History and Social Sciences Focus on Pre-AP for...• Improving Student Comprehension of Primary...

Pre-AP® for History and Social Sciences: 2005–2006 Workshop Materials 27

Focus on Pre-AP for History and Social Sciences

Using the AP Vertical Teams Guide in Teaching U.S. HistoryCora GreerUniversity of Maine at MachiasMachias, Maine

In an ideal world, all students would come to an AP U.S. History class with the skills needed to analyze primary source materials and to write coherent responses to essay questions. Unfortunately, far too many AP U.S. History teachers find that their students lack the experience to do either. For these teachers, an AP Social Studies Vertical Team workshop or summer institute offers the opportunity to explore and discuss Pre-AP strategies that can be applied in their AP U.S. History classes to improve the performance of their students. If attending these workshops is not possible, the AP Vertical Teams® Guide for Social Studies is an invaluable tool. The Guide may be purchased online (http://store.collegeboard.com/) for $30.

The AP Vertical Teams concept, which was initially developed in 1999, gives voice to the belief of many educators that the essential academic skills and habits of mind necessary for success in AP classes can be introduced to all students in regular classroom settings. The Vertical Teams concept has two components. The first component is the creation of discipline-based teams across grade levels to develop a systemwide curriculum that will prepare all students to do AP-level work. The second component concerns the particular strategies teachers can use to develop these skills in the Pre-AP years.

The Guide covers all AP history and social science courses—European and World History, Government and Politics, Human Geography, Psychology, and Economics. The strategies found in the Guide can be adapted to courses in the Pre-AP years as well as to AP classes, and all are content-based. The Guide is divided into five chapters:

• Improving Student Comprehension of Primary Sources• Improving Student Comprehension of Secondary Sources• Synthesizing Information: Categorizations, Generalization, and Evaluation• Preparing Students for AP Assessment• Tying It All Together (Creating a Model AP Unit)

The chapters are organized so that there is a logical progression from reading comprehension to synthesizing and evaluation, writing, and finally assessment.

Pre-AP® for History and Social Sciences: 2005–2006 Workshop Materials28


The Vertical Team strategies are directed at teachers who work in the regular classroom and who find that their students are unprepared for the AP challenge; these Pre-AP strategies can, and should, be woven into the AP curriculum. This article focuses primarily on those strategies in the Guide that can be easily integrated into an AP U.S. History syllabus. Those teachers who teach non-AP classes will find that these strategies also work well there, and most can be adapted to group and/or individual assignments. Examples of these strategies appear at the end of this article.

Applying the Strategies to AP History Courses

To be successful in AP history classes, students must be able to read and analyze primary source materials. One of the most useful tools in the Guide, and one used by many AP U.S. History teachers, is known by the acronym APPARTS (see the explanation of this tool below). This tool provides students with prompts that give them a format for dissecting and analyzing primary sources. As with all the strategies described in this article, APPARTS should be introduced at the beginning of the school year and reinforced as the year progresses. Getting students to use APPARTS may take time, but once students are comfortable using this strategy, they will have a valuable analytical tool.

AP students in any discipline must be able to comprehend, retain, and communicate to others the facts and main ideas from secondary sources. Chapter 2 of the Guide provides strategies to help students understand the relationship between bits of factual information and the “Big Picture” to which they relate. For instance, AP U.S. History teachers can help students focus by prefacing each chapter or unit with a Big Picture statement or question. These statements or questions may be used to help with a review, or they may become part of the assessment process. For instance, the following is a Big Picture statement that might accompany a unit on the colonial period:

Between 1607 and 1763, the British North American colonists developed experience in, and the expectation of, self-government in the political, religious, economic, and social aspects of their lives.

Reading comprehension alone, however, does not help students make sense of names, dates, and events. The common strategy used by students is memorization, which often works over the short term, but really does not lead to an understanding of the material. Vertical Team strategies in social studies are structured so that students gain knowledge through understanding rather than through memorization. For this reason, perhaps the most valuable section in the Guide is chapter 3, which focuses on using categorization



and generalization to help students learn how to synthesize and evaluate information. Once students have developed these skills, they have a foundation for writing an intelligent response to an AP essay question.

Strategies for Essay Writing

If students are to do well on the AP U.S. History Examination, they must have the skills and techniques necessary for this level of assessment. Strategies for doing well on multiple-choice questions are fairly straightforward; essay writing, however, is another matter. Students with weak writing skills cannot be expected to do well on AP document-based questions and free-response questions. As is the case with developing synthesizing and evaluation skills, a foundation must be built first. This will take time, but it will be time well spent.

Chapter 4 of the Guide breaks down the steps in essay writing so that students can build up their skills gradually. The first steps, understanding the question and developing a thesis, are the most difficult aspects of essay writing, and until these are mastered, students will have trouble structuring their responses. Rushing to have students answer a document-based or free-response question before they are ready can be counterproductive and frustrating. Teachers who build students’ writing skills slowly will, in the long run, have the most success. The examples toward the end of this article demonstrate the evolution of an effective essay. It is also important to make students aware that this process is closely related to the structural foundation built in chapter 3.

