Comments from 'The Professor'

By Richard Carson, PhD, Senior Editor

One of the experiences that I treasured most as an English professor was teaching first-year students. It was particularly satisfying to watch students grow as readers and writers, to cheer them on as they became more and more comfortable with complex analyses of challenging texts. To reach that point however, we had to get past the dreaded first paper, an experience that made painfully clear to many that what had once worked in high school classrooms would no longer fit the bill for college assignments.

Those who had a particularly difficult struggle at this moment were the authors who simply developed a thematic statement with a plot summary. Often these efforts were grammatically correct, even stylistically polished, and their authors believed that the only just reward for their efforts was a grade that corresponded to the first letter of the alphabet. When my response involved a character found a few notches down the alpha scoring ladder, the recipient appeared at my office, aghast with disbelief. While I promised other rewards--the joy of engaging with texts, the thrill of developing original ideas--the pain, for the moment at least, remained profound.

If early predictions are correct, future AP World History exams will fortify students for these college writing experiences by requiring them to analyze and evaluate key documents. They will provide primary sources for students to analyze how assessments of key figures changed over time. They will assess the value of contemporary scholarship by applying the insights of key scholars to primary sources that challenge and/or validate those insights. Further predictions indicate that comparable revisions to European and American history exams are soon to follow. Such developments will require students to engage with a variety of texts earlier in their careers, and will thereby better prepare them for those first college papers. If students are more advanced when they get to college, who knows how much they can grow.

If you need help creating materials for the advanced placement market, give us a call, and we can have Richard show you what he knows about preparing students for the rigors of college academics.