Breaking Down the APUSH Exam Historical Thinking Skills, Thematic Analysis, and Nine Periods of U.S. History

9 Historical Thinking Skills: Historical Causation Patterns of Continuity and Change Periodization Comparison Contextualization Historical Argumentation Appropriate Use of Historical Evidence Interpretation Synthesis

7 Historical Themes American and National Identity Work, Exchange, and Technology Migration and Settlement Politics and Power America in the World Geography and the Environment Culture and Society

9 Historical Periods (Henretta) Transformations of North America ( ) British North America & the Atlantic World ( ) Revolution and Republican Culture ( ) Overlapping Revolutions ( ) Creating & Preserving a Continental Nation ( ) Industrializing America ( ) Domestic and Global Challenges ( ) The Modern State & the Age of Liberalism ( ) Global Capitalism & End of American Century (1980-)

Historical Thinking Skill 1: Historical Causation Identify, analyze, and evaluate relationships among historical events as both causes and effects.

Historical Thinking Skill 1: Historical Causation

Many events have correlation but no direct proof of causation- beware of coincidental events.

Historical Thinking Skill 1: Historical Causation Historians often try to distinguish between immediate, proximate, and long-term causes and effects. Long-Term Proximate Immediate

Historical Thinking Skill 1: Historical Causation Example from reading: what were the causes of the Civil War? Long-Term Proximate Immediate

Historical Thinking Skill 1: Historical Causation Slavery Secession Fort Sumter Long-Term Proximate Immediate

Historical Thinking Skill 1: Historical Causation Example from text: what were the causes of the “discovery” of America? Long-Term Proximate Immediate

Historical Thinking Skill 1: Historical Causation The Crusades New Inventions Christopher Columbus Long-Term Proximate Immediate

Let’s Try This: How did each event lead to the other? – The Renaissance – The Reformation – National Monarchies – Exploration

Historical Thinking Skill 8: Interpretation Describe, analyze, and evaluate diverse interpretations of historical sources and construct one’s own interpretation.

Historical Thinking Skill 8: Interpretation Understand how particular circumstances and perspectives shape interpretations.

Historical Thinking Skill 8: Interpretation Example from reading: “What historians have written tells us as much about their own generation as about the Reconstruction period”

Historical Thinking Skill 8: Interpretation Dunning Interpretation: Reconstruction was forced upon the South through armed occupation and placed in power incompetent blacks who misruled.

Historical Thinking Skill 8: Interpretation Revisionist Interpretation: despite its faults, Reconstruction was a bold interracial experiment with positive results.

Why the Change?

Historical Thinking Skill 8: Interpretation The civil rights movement or “Second Reconstruction” changed historians perspectives in the 1950s and 1960s.

Historical Thinking Skill 8: Interpretation Example from the text: How is the interaction between Europeans and Native Americans depicted?

Historical Thinking Skill 8: Interpretation

1844 textbook: “But in every part of the New World there were people to whom this custom [cannibalism] was familiar.”

Historical Thinking Skill 8: Interpretation 1920 textbook: “His powers of smell, sight, and hearing were incredibly keen … but at the same time he showed a stolid stupidity … The Indian seems to have been generally friendly to the European on their first meeting…”

Historical Thinking Skill 8: Interpretation After the long period of industrialization and defeat of native tribes, Indians became “noble savages” who were uncorrupted by civilization.

Historical Thinking Skill 8: Interpretation Still more changes after the civil rights movement evolved in the 1970s…

And Now More on Interpretation… As a group- identify and record at least one example of evidence and one example of interpretation for each paragraph (divide and conquer).