Twenty two years ago, at a high school in Maryland, there were three teachers teaching AP US History. The students in these classes were either honors track or in the Science and Technology magnet program. None of the students were "level 2", in the 50th to 80th percentile on standardized aptitude tests. The assumption was that the level 2 students would not succeed in the AP curriculum.
Things have changed since then. In most county school systems in Maryland, there is a minimum of "academic screening" when placing students in AP. This means that students need more help moving in to the AP standards. There are a few areas of attention that can make all students capable of success in AP.
The First Goal - Encouraging Reading
Students are not used to reading texts, at least not in the long narrative form of The American Pageant. Introducing the student to the narrative text is the first task of the AP teacher. An effective tool that students can find entertaining is to develop questions from the readings. On the State University website, it' is stated that "when students want to learn something, they ask questions".
Using this tool, teachers can choose one student to ask a question and choose the respondent.
The respondent then becomes the next questioner, choosing the next respondent. The teacher can then observe what has become a student led activity. As students move through the academic year, submitting page numbers, and then formulating questions from properly sourced outside material can hone the student's research skills.
More Tools to Encourage Reading
Another tool to encourage reading is to provide links to websites which correspond to the text. Text companies are increasingly providing these resources. Links are unavailable for this article, the websites are generally proprietary for schools that purchase the texts. A teacher can make links available to his or her classes. Teachers can put together websites themselves, but such a task is ongoing and requires a good amount of startup time. An example is Mr. Marchand's website, the site maintained by the author for his AP students.
Another tool is a vocabulary list, sample tests, and essays which require students to use the text for reading and as a research tool. For AP US History teachers, the historyteacher website provides many Document Based Questions for training students. Teachers can used these prompts in an "open book" assessment to require students to critically evaluate texts.
These are a couple tools teachers can use to level the academic playing field in AP classes. All students need practice in reading and critically analyzing narrative texts. Teachers can use a variety of assessment activities to challenge and interest all students in the class.
Donald Marchand - Currently, I am a teacher. I teach Social Studues at a small school in southern Maryland. But I think I've been a lot more in my life. ...
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