Themes in AP U



Themes in AP U.S. History

The Test Development Committee of the College Board has encouraged the close examination of twelve themes in U.S. History. These themes will be incorporated into each unit of study throughout the course of the year. Students should familiarize themselves with each of these themes and consider them both within and between units. Students should attempt to ascertain the “change over time” that each of the themes undergoes in the progression of U.S. History, but they should also be aware of the interactions of these themes on each other both within and between units of study. The suggested themes follow:

American Diversity

The diversity of the American people and the relationships among different groups. The roles of race, class, ethnicity, and gender in the history of the United States.

American Identity

Views of the American national character and ideas about American exceptionalism. Recognizing regional differences within the context of what it means to be an American.

Culture

Diverse individual and collective expressions through literature, art, philosophy, music, theater, and film throughout U.S. history. Popular culture and the dimensions of cultural conflict within American society.

Demographic Changes

Changes in birth, marriage, and death rates; life expectancy and family patterns; population size and density. The economic, social, and political effects of immigration internal migration, and migration networks.

Economic Transformations

Changes in trade, commerce, and technology across time. The effects of capitalist development, labor and unions, and consumerism.

Environment

Ideas about the consumption and conservation of natural resources. The impact of population growth, industrialization, pollution, and urban and suburban expansion.

Globalization

Engagement with the rest of the world from the fifteenth century to the present: colonialism, mercantilism, global hegemony, development of markets, imperialism, cultural exchange.

Politics and Citizenship

Colonial and revolutionary legacies, American political traditions, growth of democracy, and the development of the modern state. Defining citizenship; struggles for civil rights.

Reform

Diverse movements focusing on a broad range of issues, including anti-slavery, education, labor, temperance, women’s rights, civil rights, gay rights, was public health, and government.

Religion

The variety of religious beliefs and practices in America from prehistory to the twenty-first century; influence of religion on politics, economics, and society.

Slavery and Its Legacies in North American

Systems of slave labor and other forms of unfree labor (e.g., indentured servitude, contract labor) in Native American societies, the Atlantic World, and the American South and West. The economics of slavery and its racial dimensions. Patterns of resistance and the long-term economic, political, and social effects of slavery.

War and Diplomacy

Armed conflict from the pre-colonial period to the twenty-first century; impact of war on American foreign policy and on politics, economy, and society.

Organizing Principles

1. Between 1607 and 1763, the British North American colonies developed experience in, and the expectation of self-government in the political, religious, economic, and social aspects of life.

2. Between 1763 and 1776, British attempts to exert control over the colonies led to violent, organized, successful resistance.

3. The Articles of Confederation provided a reasonable and workable transition from the unitary system of British rule to the federal system established under the Constitution.

4. Between 1789 and 1820, conflict over the increasing power of the national government created intensified sectional tension.

5. Between 1789 and 1823, geographic isolation allowed the United States to pursue a policy of selective involvement in world affairs.

6. During the "Reign of Jackson," politics became more democratic, the power of the presidency increased, America became more optimistic and expansionistic, and sectionalism supplanted nationalism.

7. The Civil War was caused by historic economic, social, and political sectional differences that were further emotionalized by the slavery issue.

8. The Civil War effectively determined the nature of the Union, the economic direction of the United States, and political control of the country.

9. The Gilded Age fostered the consolidation of business, the government, and disadvantaged economic and social classes.

10. From 1890 to 1918, the United States became increasingly active and aggressive in world affairs.

11. The Progressive movement partially succeeded in improving life for average Americans by curbing big business, making the government more responsive to the will of the people, and enacting social welfare legislation.

12. Disillusionment with the idealism of World War I led Americans to fear change and difference and to retreat into a superficial shell of self-satisfaction.

13. The Great Depression and New Deal led to the expectation of government intervention to maintain the economic stability of the nation.

14. Between World War II and 1960, the New Deal philosophy that the government was a legitimate agent of social welfare became firmly embedded in the American mind.

15. The Cold War led the United States to pursue an ambivalent policy of confrontation, negotiation, and preventive maintenance between 1945 and 1970.

16. Disillusionment with the increasingly violent protest of the 1960s led to the entrenchment of conservative ideology between 1968 and 1992.

17. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, America's foreign policy groped for ways to promote world peace with minimal U.S. involvement.

18. Technological developments between 1950 and 2000 radically altered the economic, social, and moral fiber of

the nation.

The Structure of the AP U.S. History Exam

Multiple choice:

• 80 multiple choice questions

• 55 minutes

• 50% of the total exam

Five minute break between multiple choice and free response section

Free response section:

• 15 minute mandatory reading period

Document based question (DBQ)

• 45 minute suggested writing time

• 22.5% of total exam grade

Standard essay questions:

• Answer one question each from two groups of two questions

• 35 minute suggested writing time for each essay

• Each essay 13.75% of the total exam grade

• Generally, the first group of questions will be pre-1865

• Generally, the second group of questions will be post-1865

Neither the DBQ or any of the four essay questions will deal exclusively with the post-1980 period.

