Secondary Academic History – AP Modern World History

Students in Grade 9 AP Modern World History are preparing for their final exam. In order to facilitate a culminating review of past units, Ms. Smith designed a board game to reassess all topics related to Dar Al-Islam (the Islamic World) and its surroundings from 1200-1450. This game is designed to help students remember AP vocabulary, themes, and skills particularly related to Document Based Questions (DBQs).

DBQs are considered to be one of the most challenging features of the AP Modern World History Exam. This game is an exercise as students compete for specific documents that pertain to their Essential Question. When students gain a document, whether through ‘conquest’, ‘trade’, or ‘exploration,’ they must link it to their thesis by writing it down on a post-it-note below the document. To find out more about the AP curriculum, please visit:

https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-world-history-modern

This activity relates to the IB Learner Profile of ‘Thinkers’ and ‘Knowledgeable’ because students must critically engage with the documents by identifying how they may or may not relate to their thesis, how other student’s documents could be ‘traded’ or ‘conquered’ in their favour, and how to use their documents to construct a defendable argumentative thesis.

According to BIS’s Mission and Vision, “we value academic excellent, so we hold to high academic standards,” and “we value resilience, so we will try to learn new things, learn from our mistakes, and grow in confidence.” Using strategy games is one method to engage with the academic density of the AP curriculum while using collaborative, creative, and competitive matches to build positive morale within our classroom.

Here are some pictures of the game in action. Ms. Smith hand painted the map and designed the game mechanics and cards: