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Welcome to our AP US History site!



Malden High School - Advanced Placement United States History Teacher: Mr. Max - Room: D445 Email me: bmax@malden.mec.edu

Welcome to AP US History, this will be an interesting, challenging, and rewarding experience for you. Are you ready for the challenge? Take a minute to think about why you are taking this course. As far as I am concerned, the goals for students in this course are;
 * to become a better thinker
 * to become a more aware and engaged citizen
 * to learn more history, its importance and its relevance
 * to enhance reading, writing, and verbal skills
 * to develop better organizational and time management skills
 * to become better prepared for other AP courses, college, and beyond
 * to perform well on the AP Exam and earn college credit

This is designed as a college-level course, in which there will be a great deal of responsibility on you, the students, to read, write, and think; both in and out of class. While the workload will be heavy, the rewards will be significant. Through acquisition of content knowledge and progress in reading, writing, verbal, and critical thinking skills, each of you will develop as a thinker, student, and citizen. Beside the heavier workload, the difference between this class and other high school classes is the level of thinking that you will be doing. On the AP/College level, you are asked to think critically and to analyze to a greater degree. You will be constantly asking questions such as: **Why is this important? How does this show a change from what came before? What might be the different perspectives on this event/issue? Who will be affected by this?** **You must be able to make connections across topics and time periods, to see trends, themes and changes, to interpret both short and long term consequences. Pay attention to what is going on in the world today - everything happening has a connection to what we are studying this year.** What you get from this course is dependent upon what you put into it. Along with the goal of improved student skills is the goal of success on the AP Exam in the spring. The rigorous preparations that we will engage in will better prepare you for the exam as well as your future educational, work, and life endeavors. Many successful AP students later say that college courses are more manageable due to the habits and skills developed through their AP work.

This course is divided into periods of time and themes throughout American history. To be successful, you will need to be organized and motivated. Push yourself to become a historian – meaning that you think about the issues, events, and people that you encounter in your studies and that you __develop your own beliefs__ about the course of history: **What do you think American history is all about? What do you think has/have been the driving force(s) behind the course of events in U.S. history?** The more content knowledge you acquire, the better equipped you will be to answer these questions. The key to being a historian – a thinker, really – is the continued processes of acquiring factual knowledge and analyzing/evaluating/connecting every piece of information that you come across. There will be countless opportunities to form and express opinions, so get ready to read, think, write, and speak up.

You may consider [|History.com] our unofficial online textbook.

 * AP US History is a course designed by an organization called The College Board. This organization runs the AP courses, as well as SATs and other important exams. Its site has a great deal of helpful information about getting ready for and applying to college. The College Board sets the curriculum for the course and creates and scores the exams. The course description for AP US History has a lot of helpful information about this course and what you can expect***