TERMS FROM MULTIPLE CHOICE EXAMS

1607-1763

indentured servants proprietary, royal, charter colonies Pilgrims/Separatists

Trade and Navigation Acts Peter Zenger trial House of Burgesses

Mayflower Compact King Philip's War Anne Hutchinson

Roger Williams George Whitefield William Bradford

Great Puritan Migration Great Awakening French and Indian War

New England Confederation Thomas Hobbes John Locke

Freedom of consciences mercantilism Iroquios Confederacy

Jonathan Edwards Bacon's Rebellion headright system

Halfway Covenant Harvard College Salutary neglect

Salem Witch trials Middle Passage Albany Plan

city on a hill Phyllis Wheatly James Oglethorpe

William Penn Puritans

1763-1775

Proclamation of 1763 Boston Tea Party Battle of Saratoga

Thomas Paine/Common Sense/ Coercive/Intolerable Acts no taxation without representation

Crisis Papers Loyalists/Tories Stamp Act

Stamp Act Congress Sons of Liberty non-importation agreements

Olive Branch Petition First/Second Continental Congress virtual representation

Pontiac's Rebellion Boston Massacre Gaspee Affair

Quartering Act Paxton Boys Sugar Act 1764

Townshend Acts Tea Act

1775-1825

Monroe Doctrine corrupt bargain Marbury v Madison

Embargo Act 1807 loose/strict constructionism Bank of the United States

Louisiana Purchase Lewis and Clark yeomen farmers

Tecumseh Gibbons v Ogden Virginia-Kentucky Resolutions

Jay Treaty Treaty of Ghent Shay's Rebellion

Whiskey Rebellion Land Ordinance of 1785 Northwest Ordinance

Gabriel Prosser's Rebellion Critical period Lowell/Walthan System/Lowell girls

Annapolis Convention XYZ Affair Erie Canal

Orders in Council War Hawks impressment

Hartford Convention cotton gin/Eli Whitney Declaration of Independence

American Colonization Society Articles of Confederation Missouri Compromise

republicanism/democracy Three-fifths Compromise Adams-Onis Treaty

interchangeable parts Deism American System

Henry Clay Revolution of 1800 Bill of rights

Washington's Farewell Address full funding/assumption Judicial Review

Connecticut (Great) Compromise Virginia/New Jersey Plans Era of Good Feelings

Barbary Pirates Samuel Slater Citizen Genet

undeclared naval war Federalist/First American Party System Alien and Sedition Acts

Treaty of Alliance 1778 Benjamin Banneker Pinckney Treaty

Treaty of Paris 1783 Haitian Rebellion National Republicans

Republican Motherhood

1825-1865

Seneca Falls Convention Trail of Tears Compromise of 1850

Dorothea Dix Emancipation Proclamation nullification

John C. Calhoun Hinton Helper/Impending Crisis William Lloyd Garrison/Liberator

Oregon Territory Dred Scott v Sandford spoils system/rotation in office

Stephen Douglas Bank war popular sovereignty

Wilmot Proviso Mexican Cession Gadsden Purchase

John Deere Cyrus McCormick American Anti-slavery Society

Maine Laws Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo Irish immigration

Making Generalizations: Construct a focused topic statement for each numbered group which expresses a main idea for which all of the items could serve as supporting information.

1. 2.

Sons of Liberty Fletcher v Peck

Non-importation agreements Whiskey Rebellion

Boston Tea Party Loose constructionism

Committees of Correspondence Assumption

Stamp Act Congress War of 1812

Gaspee Affair McCulloch v Maryland

Boston Massacre Pinckney Treaty

3. 4.

Bank War Transcendentalism

Nullification of the Tariff of 1832 Abolitionist movement

Non-enforcement of Worcester v Georgia Utopian communitarianism

Spoils System Second Great Awakening

Maysville Road veto Manifest Destiny

Mandate from the people Seneca Falls Convention

Rotation in office Movement for public education

5. 6.

Wilmot Proviso The Liberator

Kansas-Nebraska Act Harper’s Ferry raid

Freeport Doctrine Bleeding Kansas

Compromise of 1850 The Gag Rule

Ostend Manifesto Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Filibustering expeditions Fugitive Slave Law

Lecompton Constitution Dred Scott v Sandford

7. 8.

Shay's Rebellion separation of powers

Albany Plan egalitarianism

Regulator Movement disestablishment

Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions abolitionism

Paxton Boys Bills of Rights

Whiskey Rebellion separation of church and state

Burr's Conspiracy enfranchisement

9. 10.

National Origins Act NSC - 68

Scopes Trial Domino Theory

Sacco and Vanzetti Berlin Crisis

Babbit McCarthyism

H.L. Mecken Truman Doctrine

Harlem Renaissance Marshall Plan

Flappers Korean War

11. 12.

Glass-Stegall Act Seventeenth Amendment

NLRB Oregon System

Social Security Act Secret Ballot

Fair Labor Standards Act Sixteenth Amendment

Securities and Exchange Commission Commission System

Twenty-first Amendment Nineteenth Amendment

TVA Referendum

Generalization Exercise

For each of the following groups, write out one clear, concise, direct sentence which clearly expresses the change over time that the factual information listed could support (the equivalent of a topic sentence). For one bit of specific factual information, write one clear, concise, direct sentence which provides interpretive commentary (shows HOW and WHY the information supports the topic sentence).

Group 1

Stamp Act

Intolerable Acts

Proclamation of 1763

Admiralty Courts

Writes of Assistance

New York Suspending Act

Topic sentence

Interpretive commentary

Group 2

Egalitarianism

Republican Motherhood

Manumission

Primogeniture

Disestablishment

Enfranchisement

Topic sentence

Interpretive commentary

Group 3

Boston Massacre

Non-consumption Agreements

Sons of Liberty

Boston Tea Party

Suffolk Resolves

Lexington and Concord

Topic sentence

Interpretive Commentary

Group 4

Land Ordinance of 1785

Treaty of Paris of 1783

United States of America

Township system

Confederal system

Transitional phase

Topic sentence

Interpretive commentary

Group 5

Division of powers

Bill of Rights

Checks and Balances

State Constitutions

Federal system

Separation of powers

Topic sentence

Interpretive commentary

Group 6

Confederal system

Power to tax

Right of Deposit

Continentals

Northwest Forts

Interstate trade wars

Topic sentence

Interpretive commentary

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