumping into the core curriculum next week.

What strategies have worked best for you to prepare students for the depth and pace of AP-level material? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

  • Thanks for starting this thread  ! I'm in my 4th year teaching AP World and it's a sophomore class at my school so my students come in with some foundation from 9th grade. I do a brief review at the beginning of the year (less on content and more on the skills using OER's different skill activities). As far as foundational events or themes, I usually make sure to highlight 1-2 topics per region of the world prior to 1200 (i.e. creation of Islam in the Middle East, Buddhism & its spread throughout East/SE Asia, etc.). I use a lot of the readings from other OER courses and our textbook (Strayer & Nelson Ways of the World 4th edition) to review these key concepts. Hope this helps!

  • It looks Marcella and I take a similar approach. I start Unit 1 with an explanation of periodization and why the course starts in 1200(ish), but note that I will occasionally step back a bit further to provide relevant context. For example, I'll give students a quick review of early Chinese dynasties before teaching about the Song and recap Hinduism before teaching about its influences on state formation in South and Southeast Asia.