Creating Syllabi

Creating a syllabus that covers the time period of 1607 to 1980 by the end of April is perhaps the most daunting task faced by an AP U.S. History teacher. The final chapter in the Guide presents sample units that incorporate the various strategies with specific assignments and assessment models. Here, as in the previous chapters, there is a combination of individual and group work. These units can act as the blueprint for an effective syllabus that can cover the AP U.S. History time frame.

Perhaps the Guide’s greatest value is that, in addition to providing strategies, it generates ideas for innovation and adaptation. Teachers familiar with a particular technique may well begin to adapt it to suit their particular needs. As the authors state, these materials can help to stimulate “originality and creativity as social studies educators continue to search for the best methods to help students become better readers, thinkers, and writers.”



Vertical Team Strategies in Social Studies to Be Used in the Opening Units of an AP U.S. History Class

1. Using APPARTS

Author—Who created the source? What do you know about the author? What is the author’s point of view?Place and time—Where and when was the source produced? How might this affect the meaning of the source?Prior knowledge—Beyond information about the author and the creation of the source, what do you know that would help you further understand the primary source? For example, do you recognize any symbols in the text and what do they represent?Audience—For whom was the source created and how might this affect the reliability of the source?Reason—Why was this source produced and how might this affect the reliability of the source?The main idea—What point is the source trying to convey?Significance—Why is this source important? Ask yourself, “So what?” in relation to the question asked.

2. Using Categories to Understand Data

A given question might be:

Britain’s colonists developed democracy and expected the application of democratic principles in the political, religious, and economic aspects of their lives. Assess the validity of this statement.

Given the preceding question, organize the topics below into the following three categories:

Political—Having to do with gaining, seeking, and organizing power and having to do with events related to the functions of government: making laws, enforcing laws, and interpreting lawsEconomic—Having to do with how people meet their basic material needs and with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services (including such issues as domestic and international trade, monetary policies, and taxation)Religious—Having to do with religious beliefs, whether organized or traditional, and



the religious institutions of the culture (sometimes viewed as a subcategory of culture, but often separated to add emphasis)

The relevant topics include:

Bacon’s Rebellion Mayflower CompactAlbany Plan Town meetingRoger Williams William PennMercantilism Indentured servantsMassachusetts School Law of 1642 “City on a hill”Navigation Acts Lord BaltimoreGreat Awakening Triangle TradeSlavery House of BurgessesGeorge Whitefield Cotton Mather

3. Developing Generalization Strategies

Construct the most narrow generalization possible that expresses a main idea for which all of the following items could serve as supporting information.

King Philip’s WarBishop de Las CasasDestruction of the IndiesPueblo RevoltSmallpoxBacon’s RebellionPequot War

4. Synthesizing Information

Examine the following topics:

Land Ordinance of 1785 Federalist PapersShay’s Rebellion “Critical Period”Abigail Adams Northwest OrdinancePhiladelphia Convention Power to taxTreaty of Paris (1783) EmancipationAntifederalists Alexander Hamilton



Treaty of Paris Three-Fifths CompromiseFederalism James MadisonJohn Hancock Bill of RightsGeorge Washington DemocracyWestern land claims Public domain Great Compromise Patrick HenryUnicameral legislature

After identifying similarities that various aspects of these topics share, place each piece of information in one of the following categories:

Articles of ConfederationConstitution of 1787Ratification of the Constitution

Each bit of information might fit into more than one category, but for the purpose of this exercise, that bit of information may only be used once. Make sure that you:

• Name each category.• Write a topic sentence for each category that clearly and directly generalizes the

similarity that each individual piece of information has in common with the other pieces of information within that category.

• When the information has been categorized and a generalization has been made, choose five pieces of factual information that best support the topic sentence. Evaluate them by rank in their support of the topic sentence, ordering them in descending order of importance. Write one clear sentence that justifies your first choice for each topic sentence.

• Rank the categories in decreasing order of importance.• Write a thesis statement that directly links the categories to some common theme.



5. Preparing to Write an AP Essay

A rubric/scoring guideline is at the end of this example.

Writing a Thesis Statement

Write a thesis statement for the following question:

Analyze the extent to which the American Revolution represented a radical alteration in American political ideas and institutions.

List the pieces of evidence you would use to support your thesis.

Writing Supporting Paragraphs

Write your revised thesis. List the evidence you will use in the three paragraphs to support your thesis:

a.b.c.

Write ONE of the supporting paragraphs using the relevant evidence.

Writing a Concluding Paragraph

Finally, write a concluding paragraph for this question using your revised thesis and supporting paragraphs.



Simple Rubric/Scoring Guidelines for Initial Essays

______0—Not present______1—Present, but flawed and incomplete______2—Present______3—Present and sophisticated

Thesis Statement______Fully addresses the question______Takes a position______Provides organizational categoriesTotal______

Supporting Paragraphs______Topic sentence______Evidence and interaction of same______Clincher sentence that ties the paragraph back to the thesis statementTotal______

Concluding Paragraph______Reinforces the thesis______Synthesizes clincher sentences______Addresses the question “So what?”Total______

Total Score______

CoverTable of ContentsChapter I: WelcomeChapter II: Access and EquityChapter III: Pre-AP Professional DevelopmentChapter IV: Focus on Pre-AP for History and Social SciencesChapter V: Selections from AP Course Descriptions

History and Social Sciences Focus on Pre-AP for...• Improving Student Comprehension of Primary...

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