Every few years, I revisit how I teach AP World. While the curriculum itself rarely changes, the students and the broader context always do. My most recent iteration of the course was designed around 85-minute blocks.

This past year, however, I’ve been working with 70-minute blocks—substantially less than what’s typically expected for a full Carnegie unit. This shift has forced me to make some difficult cuts of illustrative examples and reduce time devoted to skill-based practice. It’s also meant rushing through some lessons simply to maintain existing activities without having the time to adjust them meaningfully.

Next year, I’ll have 75-minute blocks, which gives me a bit of breathing room. Still, I know I need to review how I unpack the curriculum to better align with the realities of my schedule. As seat time has shrunk, I’ve realized that many of the things I’ve cut are the very strategies and resources I once relied on to help students go deeper.

As part of my redesign, I’ll be exploring how to re-integrate those elements next year. This post includes several of the tools and topics—some that I’ve used in the past, others I continue to rely on—that support deeper historical thinking in the AP World classroom.

Ibn Khaldun, Peter Turchin, and Assabiyah

Ibn Khaldun and his theories of social cohesion are a cornerstone of how I teach AP World. I’ve written about this before. His cyclical theories on the rise and fall of empires, later expanded upon by Peter Turchin, provide an analytical framework that can add depth to nearly every unit in the course.

At first, students tend to overreach. They try a bit too hard to apply the model and sometimes shoehorn it awkwardly into discussions. But by second semester, the payoff is clear: their use of the framework becomes more natural, more nuanced, and insightful.

The Black Death and Biology Connections

Some time ago I came across an excerpt from Dorothy H. Crawford’s Deadly Companions. I have since read the entire book, but the excerpt has been a perfect bridge between world history and biology. Chapter 4 begins with a treatment of the Black Death and explores how the spread of disease was facilitated historically by urbanization and social inequality. There are great opportunities to discuss both causation and contextualization throughout.

I’ve typically used this excerpt in the early units of the course, but I’ve often wondered about reintroducing it in Unit 9. It could pair well with the Spanish Flu DBQ and a discussion of COVID. I imagine it would also make for an interesting Harkness. Connections like this can offer a nice surprise for the science-minded students who take AP World simply because its an advanced course. History can be for them too!

Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World

I haven’t required a summer assignment in several years. Even as I continue to grapple with reduced seat time, I’m hesitant to compensate by encroaching on summer break. Philosophically, I also struggle with the idea of grading something I haven’t had the chance to teach. Not to mention that without a grade attached, the assignment has to be something students clearly see as valuable to the course. That’s a challenging balance to strike.

The last time I did a summer assignment, it was a book read of Thomas Madden’s Istanbul. I love the idea of a book that is a history of a location. The skill of continuity and change over time jumps off the pages so clearly for the students. The students arrived on Day 1 having read it and I spent the first few classes working through the content and using the book to introduce course skills. It was never the completely successful start to the year that I imagined.

If I return to a book read, it will be one like this that covers content from across the course. Instead of making it a summer assignment, I would likely assign it in chunks as supplemental reading for our regular Harkness discussions. I believe in creating opportunities for students to read proper history. They need models of professionals doing the same skills they are learning.

The Imperialism of Free Trade

An article from 1953 is a little dated, but John Gallagher’s Imperialism of Free Trade is a great entry point into historiography. By Unit 6, students are increasingly capable in their analytical skills, and the content is “modern” enough that frequent contemporary connections get really interesting. Unit 6 is also my favorite to teach, so I also tend to stretch the pacing here a little more than I probably should.

Gallagher’s essay explores what at the time was a newer lens of analyzing imperial history, that of informal empire. By shifting the lens of analysis, Gallagher finds new continuities in British imperial history and emphasizes economic motivations. His methodology has been the starting point for how I approach unpacking Unit 6 for students. I want them to analyze the goals of empire alongside various imperial strategies and understand that power can be exercised and legitimacy built in both direct and indirect ways.

Gallagher’s writing is within reach of high school students and clearly illustrates many of the skills in the CED. In my experience, students appreciate a challenge. Not everyone will fully appreciate the extension, but creating these opportunities is important in a course that claims to be college level. Harkness discussions are always a great way to deploy these extensions alongside regular content so all students are still engaged according to their abilities.

Historiography

I did not get introduced to historiography until college. Looking back, I wish it had been woven into one of my high school courses. Without teaching historiography, it is difficult to get students to truly understand history as an interpretive act. They need models too that help anchor their understanding of the concept while providing a clear entry point into some of the more relevant schools-of-thought.

In my US History course I would often begin historiography with Howard Zinn as he is incredibly obvious in his politics and methodology. Since then, I have come to prefer introducing historiography through Cold War content. Students can easily handle the idea of Orthodox US accounts of the start of the Cold War and then the counterclaims of the Revisionist historians. However, the far more interesting reading experience comes from any of John Lewis Gaddis’ works.

AP World offers plenty of possibility for getting students into an introductory view of historiography. In fact, I am adding a historiography component to the NHD research/planning requirements for all my students next year.

Harkness Discussions

Going deeper and getting it to stick requires a delivery method other than lecture. Although there are many strategies for academic discussions, the Harkness method continues to be my favorite. Students need to engage with what they are learning without the teacher directing it. With practice, it produces richer and more nuanced discussion that is a far better use of class time than listening to my own voice. I am going to lean on more of these discussions next year to both re-integrate more depth and make up for lost seat time.