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.
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
● Notes
● 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
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