matt ellington memorizing dates often gets disparaged. is memorizing dates important? memorizing dates is actually helpful, but there's a reason it's disparaged because too much rote memorize asian doesn't really get at the heart of what the college board and what we as educators are trying to do. and that is trying to help students develop those kind of deeper critical thinking in analytical skills. so jason mentioned the nine time periods and the years, while college board does not require students to memorize those, i think it's really helpful to know those dates because those dates reflect various turning points or key events that are used to shape a narrative and an understanding. so for example, we see some of the time periods actually have some overlap to them. so period for for instance is 1800 to 1848, but period five is 1844 to 1877. and so that overlap is in order to help better tell a story, the story of unit four is the story of antebellum america. and that story includes political changes, early industrialized nation in immigration, but it also includes r