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Culture Documents
When you read a prompt, realize that it will incorporate a number of items you must consider when
developing your response: (1) what kind of essay youre writing, (2) concept/theme, (3) region, and
(4) time frame.
(1)
Essay Response Types
There are three kinds of essay responses you will be asked to write: a Document-Based Question
(DBQ) response, a Continuity-and-Change-Over-Time (CCOT) response, and a Comparative
Analysis (CA) response. Each essay response assesses both a students content knowledge and their
grasp of various historical thinking skills.
(2)
Concept/Theme
When studying history, it is often helpful to consider various themes and how they interact to create
the accepted narrative of history (or our own understanding of an historical era or event). The
College Board recognizes five distinct themes in history, and essay prompt often require a student to
discuss, explain, or analyze one of these themes in the context of a given region and time period.
The themes of WHAP are:
Theme
Description
Humans
and the
Environment
Culture
This theme focuses on cultural influences that have shaped societies throughout history,
including
belief systems (such as religion, philosophies, and ideologies),
science and
technology
, and the
arts and architecture
.
Note
: Culture is NOT looking at social structures themselves, but often entail a discussion
of how culture has changed (or not changed) social structures.
Government
and Politics
Economy
Social
Structures
This important theme throughout world history investigates government in various forms
including
systems of government (monarchy, democracy, etc.),
powerful states (specific
empires and nations), and regional and global
organizations
. It also includes a
study of
politics
, including
political ideologies
and a study of
who wields power and how
.
This theme emphasizes
economic systems (the many ways that people have made a living
throughout history, such as agriculture, pastoralism, trade, commerce, and industry). This
theme also investigates
labor systems
, and
economic
ideologies such as socialism and
capitalism.
This theme focuses on how societies have organized themselves over time. Social structures
include
gender roles
,
family and kinship
,
race
,
ethnicity
, and
social classes
. These
social structures have impacted the course of world history in very different ways than politics
and economics, but their influence is equally as important.
(3)
Region
The globe can be divided into a multitude of different regions, depending on historical period
or geography. A region can be as large as a hemisphere or a small as a specific kingdom or
empire. Its important to review the broad regions of the world, because your prompt may not
specify regions according to modern geographical constructs. On the charts below are some of
the
most common
ways that the College Board has labeled regions in the past:
Western Hemisphere:
Regions
North America
Mesoamerica
Andes
Canada
United States
Mexico
Mexico
Guatemala
Peru
Bolivia
Eastern Hemisphere:
Regions
Mediterranean Basin
Western Europe
Ireland
United Kingdom
[N. Ireland,
England, Scotland]
France
Germany
Eastern Hemisphere (
cont
.):
Regions
Central Europe
Eastern Europe
Near East
Middle East
Arab States
(these countries also form an
organization known as the Arab
League)
Poland
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Ukraine
Hungary
Romania
Russia
Turkey
Syria
Lebanon
Israel
Jordan
Egypt
Eastern Hemisphere (
cont
.):
Regions
Central Asia
South Asia
Southeast Asia
Far East
Sub-Saharan Africa
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Mongolia (sometimes)
Afghanistan (sometimes)
Afghanistan (sometimes)
Pakistan
India
Bangladesh
Nepal
Tibet
Thailand
Myanmar (Burma)
Cambodia
Laos
Vietnam
Indonesia
Malaysia
Singapore
Philippines
China
Japan
Korean Peninsula
Mongolia (sometimes)
(4)
Time Frame
The College Board has divided up the curriculum framework of World History into 6 distinct
periods, each of which correspond to specific historical eras, movements, or phenomena:
Period
1
Time Frame
to 600 BCE
(from the Neolithic
Revolution to the end of the
first great civilizations)
600 - 1450 CE
3
1450 - 1750 CE
4
Description
This is the era of early human political and
economic development, where historians
can first document complex systems used
to coordinate the work and movement of
people and goods.
This is the era of classical civilization,
when in various parts of the world, large
empires emerged which controlled
significant amounts of the earths people
and resources. An expansion of trade
(from regional to interregional routes)
allowed for greater connections between
distant parts of the world. New religions
emerged (Christianity), and they and older
religious traditions (esp. Buddhism)
diffused.
This is the era of consolidation of cultural
traditions (especially religious traditions)
and of greater intensification of trade. At
the same time, we see different systems of
government emerge, as Europe largely
decentralizes (lots of small kingdoms
instead of a large empire, like Rome) but
the Middle East, North Africa, Central
Asia, and South Asia are united first by
Muslim caliphates and then by the Mongol
khanates. The Chinese Empire, led by
various dynasties, remains the preeminent
influence in the Far East. In the Americas,
we see the development of large-scale
empires for the first time toward the end
of this period (Aztec, Inca).
This is the era of global exploration, and
marks a turning point in which region of
the world houses the most politically and
economically powerful states. Up to c.
1450, those states had been located mostly
in the Middle or Far East; with European
states leading the Age of Exploration,
European states (esp. Britain) become the
most powerful.
Period
Time Frame
1750 - c. 1900 CE
5
(from the beginning of the
industrial revolution to the
turn of the 20th C)
c. 1900 CE to the
present
Description
This is the era of industrialization, when
mechanized production is introduced and
states compete to control the resources
needed to facilitate industrial production.
This competition leads to the Age of
Imperialism, during which European
states partitioned much of the Eastern
Hemisphere-- especially Africa-- amongst
themselves.
This is an era of continued industrial
production, but more importantly of
globalization, when trade and
communication spread more around the
world. The beginning of the period is
marked by two global conflicts; the end by
a third (the Cold War). This era also sees
the end of Imperialism, as areas exploited
by Europe since c. 1850 (and sometimes
earlier) are granted independence.
Please note that the College Board rarely frames essay prompts using period numbers (
e.g.
,
theyre unlikely to ask you about Period 2 or Period 4). Instead, prompts usually provide
specific time frames which often correspond with specific period time frames (ex.: between
1450 and 1750), but sometimes overlap between two periods (ex.: between 1850 and 1915
CE) or specify a range from within a certain period (ex.: between 1000 and 1450 CE).