History and Rationale

     This project began as a discussion amongst freshman level teachers about what qualified students for advanced placement classes. The process for recommending students from our World History classes into the AP program had always been rather nebulous. As we incorporated the World Geography teachers into the recommendation process and with new teachers joining the World History staff it became apparent that a formal set of standards needed to be developed. We identified two academic skill areas that we believed to be excellent indicators of a student’s ability to succeed in an advanced placement course, and that we were confident evaluating based on work done in our 100 level courses. These two academic skill areas were reading and writing.

            Reading was a skill that we had always worked hard to develop in our World History and World Geography courses. However, our focus had primarily been on improving the students’ ability to effectively read textbooks. We believed that we needed to move beyond this rather limited task and incorporate other types of reading (fiction and non-fiction trade books or excerpts primarily). This would benefit our students in a variety of ways. Including these types of reading would obviously give the students greater understanding of course-related knowledge and an increased breadth and depth of learning. Since standardized tests increasingly rely on questions based on reading selections, any reading combined with analysis that we did in our courses would naturally improve our students’ chances of success. We also saw an opportunity for increased parental involvement. By encouraging parents to read outside selections along with their children we could take advantage of some positive modeling and hopefully some discussion of the material at home as well as in class. Also, including these types of reading material would help us contribute to the achievement of a schoolwide goal — developing life-long learners. In order to do this we must increase our students’ skill as readers of the kind of material they will encounter in the real world. This will increase the level of satisfaction they get from reading making the formation of a reading habit easier. These goals can only be reached by bringing in outside reading materials because “real world” reading does not involve textbooks.

            Reading provides students with a basis for higher-level thinking. As a way of expressing these thoughts, writing is also a natural part of the social studies curriculum. It helps students develop a wide variety of skills that are vital to future academic success. Examples include critical thinking as in evaluating choices or decisions; analytical thinking as in interpreting evidence or projecting consequences to actions; and application of ideas from one time period to another or one subject to another. As with reading, this was a skill that all of us had been working with our students to improve. What we needed to do was develop standards in order to help us be consistent in our sequence and approach. So this became our goal: developing standards for achievement in reading and writing that, when met, would lead to a teacher recommendation for enrollment in an advanced placement course. As we began this process, we met with freshman level English teachers in an effort to coordinate our terminology and sequence in the teaching of writing. We also met with members of our school’s reading committee to talk about ways to measure and improve reading achievement. Greg Gillette was particularly helpful in this area.

            At a department meeting in which concerns relating to the high demand for advanced placement courses, and our ability to control enrollment in those courses, were being discussed, the freshman level teachers presented our partially completed list of standards to the rest of the department. The department reacted enthusiastically, and the suggestion was made that we develop similar standards for courses at all levels in our department. We all believed that as professional educators we should have standards in place that would show students, parents and the community-at-large what we were doing to develop the minds of young people besides helping them master factual knowledge. If our goal is truly to send graduates into the world with inquisitive, critical minds capable of problem-solving and analysis, then factual knowledge alone is not enough. We need to teach thinking skills that have application in a variety of academic settings and take responsibility for the process ourselves. This belief was the inspiration for the project we were undertaking.

            During our next institute, department members continued our discussion. One of the first decisions made was to add research as a third academic skill area for which standards would be developed. Our department had always had the responsibility for developing research skills in our U.S. History courses. Recognizing that all of our courses involve analysis based on gathered knowledge, some teachers had been adding research activities to their classes. As with the other two skill areas, we decided to collect and share what we were doing and develop standards to ensure that our efforts were consistent. We also considered adding computer skills to the list but felt that there was enough overlap between research and computer skills that developing separate lists would be redundant. Once we had settled on these three areas, department members divided themselves into committees, and we began the process of developing standards for academic achievement in reading, writing and research for each grade level of social studies courses. The final product was to be a list of skills that would be taught, practiced and reviewed as students moved through the social studies curriculum. This list would be partnered with course objectives (and corresponding state standards) to present parents and students with a clear picture of the benefits of enrolling in our courses. (It should be noted that we did not abandon our original goal. The process of recommending students for advanced placement courses has been formalized. By combining this with a realignment of AP course offerings and working with counselors, we have been able to gain better control of enrollment in these courses.)