This year a big change was made in the English department: a new class called AP Seminar replaced all English 10 and 10A classes. This adjustment was formally announced last spring at the sophomore scheduling meeting. It came into effect the 2019-2020 school year.
AP Seminar is a foundational class based around research, argumentative writing, collaboration and critical thinking skills. A class like this is meant to prepare students for their future in education and to expose them to AP curriculum.
Sophomore Lizzie Skinner is taking AP Seminar after being in English 9A.
“AP Seminar is the class to prepare us for college [and] to fix the problem of students graduating from high school and not being prepared for the research that has to be done in college,” Skinner said.
A class like this was a heavy undertaking for the new AP Seminar teachers Shelli Tabor, BJ Schroder and Betsy Verwys. It meant they would be making their own syllabus and learning as they go, implementing the new required curriculum into their classrooms.
To prepare for the upcoming year the three teachers took time to prepare at a training over the summer on how to implement and teach the class.
“It was 40 hours of training at a 5-day institute,” Tabor said.
Principal Mark Thomas has been working on this change for over two years.
“One of the things we wanted to do was to say, ‘How can we try to create more access and opportunity for advanced classes?’,” Thomas said.
His answer: AP Seminar.
Thomas’ goal for this class was to break down limitations students have in their own heads about grades and intelligence. He’s hoping the class will give them an opportunity to believe in themselves.
AP Seminar challenges the typical English class. It’s meant to disrupt the trend of students getting used to the pattern of memorizing information and repeating it back on a test for a grade.
“It opens up the field for kids who maybe don’t necessarily do well with traditional tests,” Thomas said.
The most important part about this class is that the information taught throughout the year can be used in any aspect of life and follows students through higher education and beyond.
“As we move further through the year, and as kids figure out how to do research…they can go in any direction that they want, based on their interests,” Tabor said.
