Vincent Massey High School
European History 40SA
Course Outline
2013-2014
Course Title: AP European History 40SA
School Year and Semester: 2013-2014 – Semester II
Teacher:
Mr. Kevin Doerksen
[email protected]
729-3170
Course Description: AP European History is designed to be a college-credit course that prepares
students for university. Skills will be developed in the areas of historical thinking, analysis of
historical documents, and historical writing. The AP European History course focuses on events
occurring from 1450 to the present and is meant for students to experience history as they develop
their historical skills in preparation for university.
General Learning Outcomes:
 Students will develop skills in the process of research analysis, writing, presenting, and critical
thinking.
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Students will be given an opportunity to interact on a variety of societal, philosophical, historical,
political and religious issues.
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Students will develop their communication skills, and be challenged to respectfully engage in
discussion and debate with those holding an opposing view.
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Students will develop an understanding and awareness of the role thoughts, beliefs and ideas in
determining human behaviour, and influencing events (such as political, economic, and military
events).
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Students will become well versed in the construction of logical argumentation, both verbal and
written, and will develop the ability to differentiate between logic and sentiment.
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Students will increase their understanding of the attitudes and values of the society in which they
live, and will understand how those attitudes and values came to be.
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Students will gain exposure to a variety of primary and secondary source materials, and will
become proficient at the analysis of such sources
Course Evaluation Structure:
 Tests, assignments, projects 70%
 Final Exam: 30%
Course Final Standing:
The final mark for term work, within the respective categories, (tests, assignments, discussions and
projects) will be cumulative.
Student Responsibility Guidelines for Assessment and Evaluation
Students actively engaged in their learning are the essence of the Brandon School Division’s mission of
educating the whole child.
The assessment, evaluation and reporting of student learning and achievement involves students, teachers,
principals, parents, superintendents and the Board of Trustees. It is the responsibility of professional
educators to assess, evaluate, and report on each student’s degree of engagement and resulting learning
outcomes. Such assessment, evaluation and reporting is a continuous and fundamental part of the student’s
learning process. Students are responsible for:
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their own learning with the expertise, assistance and motivation of their teachers;
engaging individually and collectively in school/community learning opportunities;
improving their learning involvement
playing an active role in assessing their own learning
providing evidence of their learning within established timelines
The purpose of this document is to identify student responsibilities in assessment and evaluation practices,
provide clear guidelines and consequences so students can make informed decisions, and to provide
structures that improve the relationship between student learning and assessment.
All assessments and/or evaluations will be assigned a reasonable completion date by the classroom teacher.
When a student demonstrates negligence and/or disregard towards the assessment and/or evaluation due
date, the teacher can assign a “0” grade for the incomplete assessment and/or evaluation.
For a “0” grade to remain permanent on the student’s record for that unit of study, a teacher’s records will
demonstrate that he/she had advised the student and the parent/guardian that there was an opportunity to
complete the original assessment or an alternate assessment, but that it would have been penalized in
accordance to divisional guidelines.
Penalization for late assessments is as follows:
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Grade 9 – 10%
Grade 10 – 15%
Grade 11 – 20%
Grade 12 – 25%
Example: Grade 10 student receives 80% for a late assessment. The penalty for the late assessment would
be (80) (0.15)=12 . The adjusted mark would be 80-12=68%.
Once the late assessment is marked, the penalized assessment mark will replace the “0” grade that was
originally assigned to the student by the teacher.
If the original or alternate assessment is not submitted by the new completion date or if the student refuses
to submit a required assessment, the “0” grade assigned to it will remain on the student’s evaluation
records. The “0” grade(s) will be calculated into the student’s final mark for the unit of study and will be
used in the calculation of the final grade of the course.
Unit Descriptions
Pre-Course Work
Essential Questions:
 What economic and political developments in Italy provided the setting for the Renaissance?
 What were the key ideas of the Renaissance, and how were they different for men and women and
for southern and northern Europeans?
 How did changes in art reflect new Renaissance ideals?
 What were the key social hierarchies in Renaissance Europe, and how did ideas about hierarchy
shape people’s lives?
 How did the nation-states of Western Europe evolve in this period?
Evaluation:
 Renaissance Test: 60 marks
Unit 1 Title: Reformation, Exploration + Conquest
Approximate Instructional Time for Unit of Study: 10 hours
Essential Questions:
 What were the central ideas of the reformers, and why were they appealing to different social
groups?
 How did the political situation in Germany shape the course of the Reformation?
 How did Protestant ideas and institutions spread beyond German-speaking lands?
 How did the Catholic Church respond to the new religious situation?
