NEW! Period-Opening Features Help Put History in Context
The Period-Opening Modules, aligned to the Contextualization Topic that starts off every unit in the AP® Course Framework, contextualize what a student will learn. Learning to place historical events and historical trends in context makes understanding easier.

NEW! What’s Inside tables
This feature previews the modules ahead. Each module is introduced with its corresponding course theme and a quick summary of main ideas.

NEW! Focus Features
The Focus feature is a brief introduction at the start of each module to help students approach the module’s narrative the way a historian would. They are designed to promote active reading and prompt critical thinking about key AP® U.S. History developments. Each Focus feature also asks students to consider how the targeted historical reasoning process from the AP® Course Framework ties into the content of the module.

Running Glossary
A running glossary across the entire book helps track the most important concepts and events in each module, with definitions visible at a glance to help contextualize the book’s historical narrative, illustrations, primary sources, and skill workshops. Even more terms are defined in full glossary at the back of the book.

Review Questions
Review Questions throughout the modules provide spots to pause and check understanding. They also offer opportunities to make connections and consider how to apply the thinking skills and reasoning processes of the AP® course to each short section of text.

Visuals for Analysis
Visuals for analysis: Learning history means examining sources in many forms. From stimulus-based multiple-choice questions to Short-Answer and Document-Based Questions, visual sources are an important part of the AP® U.S. History Exam, and a major challenge for students to analyze. To support learning and building skills, Fabric of a Nation provides a robust caption and an analytical question for every image in the book, asking students to draw on their historical knowledge to analyze and respond.

AP® Exam Tips
AP® Exam Tips in the margins of the book offer a boost where it matters most, with the inside track on the major historical events and concepts you can expect to see on the exam. These tips also offer memorable and actionable on-the-spot advice for making connections between ideas.

AP® Workshops: Instructional Features Woven Throughout
Skill-building is best done in-context. That’s why Fabric of a Nation weaves features throughout the text that help students engage with important historical developments and encounter relevant primary and secondary sources.

AP® Working with Evidence
AP® Working with Evidence Knits Together the Stories and Sources of the Past
Look for AP® Working with Evidence, with its inclusion of a rich and diverse range of primary sources—texts, graphs, illustrations, photos, and more. These boxed features, placed at precise points in the historical narrative, deepen the story by including voices, images, and artifacts from the past. These documents appear just-in-time in the narrative to help students understand the necessity of primary sources within the historical record.  Each exercise culminates with a scaffolded set of questions that guide students from the details of the source to an analysis of its significance in the history they’ve just read.

AP® Skills Workshops
The AP® Skills Workshop: Thinking Historically feature leads students in how to interpret historical developments, primary and secondary sources as well as how to write about those developments and sources. These workshops appear at the end of most modules in Periods 1-6 to help develop the historical thinking skills and reasoning processes that are key to success in the AP® U.S. History course. Using the content examined in the module as examples, these workshops cover topics such as the interpretation of primary and secondary sources, comparison, and historical developments and processes; they also build the thinking skills that are the foundation of college-level historical writing.
 
The AP® Skills Workshop: Writing Historically feature is a writing coach—teaching students how to craft their answers, whether brief or longer. Appearing twice per period in periods 1–6, these essential exercises provide scaffolded, step-by-step instruction that takes students through how to approach each of the writing tasks on the AP® Exam: Short-Answer Questions, Long-Essay Questions, and Document-Based Questions. In Period 7-9, these workshops appear at the end of every module to provide plenty of exam practice toward the end of the year.

End-of-Period Features for Practice and Assessment

NEW! Historical Reasoning Process Modules Aligned to the AP® Course Unit Topics
The final module of each time period is always an AP® Skills Workshop: Writing Historically activity focused on the historical reasoning process and aligned to the AP® U.S. History Unit Guide. In this way, Fabric of a Nation is precisely calibrated to the College Board’s framework, making all of its instruction directly related to student success on the exam.

Period Review Sections Connect the Threads of History
Following the final module in each period, these short sections list the key concepts, events, and people of the era which are all defined in the glossary. A handy timeline helps organize the chronology of important events and historical turning points all in one place.
 
All New AP® Exam Practice for a New Edition
Fabric of a Nation gives students ample opportunity to practice their new AP® skills by presenting AP® Exam Practice at the end of every period and a full-length practice AP® Exam at the back of the book. The AP® Exam Practice for every period and the end-of-book Practice Exam are completely new and exclusive to this edition.