AP Social Studies courses shift to better suit teachers and students

Students taking junior and senior-level AP social studies courses have seen major changes this year aimed at making the material more accessible and relevant.

The AP U.S. Government and Politics course has shifted its curriculum moderately to match the revised AP test, while the AP U.S. History curriculum has been completely altered.

Teachers and students around the country that the AP U.S. History (APUSH) had criticized the test as too broad, leaving educators with inadequate time to cover the necessary material. In response, the College Board initiated the redesigning of social studies tests with the release of a new APUSH test in 2014.

AP U.S. Government and Politics is the third of these exam redesigns that the College Board has unveiled, following in the  footsteps of changes to AP U.S. History and European History.

The College Board website outlined four goals for the new government test and curriculum: more room for teachers to cultivate understanding, more focus on students utilizing the knowledge they develop, more emphasis on the founding documents and primary sources and more emphasis on applied learning.

AP Government and Politics teacher Kirk Abe said that to match the changes, greater emphasis will be placed on documents earlier in the school year to help students better prepare for the test. The number of units has decreased to five and throughout them, essential documents will be covered.

Abe is also following one of College Board’s goals by reviewing Supreme Court cases more often than in the past.

Unlike AP Government, the APUSH test isn’t changing this year; instead, the course is being completely altered due to longstanding issues with the previous curriculum.

After a re-examination of the course, APUSH teacher Faith Stackhouse-Daly and APUSH MAP teacher Matt Torrens decided this year that a complete overhaul of the curriculum was necessary.

The central problem lay in the reading-paragraph assignment pair that was central to the old curriculum. Students were expected to read through chapters from the textbook “The American Pageant” and respond to key ideas and interpretations in the form of a homework paragraph.

The time-consuming nature of the assignment was overwhelming for many students, leading to a lot of cutting corners and turning in substandard work. The two teachers also thought the homework took the focus away from the actual learning.

“The paragraphs were not only writing intensive and time intensive for students, but they were also grading intensive for us,” Daly said. “It took so long to get through them that by the time I got through a set of them, students had written one, two, three more, making the exact same mistakes.”

While the intent behind the assignment was originally to hone students’ skills in writing and interpreting, it simply wasn’t serving its purpose, even though every year the teachers changed to the length, content and frequency of the assignment in efforts to improve it.  

“We tweaked them again to try and make them a little more focused,” Daly said. “And then we tweaked them again. And then we tweaked them again.”

However, this summer, Daly and Torrens “decided that no amount of tweaking was going to put [the paragraph assignment] where [they] wanted,” so they elected to completely remove it, leaving only reading and optional notes as homework. Writing is emphasized during class periods instead, when teachers can provide more direct feedback.

But the paragraph isn’t the only part of the reading-writing duo to see major changes during the revamping of the curriculum.

The textbook itself, “The American Pageant,” is also finally being retired in favor of Jame W. Fraser’s “By the People: A History of the United States.”

The biggest issues surrounding “The American Pageant” were due to its age. First published in 1956, the textbook was already on its 16th edition.

“Because it is old and because they’re just revising and not rewriting, there are some pieces of historiography that have not kept pace with current changes, particularly in how it treats non-white populations,” Daly said.

“The American Pageant” gave limited historical agency to non-white actors, and often painted them as only victims. Further criticism of the older textbook was in its length: Its 1,008 pages and 31 chapters made it a challenge for both educators and students.

In both these regards, “By the People” is an improvement. Not only does it cover more material in its 938 pages, but the textbook also provides a broader and more well-rounded treatment of non-white populations.

The new textbooks will be ready for distribution in the coming few month; currently, APUSH students are reading from PDFs of it. Daly said that “By the People” will help the course “right-size the requirements.”

With all these changes in the course, Daly emphasized that there’s still one thing to remember: “APUSH is still APUSH. It’s still one of the hardest APs out there.”