 How and why did Europeans undertake ambitious voyages of expansion?
 What was the impact of European conquest of the peoples and ecologies of the New World?
 How was the era of global contact shaped by new commodities, commercial empires and forced
migrations?
Evaluation:
Town Hall Meeting: 20 marks
Chapter 14 Test: 20 marks
Chapter 15 Test: 10 marks
Unit 2 Title: Absolutism, Constitutionalism, and the New World View
Approximate Instructional Time for Unit of Study: 8 hours
Essential Questions:
 What were common crises and achievements of seventeenth-century European states?
 What factors led to the rise of the French absolutist state under Louis XIV, and why did absolutist
Spain experience decline in the same period?
 How and why did the constitutional state triumph in the Dutch Republic and England?
 What was revolutionary about the Scientific Revolution, regarding attitudes toward the natural
world?
 How did the new worldview affect the way people thought about society and human relations?
 What impact did new ways of thinking have on political developments and monarchical
absolutism?
Evaluation:
 Family Conference: 20 marks
 Chapter 16 Test: 20 marks
 Chapter 17 Test: 20 marks
 Enlightenment Salon: 10 marks
Unit 3 Title: Revolution in Politics 1775-1815
Approximate Instructional Time for Unit of Study: 5 hours
Essential Questions:
 What social, political, and economic factors formed the background to the French Revolution?
 How did the events of 1789 result in a constitutional monarchy in France, and how did the new
constitution affect the various members of French society at home and in the colony of SaintDomingue?
 How and why did the Revolution take a radical turn at home and in the colonies?
 Why did Napoleon Bonaparte assume control of France, and what factors led to his downfall?
How did the new republic of Haiti gain independence from France?
Evaluation:
 Chapter 20 Test: 10 marks
 Seminar: 20 marks
Unit 4 Title: The Revolution in Industry
Approximate Instructional Time for Unit of Study: 5 hours
Essential Questions:
 What were the origins of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, and how did it develop between
1780 and 1850?
 How after 1815 did continental countries respond to the challenge of industrialization?
 How did the Industrial Revolution affect people of all social classes, and what measures were
taken to improve the conditions of workers?
Evaluation:
Presentation: 10 marks
Seminar: 20 marks
Chapter 21 Test: 20 marks
Unit 5 Title: Ideologies and Upheavals
Approximate Instructional Time for Unit of Study: 5 hours
Essential Questions:
 How did the victorious allies fashion a general peace settlement, and how did Metternich uphold a
conservative European order?
 What were the basic tenets of liberalism, nationalism, and socialism, and what groups were most
attracted to these ideologies?
 What were the characteristics of the Romantic Movement, and who were some of the great
romantic artists?
 How after 1815 did liberal, national, and socialist forces challenge conservatism in Greece, Great
Britain, and France?
 Why in 1848 did revolution triumph briefly throughout most of Europe, and why did it fail almost
completely?
Evaluation:
Ideologies Presentation and Debate: 20 marks
Movie Review Option: 10 marks
Primary Source Seminar: 10 marks
Revolutionary Movements Presentation: 10 marks
DBQ Outline - Greek Independence 12 marks
Chapter 22 Test: 20 marks
Unit 6 Title: The Age of Nationalism
Approximate Instructional Time for Unit of Study: 5 hours
Essential Questions:
 Napoleon III – How did Napoleon III seek to reconcile popular and conservative forces in an
authoritarian nation-state?
 Why did the European population rise dramatically in the eighteenth century?
 How did the process of unification in Italy and Germany create conservative nation-states?
 In What ways did the United States experience nation building?
 What steps did Russia and the Ottoman Turks take toward modernization, and how successful
were they?
 Why after 1871 did ordinary citizens feel a growing loyalty to their governments?
 Why did the socialist movement grow, and how revolutionary was it?
Evaluation:
Seminar: 20 marks
Mock Trials (nationalist leaders): 20 marks
DBQ Outline – Italian Unity: 12 marks
Chapter 24 Test: 20 marks
Unit 7 Title: The West and the World
Approximate Instructional Time for Unit of Study: 5 hours
Essential Questions:
 What were some of the global consequences of European industrialization between 1815 and
1914?
 How was massive migration an integral part of Western expansion?
 How and why after 1875 did European nations rush to build political empires in Africa and Asia?
 What was the general pattern of non-Western responses to Western expansion, and how did India,
Japan, and China meet the imperialist challenge?
Evaluation:
Mock Trials (imperial powers): 20 marks
DBQ – Imperialism: 50 marks
Map of Africa Cookie: 10 marks
Chapter 25Test: 20 marks
Unit 8 Title: War and Revolution
Approximate Instructional Time for Unit of Study: 5 hours
Essential Questions:
 What caused the First World War, and why did it have significant popular support?
