AP US History Summer Assignment FALL 2025

Welcome to AP US History!

APUSH is a tremendously rewarding survey course study of American History that replicates a

college-level history course. As such, there will be a large amount of reading, writing, and

historical analysis you will be expected to perform, both in class and at home. Due to the nature

of the course, it is difficult to get through all of the required information in time for the APUSH

exam in May. Because of this, a summer assignment is necessary to help you understand

APUSH Historical Period 1 (Exploration and Colonization) so that we can jump straight into

Period 2 (The British Colonies) when school starts. The assignments below will help you better

understand the themes and key concepts of Period 1. Your entire summer assignment will

be due the 3rd day of class, and there will be a quiz and test within the first week of

school.

Textbook information

In order to be successful in the class, you will need to read and take notes. We do not spoon

feed content in APUSH, you are expected to read your book and take notes, and then come to

class with that basic factual knowledge, which you’ll use in a variety of activities.

Because you are expected to read, we will be using the book AMSCO Advanced Placement

United States History, instead of the much more dense district issued book The 2018-2020

editions of the book are all fine; even 2016-2017 could work if the later editions just can’t be

found, although the content just won’t go as far (this isn’t a problem though, as we will only

make it to roughly the early 2000s). Do NOT pick up the most recent 4th edition from the

publisher, as it is completely revised, and will not match up with what we do in class.

This book was chosen because it is a smaller, less daunting reader-style book that covers

everything you need to know and includes sample questions, both multiple choice and writing,

as well as a full length practice test. It is a far easier read than the district textbook, and best of

all, since you’ve purchased it, you can annotate and highlight to your heart’s content.

While a new copy is nice, it is unnecessary. You can save money by buying a used copy from

Half Price Books, Amazon, Thriftbooks, or any other used book retailer. Looking at Amazon

right now, there are plenty of used copies of the 2016-2020 editions. I do suggest looking at the

description to try to get as clean a copy as you can so that it doesn’t interfere with your own

annotations.

* We start using the book from Day 1, so you need to have your copy when school

starts.*

The district issued textbook is American History 15th Edition by Alan Brinkley (Publisher:

McGraw Hill), but we don’t recommend it because it is too dense for this kind of a survey

course. You may certainly use this book if you choose, just be aware that it is a much

more dense book and will require quite a bit more reading.

Supplies

For supplies we recommend

- a 1-2in binder (some students do one binder per semester, while others take all of the first

semester material out in January and just reuse that binder for second semester)

- 10 tabs (we use one for each of the 9 historical periods, and then there are usually 1-3 units

within each historical period, but I think tabs are only sold in packs of 5 or 10)

- the usual black or blue pens, and pencils

- and of course the Amsco book referenced above

The Su

mmer Assignment

There are multiple parts, so spread this out a bit over the summer, and don’t try to squeeze it all

in the weekend before school starts.

1 Read and take thorough notes over pages 1-14 from the AMSCO book. (You’ll start on

Chapter 2 once school starts) This is a college-level course and is much more detail heavy than

AP World, so you must read and take notes over the readings in order to help you memorize

and better understand the material. You will be expected to discuss and write about the

information from the readings the first week of school.

We do have reading quizzes over each chapter of the book, and everything from the chapter is

fair game on both quizzes and tests, so definitely take notes from the Historical Perspective and

other boxes. Aside from that, they give very good insight into historical events through various

lenses/perspectives, which is a big part of APUSH.

(Studies show that handwritten notes help you retain info better and longer than typed notes.)

While you don’t need to write down the vocab, it is highly recommended that you familiarize

yourself with those terms as you may see them on quizzes and tests.

For your note taking, we do recommend 2 column notes, but not necessarily Cornell. The left

side will be for reading notes from the AMSCO book, while the right side will be for

notes/annotations to your reading notes using the Norris lecture videos (you’ll see more about

this in step 3

The AMSCO book is organized in such a way that it makes note-taking easy:

AMSCO notes

Subheading

● Notes

● Summary of the section

Video notes

Slide title

● Write down information from the

Norris/Heimler video

● and note anything that is mentioned

here and in the AMSCO book

You’ll be taking reading quizzes for each chapter in the book (yes, all 31) and are required to

turn your chapter notes in with each one.

3) There is no one perfect textbook that has everything you need to know for APUSH, so in

order to help reinforce what you’ve read in AMSCO and be fully prepared for unit tests and the

AP Exam, students are expected to watch companion lecture videos. There are two options to

choose from; Adam Norris and Heimler’s History. This is not optional, the vast majority of

students who do well in this course take notes over both the book and these videos. Here is the

Adam Norris lecture video over the pre-Jamestown period and the Heimler APUSH Unit 1

Playlist. As you watch, add things to your reading notes using that right hand column suggested

in step 2. Anything that shows up in both the AMSCO book and the video is clearly important

and should be emphasized in your notes; highlighting, *stars*, color coding, whatever will help

it stand out. But understand that anything brought up in AMSCO and the videos is essential

information and may show up on the Unit tests and/or the APUSH exam.

4) Go to the Gilder Lehrman APUSH Study Guide site for Period 1. It is divided into 5 sections,

starting with “Native American Societies before European Contact”. Each section has at least 1

essay. Choose one essay for each section, then you need to copy/paste these essays

into a document and print them out. To save paper and ink, you should reduce the text to no

more than 12pt font and reduce your margins to a 1/2 inch. After printing them out, you need to

read and annotate (highlight key points, take notes and write questions in the margins). These

essays will help you to understand the major events of this period of interaction between the old

and new worlds.

Below you will find some annotation samples from last year’s debates (which you’ll be doing)

- Sample 1

- Sample 2

Amsco AP US History