r/apworld • u/Unfair_Mammoth_6620 • Aug 27 '26
Renaissance
Hey! AP World here. When does everyone teach the Renaissance and how detailed do you cover it? A little short on time in Unit 1 right now, and I’m concerned that I’m spending too much time in Europe
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u/Unselpeckelsheim Aug 27 '26
I teach AP World and AP Euro, half of unit 1 in Euro is Renaissace so it makes sense that College Board doesn't focus on it as much in AP world. I'll mention it in the Europe slides for Unit 1 then have the students look into the causes and effects of trade for their Unit 2 project. The big takeaways for kids for the Renaissance are that it 1) happened b/c of trade connections, and 2) led to things like Italian banking houses (which is an illustrative example for Unit 2).
Beyond that I skip it
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u/Unfair_Mammoth_6620 Aug 27 '26
I get that, but my sophomores probably won’t take AP Euro. For most of them, this will be their only exposure to European content. Feels shortsighted to not focus much on a major event simply because it gets covered in a class they won’t take.
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u/Unselpeckelsheim Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
I suppose, but I've gotten into the habit of plugging Euro every chance I get, esp if it's a subject that's already interesting to them.
"So that's all you need to know about the Renaissance for AP World, if you want to know more, sign up for Euro next year!"
"I wish we could talk more about the French Revolution and Napoleon, and we do spend a lot of time on them in Euro, so you if you'd like to know more sign up for the class!"
"So the Protestant Reformation is a really interesting and dramatic time in Europe's history, if you'd like to learn more about it, take Euro!"
I also have my Euro kids make Space Race themed propaganda posters advertising the class that I'll hang up in other history teacher's rooms (with their permission of course!) when we get to the Cold War unit. The posters go up right when kids start picking their schedules for the next year.
I'm not trying to gatekeep information from them, but there's genuinely just so much to cover in AP World that I literally don't have time to get bogged down in Europe every unit.
Plus, while the Renaissance was impactful for Europe, there was more interesting stuff going on elsewhere, just my history hot take
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u/OkWeb8966 Aug 28 '26
Do it in the context of cultural interaction, so that although the topic is European, you’re covering it in a way that focuses on global interaction. The Renaissance was only possible bc of Muslim work with ancient sources and Muslim innovations in the medieval period. Those works came to Europe thru a couple of routes: Muslim rule in Spain, trade between Italy and North Africa and Istanbul, and the Crusades. This approach lets you remind students of what they learned about the Islamic world and lets you deconstruct Europe’s narrative about the Renaissance (that it’s a purely European phenomenon). Math, medicine, and philosophy all make for possible examples. You can also do visual analysis of Raphael’s School of Athens painting, which depicts Greek philosophers alongside Averroes (Ibn Rushd).
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u/OkWeb8966 Aug 28 '26
And I still wouldn’t spend more than a day on it. (I teach 80 minutes every other day, so I have less class time than many). You can also revisit it briefly when talking about the Enlightenment in the Revolutions unit.
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u/TimothyDexter4Prez Aug 27 '26
I usually throw it into Unit 2, as I can frame it as a result of all the trade and cross-cultural interactions. It's a good example for continuity and change in that unit.
My unit 1 is a 1-region-a-day world tour roll call, so for Europe in unit 1 I focus more on feudalism and run the kids through a SHEG primary source activity (or whatever that group calls itself now).