New Textbooks Build Rigor for Honors World History Students
By Al Wood
Last month, the Ash Fork JUSD Governing Board approved the purchase of a new textbook for my honors world history class. This completes my goal of having a set of AP-approved, high-rigor textbooks for my college-prep students to use in each of my high school honors social studies classes. Unlike teachers in other schools, I do not often ask students to read chapters out of the textbook. Rather, I use textbooks for their “activities,” such as maps, short secondary-source readings, and data sets. I specifically chose a textbook that presents a lot of visuals for students to analyze as well as high-rigor questions that students can use to think deeply about the material. With this investment, I have one more tool to help students think about history at a college level while still in the comfort of a high school environment.
