AP US History

Advanced Placement United States History
Summer Assignment
Issaquah High School
2025-2026

• The purpose of this assignment is to introduce you to the textbook we will be using, as well as to complete the 1st of nine historical APUSH periods, or units, over the summer, thereby saving us time during the school year.
• ALL students taking APUSH are required to complete this assignment.
• These assignments are due at the beginning of class on the first day of school.
• You will be tested on this information at the beginning of the 2nd week of school.
• ALL PORTIONS MUST BE HANDWRITTEN.
• You are expected to complete this assignment without assistance from others, including artificial intelligence tools (AI).

ALL students taking APUSH in the 2022-23 school year are required to complete this assignment. Incomplete or late assignments will NOT be accepted and will receive a ZERO.

1. Read Chapter 1, “The Collision of Cultures” (pages 5-49) of our textbook, “America: A Narrative History”.
   This chapter corresponds to Period 1 (1491-1607) in the AP US History curriculum.
    
2. SUBMIT: complete definitions for each vocabulary term. There are 17 terms. (See formatting examples below).

AP standard – must include definition AND significance

Gospel of Wealth: an essay written by champion of the steel industry, Andrew Carnegie, in 1901; Carnegie advocated philanthropy from the wealthy over charity and espoused that the wealthy were the trustees of society and that they alone knew how to improve the social conditions of the time.

Significance: the book put the responsibility of “giving back to the community” on the shoulders of the wealthy; some saw it as an effort to justify the great wealth ruthlessly accumulated by the “robber barons” of the Gilded Age.

NOT AP standard

Gospel of Wealth: book by Carnegie; rich shouldn’t give charity but should teach people how to act. Significance: more public facilities/”gifts” (i.e. Carnegie Library)

3. SUBMIT: responses to the seven questions below. These questions correspond to the seven Learning Objectives for Period 1 (1491-1607), as determined by the College Board.

SUGGESTION

Avoid doing everything at the last minute, aka the week before school starts. Spread the work out over the course of the summer and then review the week before school. By doing so, you will retain the material more effectively and set yourself up for success during the coming school year.

Thank you for committing yourself to taking APUSH. I hope that you will find the class to be both challenging and rewarding. If you have any questions regarding this work or the course, please do not hesitate to contact Ms. Kelly at kellyk@issaquah.wednet.edu.

PERIOD 1 (1491-1607) LEARNING OBJECTIVE QUESTIONS

Learning Objectives define what you should be able to do with content knowledge in order to move toward a lasting understanding of the material.

This assignment must be handwritten. You must reference the page numbers where you found the information, but you may NOT quote directly. Please respond using complete sentences, and write in short paragraph format, approximately ½ a page maximum per response, with a minimum of 4 sentences per response.

1. Explain the context for the European encounters in the Americas from 1491-1607.
   (Context is the political, social, cultural, and economic environment related to historical moments, events, and trends. Context is the back-story that helps us understand what an individual, a group, or documents are trying to say, or what happens next.)
    
2. Why were there so many diverse human societies in the Americas before Europeans arrived? Consider the impact of natural environments, and provide specific examples from two different regions.
    
3. What major developments in Europe enabled the Age of Exploration? Think the “Three Gs”, but expand on this idea.
    
4. How did the Columbian Exchange between the “Old” and “New” Worlds affect both societies? Include at least two examples of effects on the Old World (Europe) and two examples of effects on the New World (the Americas).
    
5. Explain how and why European and Native American perspectives of others developed and changed in the period. You might consider religion, culture, as well as racial classifications and justifications.
    
6. Explain the effects of the development of transatlantic voyages from 1491- 1607. Provide two specific examples.
    
7. In what ways did the Spanish form of colonization shape North American history? Consider social and economic impacts.