 How did the First World War change the nature of modern warfare?
 What was the impact of total war on civilian populations?
 What led to the Russian Revolution, and what was its outcome?
 How did the Allies fashion a peace settlement, and why was it unsuccessful?
Evaluation:
Seminar: 40 marks
Tableaus: 10 marks
DBQ – Germany and the Civil Peace: 50 marks
Primary Source Seminar: 10 marks
Chapter 26 Test: 40 marks
Unit 9 Title: The Age of Anxiety
Approximate Instructional Time for Unit of Study: 5 hours
Essential Questions:
 In what ways did new and sometimes radically experimental ideas in philosophy, religion,
physics, psychology, and literature reflect the general crisis in modern thought?
 How did modernism revolutionize architecture, painting, and music?
 How did the emerging consumer society and mass culture of the interwar years change the
everyday lives of ordinary men and women?
 How did the democratic leaders of the 1920’s deal with deep-seated instability and try to establish
real peace and prosperity?
 What caused the Great Depression, and how did the Western democracies respond to this
challenge?
Evaluation:
DBQ – Mussolini: 50 marks
Seminar: 20 marks
Primary Source Seminar: 20 marks
Tableaus: 10 marks
Chapter 27 Test: 20 marks
Unit 10 Title: Dictatorships and the Second World War
Approximate Instructional Time for Unit of Study: 5 hours
Essential Questions:
 How did radical totalitarian dictatorship differ from conservative authoritarianism, and in what
ways were communism and fascism totalitarian systems?
 How did Stalin and the Communist Party build a modern totalitarian state in the Soviet Union?
 How did Mussolini’s dictatorship come to power and govern in Italy?
 How did Hitler gain power, what policies did totalitarian Nazi Germany pursue, and why did they
lead to World War II?
 How did Germany and Japan create enormous empires, and how were they defeated by the Allies?
Evaluation:
DBQ – The Weimar Republic: 50 marks
Seminar: 20 marks
Primary Source Seminar: 20 marks
Retirement Home Re-enactment: 20 marks
Chapter 28 Test: 40 marks
Unit 11 Title: Cold War Conflict and Consensus
Approximate Instructional Time for Unit of Study: 5 hours
Essential Questions:
 How did the events at the close of World War II contribute to the emergence of the Cold War, and
how did the U.S.-Soviet rivalry affect life in Europe?
 Why did Western Europe recover so successfully, and what were the sources of postwar stability?
 What was the pattern of postwar rebuilding and development in the Soviet Union and communist
Eastern Europe?
 What circumstances led to the postwar colonial independence movements, and how did the Cold
War influence the process?
 How did large-scale changes in social structures and relations contribute to European stability on
both sides of the iron curtain?
Evaluation:
DBQ - Decolonization: 50 marks
Seminar: 20 marks
Primary Source Seminar: 20 marks
Chapter 29 Test: 40 marks
Unit 12 Title: Challenging the Postwar Order
Approximate Instructional Time for Unit of Study: 5 hours
Essential Questions:
 How did social and political changes in the 1960’s contribute to growing criticism of the postwar
consensus that had emerged in the 1950’s?
 How did economic decline in the 1970’s contribute to fundamental social and political change in
the 1980’s in Western Europe and North America?
 What internal and external factors weakened communist power in the East Bloc, and how did
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev try to reform the system from above?
 Why did anticommunist revolutions sweep through Eastern Europe in 1989, and what were the
immediate consequences?
Evaluation:
Sources Seminar: 20 marks
DBQ – European Unity: 50 marks
Tableau Series: 10 marks
Chapter 30Test: 40 marks
Unit 13 Title: Europe in an Age of Globalization
Approximate Instructional Time for Unit of Study: 5 hours
Essential Questions:
 How did Russia and the former East Bloc countries meet the challenges of post-communist
reconstruction and political and economic reform?
 What are the defining features of globalization, and how did changing international structures
transform European societies?
 How did population decline and large-scale immigration lead to demographic changes in
contemporary Europe, and what were the main results of growing ethnic diversity?
 What key problems faced European societies in the twenty-first century, and how did European
states and peoples deal with these critical issues?
Evaluation:
DBQ – Immigration: 50 marks
Chapter 31: 20 marks
Additional Evaluations:
Beginning the first day after Spring Break, we will have regular review quizzes based on the 5 Steps
to a 5 Review Book. There will be 17 of these quizzes. They will be valued at 5 marks each